Reginald Bosworth Smith; a memoir

I

1

THE LIBRARY

JUJMYEKSITY OF CALIFORNIA
LOS

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

Fherneranhly Pouncy. BordiEsre

R EGINALD
BOSWORTH SMITH

A MEMOIR

BY HIS DAUGHTER

LADY GROGAN

ILOUDOtt
JAMES NISBET fcf CO., LIMITED

22 BERNERS STREET W.
1909

ILLUSTRATIONS

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH . . . . Frontispiece

After a portrait by H. Riviere

MRS. BOSWORTH SMITH . . . . To face page i

After a portrait by George Richmond

STAFFORD RECTORY ,, 31

From a photograph by IV, Pouncy, Dorchester

HARROW ON THE HILL .... „ 65

From a photograph by Hills & Saunders

THE KNOLL ...... ,, 105

From a photograph by Hills & Saunders

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH IN 1899 . ,, 193

From a photograph by Elliott & Fry

BINGHAM'S MELCOMBE .... „ 261

From a photograph by W. Pouncy, Dorchester

BINGHAM'S MELCOMBE .... „ 290

From a photograph by Captain J. Acland

The illustrations are reproduced by the kind permission of the artists
and photographers named above.

INTRODUCTION

THE task of attempting to present a picture of
my father's life has from the first filled me with
great misgiving. His life was one of ceaseless
activity, but there was no striking or varied action,
no definite climax to mark it or to appeal to the
world at large. Thirty-seven years of his life he
spent as a schoolmaster at Harrow, and school-
mastering, arduous, important, far-reaching in its
effects though it is, may seem, perhaps, to the out-
side world rather a monotonous and wearisome
career.

On the other hand, my father's interests were
so varied, his gifts were so great, his influence so
wide, and the affection he called forth so warm
and enduring, that it seemed to some that an
attempt should be made to put together an account
of his life as a whole, and above all, to draw, if
it might be, a picture of his much-loved and de-
lightful personality.

One who has no qualifications to deal adequately
with any part of his work can hardly hope to make
the bare chronicle of the facts of his life interesting,

INTRODUCTION

how much less can she hope for success in the
presentment of the man himself? How can the
sympathy, the transparency, the enthusiasm, the
force, the humour, the gentleness, which went to
make up the charm of his character, be conveyed
" through the cold medium of written description " ?

In the introduction to his " Life of Lord Bowen,"
Sir Henry Cunningham, whose phrase I have just
quoted, has said, perhaps, all that can be said to
justify such an attempt as the present, and he
has said it with such simplicity and delicacy, that
I venture to repeat his words as they stand : —

" When a friend, loved and admired, passes away
from us, there is a natural desire for something
which may serve to give distinctness and perma-
nence to the impression which he made upon us
in his lifetime. Such a desire is reasonable. When
nothing of the sort is done, we become more than
ever conscious of a loss which, in one sense, grows
with the lapse of time. The definite outline be-
comes blurred ; year by year the figure stands
out in less bold and clear relief ; the colours fade ;
recollections, however affectionately cherished, be-
come vague, faint, and inaccurate. So the dull
processes of oblivion begin."

There is, perhaps in this case, another con-
sideration. Those who knew my father in one
capacity only — as a delightful and inspiring teacher,
or as an eloquent speaker, or as a historian and
biographer, or as a defender of the National Church,

INTRODUCTION

or as an ardent lover of birds and flowers, or as a
keen sportsman and the pleasantest of companions,
or, again, in later life, as a kindly host at Bingham's
Melcombe, happy among his treasures in his beau-
tiful surroundings — hardly realised his many-sided-
ness and his varied powers.

Perhaps some, who thus knew my father but
partially, may be glad to have a record — more
complete than his modesty would ever have allowed
them to gather from himself — of the part he took
in public life ; a record which should show, at all
events, that in a profession, the exacting toils of
which tend sometimes to stereotype the character
and to narrow the outlook, freshness and originality
may yet be preserved, and room be found for the
widest interests.

A few words must be said about the scope
and arrangement of this book. Such a biography
must needs be a study of mind and character,
rather than a chronicle of events. The actual
facts of my father's life are to be found in the
first three and last chapters ; the other chapters
deal with what is quite as essential, if anything
is really to be learnt about him — with the nature
of his influence at Harrow, his books and articles
and letters — into which he put very much of his
own personality — the way in which he came to
write them, their effect on himself and others.
Wherever quotation marks occur without other
acknowledgment, and when the passage is not

INTRODUCTION

obviously from another source, the words are his
own.

A good many letters written to him have been
quoted. He was a great keeper of old letters,
and could hardly bring himself to destroy any
that had been hallowed by a few years' preser-
vation. He loved his friends with whole-hearted
affection, he treasured what they wrote to him,
he valued every word that came from any one
of note in politics and literature, and, apart from
their own interest, a biography would not be charac-
teristic of him, nor a true record of what he cared
for, unless some of these letters were included in
it. Our best thanks are due to those who have
kindly allowed their letters, or the letters of those
whom they represent — for many of my father's
correspondents have passed away — to appear here,
as well as to the editors of the Dorset County
Chronicle and the Harrovian, in whose columns
many of the character sketches in this book first
were printed ; and warm thanks are due to those
who have kindly written down what they re-
member of him at different times of his life. My
mother, at whose desire my own share of the book
was undertaken, has arranged and supplied all
the material for it, and her notes and recollections
form its backbone.

If parts of the book deal with " old, unhappy,
far-off things and battles long ago," they yet illus-
trate the development of his thought and feeling,
xii

INTRODUCTION

and those who knew my father will not think
that they can hear too much about him. But, as
a rule, all the subjects on which he wrote or spoke
were of great and permanent interest.

In this generation, at least, he will be remem-
bered in warm and faithful affection, here and
there, throughout the world, where his friends of
many creeds and races are scattered. Books are
quickly crowded into oblivion, eloquence is soon
forgotten, but the influence of a beautiful life and
character, intangible, beyond analysis as it is,
"vibrates in the memory" and lives on in the
hearts and lives of others.

MRS. BOSWORTH SMITH

After a portrait by George Richmond

Photo :

W. Pouncj;
Dorchester

LIFE OF
REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

CHAPTER I
STAFFORD RECTORY

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH was born on June 28,
1839, at West Stafford, in Dorsetshire. His father,
Reginald Southwell Smith, was the fourth son of
Sir John Wyldbore Smith, Baronet, of Sydling,
Dorset.

The branch of the Smith family to which he
belonged had held land in Dorsetshire since the
time of Queen Elizabeth, and had come originally
from Devonshire. The first of the family to acquire
wealth and position was a certain Sir George Smith
of Matford or Madford at Heavitree near Exeter.
By his first marriage, Sir George Smith, who died
in the time of James I., was the father of three
children : Sir Nicholas Smyth of Larkbeare, who
married a daughter of Sir Ralph Horsey of Mel-
combe Horsey in Dorset — of the sister manor-
house, that is, to Bingham's Melcombe (not one
mile from it), which three hundred years later was

I A

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

to become the home of Reginald Bosworth Smith ;
Elizabeth, who married Sir Thomas Monk, and
became the mother of George Monk, Duke of
Albemarle, the restorer of the Stuarts to the
throne ; and thirdly, Jane, who married Richard
Henning of Poxwell Manor in Dorset. By his
second marriage with Grace Viell, the relict of
Peter Bevil, Sir George Smith became the father
of Grace, who married the ''most high-minded and
devoted of cavaliers," Sir Bevil Grenville.

It is from a younger brother of this Sir
George, the marriage of whose daughters had thus
brought the family into intimate connection with
the leading men and events of their time, that the
Smiths of Sydling are descended. From Devon-
shire this branch of the Smiths had migrated
through Somerset into Dorset, where, as has
been seen, they already had property and con-
nections. A monument in Lyme Regis Church,
dated 1677, which the restorer has deposed from its
former conspicuous place, commemorates William
Smith, Mayor of the Borough, and states that
though his ashes rest below, his chin has found
a loftier abode! (mentum for mentem, "chin" for
" mind").

The grandson of this William Smith acquired
a large fortune in commerce, became an Alderman
of London, and M.P. for Lyme Regis. The wish
of his heart was to restore his family to the con-
dition in which it had flourished in the time of

STAFFORD RECTORY

Queen Elizabeth. He bought the property of
Sydling in Dorset about 1712, which passed from
him to his distant cousin, Sir John Smith, first
baronet.

Sydling Court House, which the Smiths held
under the College of Winchester, is a solid country
house of no special attraction, lying in a remote
part of Dorset. Three miles away is the ancient
town of Cerne, which is known to antiquarians
chiefly from its proximity to the uncouth figure
of the " Cerne giant " — which some think is of
Phoenician origin — on the down above it.

The first Sir John, who was a rather pompous
old gentleman, received once an intimation that the
Government of the day was about to offer him a
peerage. Much gratified, he started off for town
in his coach and four, and as he passed the gates,
the lodge-keeper cried to him, " Good morning to
you, Sir John." "Sir John no more," shouted
back the future peer, and went rejoicing on his way,
to find when he reached London that the Govern-
ment had suddenly gone out, and that " Sir John"
he would remain to the end of the chapter. Sir
John married first, Elizabeth, daughter and heiress
of Robert Curtis of Wilsthorpe in Lincolnshire,
and secondly, Anna Eleonora, daughter of Robert
Morland of the Court House, Lamberhurst, Kent.

The family possess some charming portraits of
the second baronet, Sir John Wyldbore Smith,
Reginald Bosworth Smith's grandfather ; among
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REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

others one painted by Opie, which shows him as
a boy of fifteen with long, curling hair and dark,
arched brows ; and a miniature by Engelhardt,
which represents him as equally handsome in silver-
haired old age. Doctors and doctors' stuff were
the ruling passion of Sir John Wyldbore's life.
Never did he arrive in any place, if even for a
night's visit, without at once sending for the
nearest apothecary. " Collins," he once said rue-
fully to his old butler, " I must have taken enough
pills in my time to sink a ship." " Yes, Sir John,"
was the prompt reply, "and you've swallowed
enough black draughts to float one." Sir John
Wyldbore was a stern magistrate, and he had the
great satisfaction of breaking up and bringing to
justice a band of highwaymen, who had been the
terror of the lonely Blandford Downs, by means of
a detective whom he hired from London, and who
lived unknown in the housekeeper's room at the
Down House. The gang were duly hanged with
great pomp and circumstance before the Dorchester
Gaol.

About 1817, Sir John Wyldbore Smith bought
the Down House near Blandford, a sporting lodge
that had belonged to Lord Camelford, the notorious
duellist. Sir John Wyldbore rebuilt the house on
a much larger scale. His wife was Anne Elizabeth,
daughter and heiress of the Rev. James Marriott
of Horsmonden, Kent ; her portrait by F. L.
Abbott (the painter of what is considered the best
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STAFFORD RECTORY

portrait of Lord Nelson) shows her as a charming
young girl, with powdered hair and dark, clearly
pencilled brows. Though she had a soft heart, and
was full of generosity to the poor, such was the
feeling of the times just following the French
Revolution, that she never set foot inside a cot-
tage on her husband's property. In old age, Lady
Smith used to take her exercise in an upper cor-
ridor at an uneasy jog-trot on the stiff springs of
a hobby horse, which is still preserved at the Down
House ; there was a handle at either end of this
machine, by which two stout varlets propelled and
pumped the rider up and down.

Sir John Wyldbore was succeeded by his son
John James, who married Frances, daughter of
John F. Pinney of Somerton Erleigh, Somerset.
Lady Smith, who was left a widow in 1862, made
her house at 30 Berkeley Square a delightful centre
for at least three generations of her husband's
family. At the age of ninety-six, she was still able
to charm a whole assembly by her warm sympathy,
her genial manner, her delicate irony, and her
pungent but pleasant little speeches, in which
homely and most uncommon common-sense was
delightfully blended with the rare quality of unex-
pectedness. Much had she seen of men and man-
ners of the great world, both in London and on
the Continent, especially in Rome, and the quaint
graphicness of her reminiscences was a delight to
all who listened to them. Lady Smith belonged to
5

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

the old Evangelical party ; her piety was intense,
her charity and generosity boundless, and while she
was too clever and brilliant herself not to realise the
fact that excellence may often coexist with dulness
and narrowness, her patience and her kindness
seemed inexhaustible. Lady Smith was Reginald
Bosworth Smith's godmother, and they appreciated
to the full each other's gifts and qualities.

Sir John James Smith — a man of singular up-
rightness and charm of character — was followed by
his brother, who assumed his mother's name and
the arms of Marriott ; he held the combined estates
in Dorset and Kent, which, after his time, were
divided between his sons. He was a fervent
admirer of Sir Walter Scott, to whose memory he
raised a tower on his Horsmonden property. His
son, Sir William Smith-Marriott, the present owner
of the Down House, was Bosworth's first cousin
and lifelong friend, as dear to him as a brother.

Reginald Southwell, the younger brother of Sir
John James and Sir William Smith-Marriott, was
sent with his younger brother Frank to Winchester,
then a place of torment as much as of education.
The bullying itself was hardly worse than the
flogging and the privations. Reginald Smith, then
a fair, frail child of ten, was, on the day of his
arrival, told by another boy to help him open his
box. Grasping the key, he attempted to turn it
in the lock, and uttered a cry of torture ; for the
key had been heated red hot, and then allowed to
6

STAFFORD RECTORY

blacken over just sufficiently to deceive the victim.
Among his school-fellows were Christopher Words-
worth, Roundell Palmer (afterwards Lord Selborne),
Anthony Trollope and a brother of his who went
by the name of Badger, Ralph Disraeli, Charles
Bingham (the clever and witty Sydney Smith of
Dorset), John Floyer, William Eastwick, and
Edmund and Frank Wickham. Frank Wickham,
while at Winchester, was buried in the ground up
to his neck by his school-fellows, who then flung
stones at his head ; he and many others who suffered
tortures of the kind never recovered from the
effects of their Winchester experiences. It was
indeed a question of the survival of the fittest.
Reginald Smith once compared his school experi-
ences with those of a parishioner who had been
brought up in the workhouse, and at the end the
man said, " Well, sir, I do believe I had the best of
it after all."

Reginald Southwell Smith, after some years at
Balliol College, took Holy Orders and became
curate to Dr. Frederick Parry Hodges, the stately
and autocratic Vicar of Lyme Regis, a wit, a collec-
tor, and a formidably fine gentleman, who used to
celebrate the Holy Eucharist in white kid gloves,
and who as a young man and a curate had replied
with dignity to his Bishop, who had admonished
him on some point, " My lord, one thing is evi-
dent, either you or I must leave the diocese ! "
To Lyme Regis, in 1835, there came to recruit
7

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

from the shock of recent widowhood Mrs. Henry
Hanson Simpson, with her daughter Emily Gene-
vieve, who was always known as Mimi. Mr.
Simpson, who came of a Cumberland family, had
been a considerable traveller, and as a wit and
clever festive host had been one of the chief stars
of the brilliant old Bath society. Mrs. Simpson,
who was a Miss Duberley, was a good musician ;
her exquisite white hands had received the admira-
tion of no less a person than the Prince Regent,
who, after she had been playing for him, once said
to her, " A beautiful piece," and, raising it to his
lips, " a still more beautiful hand that played it."
The Simpsons had four children — William, who was
afterwards A.D.C. to Lord Gough in the Chinese
War, and who became Major Simpson, C.B., and
three daughters. Mimi had from the first travelled
with her parents wherever they went on the Conti-
nent ; she spoke French like a native ; she sketched
and sang beautifully. At the age of four she had
been overheard saying her prayers aloud : " O
God, make it fine on Thursday for Miss Mimi to
go to the Races." A few years later " Miss Mimi "
would have regarded the Races as almost a vesti-
bule of hell, for, as a girl of seventeen, she had come
under the influence of the Evangelical Revival, and
she gave up everything that savoured of a worldly
character; but there remained plenty of tastes in
which she could still conscientiously indulge — her
exquisite singing, her vigorous and original sketch-
8

STAFFORD RECTORY

ing, her passion for travel and for collections of
every sort and kind. Her voice was so full and
beautiful, so free and liquid were her shakes and
runs, that the master engaged for her instruction
confessed that he could teach her little. She
would sing at any time, for any one who asked
her, without making a favour of it, and for as long
as they cared to listen to her. In the last few
years of her life, at the age of fifty-eight and fifty-
nine, she actually gained three notes. Jenny Lind
and she once sang together, and Jenny Lind always
remembered her wonderful shakes.

The rector and the curate of Lyme Regis both
fell in love with Mimi Simpson ; the curate was
preferred, and in 1836 she was married to Reginald
Southwell Smith and went to live at West Stafford,
a small country parish of some two hundred inhabi-
tants, three miles from Dorchester, the county town
of Dorset.

The living was presented to Reginald Southwell
Smith by his early friend, John Floyer, the squire
of Stafford, and from this time forward the two
friends were destined to live within a stone's throw
of each other, for over fifty years, in " close com-
panionship, unbroken by one single misunderstand-
ing or one single hasty word. Seldom, surely,
have squire and clergyman — Church and State
personified, as it might well seem to the simple
villagers — so walked together, for such a length
of time, in such unbroken union, based on such
9

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

common fear of God and such common love for
men."

" The village of Stafford," Bosworth Smith says
in one of the fragments of autobiography that
he put together, "lies in the rich valley of the
river Frome, a beautiful trout stream, with water
meadows on either side, which, in old times, before
they were as well drained as they are now, were
the haunt of snipe and bittern and plover and
curlew and every variety of wild and water fowl.
In a frost-bound winter large ' drifts ' of wild fowl
flock thither from the sea. On one side of the
valley rise high chalk downs writh countless tumuli,
separating it from the sea, whose roar upon the
innumerable pebbles of the Chesil beach, ten miles
off, may, at times, be distinctly heard. On the
other side is a vast extent of heath land — hill and
dale — interspersed with large fir plantations, the
haunt and home of heron and raven, crow and
magpie, hawk and owl, stretching away in unbroken
sweep to the New Forest, and beyond to Wey-
bridge and to Bagshot, and admirably described in
all its monotonous variety by the pen of Thomas
Hardy. The whole neighbourhood of Stafford is
indeed, in a sense, classic ground, for in a little
cottage in Upper Bockhampton, two miles away,
between the fir wood and the heath, Thomas Hardy
was born and bred, while the Rectory of Came, a
village one mile in the other direction, was for
many years the home of William Barnes, the sweet
Dorset poet."

In his last book, " Bird Life and Bird Lore,"
Reginald Bosworth Smith has described the old
10

STAFFORD RECTORY

thatched Rectory, where the family of twelve
brothers and sisters were born, and which was to
each of them throughout life the ideal of a home.

" It is difficult," writes his youngest sister, Mrs.
Caledon Egerton — and the sketch that follows, as
well as much that precedes it, is from her pen,
or from the pens of her two sisters, Alice and
Eva, each acting, as has been the case through
life, as the complement of the two others — "to
paint in words a picture of that wonderful old
Stafford Rectory home — the atmosphere of love and
reverence, of wonder and enjoyment, that pervaded
it, the extraordinary influence which our parents
exercised over all who came in contact with them.
In our family life, the sons, if possible, took the
foremost place in their mother's heart, and we, the
sisters, were brought up, from our earliest years, to
devote ourselves, soul and body, to their pleasure
in the holidays. Great walking parties — ranging
from the youngest to the eldest — would sally forth
for long afternoon progresses to heath and wood,
the younger and weaker members encouraged on
their toilsome way by the cheerful voice of their
mother, bidding them step out and make things
pleasant for dear Henry and Bosworth. Not un-
frequently we would meet another advancing army
— the Moules — Mr. Henry Moule of Fordington,
and our dear friends, his sons, most of them now
Bishops, Archdeacons, or University dignitaries —
one of whom, the present Bishop of Durham, I can
remember scurrying behind a hedge, in his shyness,
to avoid the impending encounter.

"My mother always carried a large wool-work
' carriage ' bag, containing a heavy miscellany of
ii

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

sketch-book, guide-books, tracts for the poor, and
biscuits and chocolate for us, and, occasionally, a
heavy stone, surreptitiously added by a mischievous
son. Our walks always had an object — some cairn
on the heath built by our own hands, or distant
hawk's or heron's nest, discovered by Bos, which
we would approach on tiptoe in solemn silence,
while he stalked on ahead to tap the tree and watch
the mother bird fly off.

"In these lax days of keeping Sunday, when so
much scorn is poured on the good old days of
Sabbath observance, we often look back with regret
to the old Sundays of Stafford Rectory. Not that
there were, I fear, any great signs of early piety
among us ; but our mother had a knack of turning
everything into a treat, and if at times we found
the services and sermons too long, the discipline
and patience were good for us, and the sense of
contrast enhanced the pleasure of every-day life.
All our arrangements were altered on Sundays.
By eight o'clock we would all be assembled round
our mother's dressing-table to repeat our Sabbath
hymns and portions ; we liked saying them to her,
because she would unconsciously repeat the whole
of each verse before us, while she twisted up her
ringlets, and so correct knowledge was unnecessary
on our parts. Occasionally our father would call
us into his dressing-room for the repetition, and
then the full depth of our ignorance would be dis-
closed. One hymn, lisped out by our infant voices,
ended up with —

' Life's morn is past,

Old age comes on,
And sin distracts

This heart alone.'
12

STAFFORD RECTORY

"Then came Sunday school, in which we all took
classes as a matter of course. Bos used to endure
agonies when sent to instruct the boys in the first
class, and would sit with his eyes fixed on his book,
for fear he would see them misbehaving and have
to reprove them.

"Meanwhile, in the Rectory, the house had already
been transformed, all the things that savoured of
the week having been put away on the Saturday
night. All works of fiction and secular periodicals
were hidden. In our nursery, the oak box con-
taining our dolls' clothes was turned upside down,
and all toys were banished.

" The services seemed very long in those days, for
after the barrel organ had wheezed itself into its
last, long sleep, there was no instrument at all. The
clerk in the gallery would tune up his pitch pipe,
and he from above and our mother from below would
outsing each other, he in his broad nasal Dorset,
she in her exquisite soprano, which trilled like a
bird, as she relieved with runs and shakes the
otherwise dull monotony of the metrical verses of
the psalms. The children sat in the square Rectory
pew, and during our father's sermon, which seldom
lasted less than three-quarters of an hour, our
mother would by loud hems and clearings of the
throat direct our flagging attention to the pulpit.
From his square pew opposite ours, the tall and
stately squire, John Floyer, would turn round
before the beginning of the service, to get a bird's-
eye view of the gallery, and if any of his tenants
were missing, he would be ' told of it ' in the
coming week. In his mother's time, the whole
congregation would rise as she entered the church,
and I am told this was a common custom in the

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

villages in the early years of the nineteenth century.
The men sat in the gallery, and the children were
crowded on the low kneeling-benches round the
altar rails, the boys' hats reposing inside them, and
if any child behaved badly, he or she was made to
stand out alone, in the aisle facing the congregation.
On leaving the church they would all curtsey and
bow, as they passed our pew and the squire's.

" On one occasion, a stray visitor — not a parish-
ioner— rose up in the gallery and blasphemed God,
the squire, and the parson. Old Mrs. Floyer stood
up in her pew, and promptly ordered him to the
stocks, where he was at once lodged, and visited
later by the horrified congregation.

"On another occasion, seeing that the Rector
looked ill, Mrs. Floyer stood up and said in a
loud voice, ' Reginald, I will not have any sermon
to-day ; ' whereon he at once descended from the
pulpit.

" When afternoon church was over, children and
nurses sat down to a substantial tea. Our mother
would meantime read out to us the fascinating
' Fairchild Family,' in each chapter of which Mrs.
Sherwood contrives that her characters should break
one of the commandments in turn. Then we would
be shown folios of pictures or cabinets of curiosities,
one of those cabinets being chosen which contained
the water of Jordan, leaves from the Garden of
Gethsemane, or some other Biblical relic. Every
available shelf or drawer in the old Rectory was
crammed with treasures. After the exhibition we
would stand round the ancient square piano and
sing hymns together — ' Here we suffer grief and
pain,' ' There is a happy land, far, far away ' —
that Happy Land in which our blessed parents and
14

STAFFORD RECTORY

our eight brothers and sisters now await the little
remnant of the family still left on earth.

" After supper, we would adjourn to the study,
where our father would read aloud to us some
ponderous memoir, the dulness of which we would
while away by looking at pictures in old missionary
records. We sometimes indulged in the game of
'Abraham's beard,' until our father directed us to
change the name of the father of the faithful to
' Csesar,' when the frankly secular nature of the
amusement stood revealed.

" We children all slept in the whitewashed attics,
where no fires were possible, the rooms being too
close to the thatch. Henry and Bosworth slept
in two tiny rooms, with dormer windows peeping
out of the deep thatch : you could see nothing from
them but the sky, unless you mounted up on a
chair. The rooms were full of the boys' small
treasures, which they preserved religiously to the
end of their lives. One, a collecting box, was in
the shape of a thatched Hindu hut. It was full of
coppers, but as they are in it to this day, it is, alas,
too evident that they never reached the object for
which they were intended. Henry used to be so
long at his prayers, that Bosworth would endure
agonies, thinking he must be dead. Afraid to
reveal his fears, he bored a small hole in the par-
tition, by looking through which he could reassure
his anxious mind. A travelling pedlar had deluged
the Rectory with a number of round China plates,
one of which hung in Bosworth's room, inscribed
with the words, 'Prepare to meet thy God.' In-
deed the * Last Things ' — Death, Judgment, Hell —
formed always a dark and sinister background to
the cheerful pleasures of our younger days. The

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

elder children were brought up in the full rigour
of the Evangelical system, which, as years went on,
was somewhat tempered for the younger ones.

" We always accompanied our parents to the
various meetings of the Evangelical Societies at
Dorchester. The chief of all these functions was
the annual Church Missionary meeting, which took
place in the early summer in our church. It was
a gala day for us. The church was filled with
huge hoops of laburnum and lilac, and jugs of boys1-
love, peonies, and gillyflowers. There was a pic-
ture of the missionary ship, Williamson, cut out in
black on a white calico ground, hung in the porch.
All obstacles likely to impede the congregation's
view of the speakers were removed. The tall oak
cover was taken off the font, and placed upon
the Holy Table, and the font was for the occasion
converted into a receptacle for hymn-books.

" There was an innocent familiarity with sacred
things at Stafford in those days, which was very
far removed from the least touch of intentional
irreverence. The speakers sat in the capacious
reading-desk, the overflow, in their black coats,
inside the altar rails on kitchen chairs lent by the
villagers ; the tradespeople and farmers flocked out
from Dorchester, and our mother, stationed on a
low chair by the font, would welcome in late-
comers, and point them to their seats, which would
often involve clambering over benches placed across
the aisle. The meeting lasted some three and a
half hours, and after the collection, usually forty or
fifty pounds, had been taken in a kitchen soup-plate
by our mother, all classes adjourned to a sumptuous
feast in the Rectory dining-room, the chief feature
of the repast being a church with Gothic windows,
16

STAFFORD RECTORY

formed of jam tartlets and barley-sugar. Our dear
friends George, Arthur, and Handley Moule would
often speak at these meetings ; Mr. Barnes, the
Dorset poet, came in his picturesque knee-breeches
and buckled shoes, with his grey plaid thrown over
his shoulder, and Charles Bingham, the well-known
rector of Bingham's Melcombe.

" There was also a festal meeting for the Bible
Society at Martinstown, but this was on a less
ambitious scale than ours ; no flag was hoisted,
and there was only one bell to toll instead of three
to chime. The vicar and his wife, who belonged to
an even older world than our parents, were saintly
in their lives and patriarchal in their simplicity.
Mrs. Ludlow always dressed consistently as 'a
woman professing godliness,' in a straight, plain
gown, a voluminous cape, and a large black bonnet.
They dined with their servants on the Lord's Day,
to save the trouble of a separate dinner, and, if they
indulged in any earthly pride, it was in the possession
of the largest collection of missionary reports in the
whole county.

" But there was another side to the religion we
learned from our parents. They loved God and
man, and in the atmosphere of that love of theirs
we could grow and expand like flowers in summer
sunshine. Our treats and pleasures had a glamour
about them which has never faded. There was a
small shady territory in the garden, ' The Bushes,'
where the children reigned supreme. Here our
precious broken mugs and departed cats and
rabbits were interred with solemn funeral rites.
Once a year, we would make our way underground
along an earthy tunnel, thirty-five feet long, into a
vault that had been made by Henry and Bosworth,
17 B

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

as a possible refuge, if Napoleon III. should invade
England. And what joy it was to play in that
world of mysterious shadows, the great tithe barn
— the place of all others that filled our imaginations
with the tempered awe that is so dear to the heart
of a child ; what joy to climb the church tower
and view the crawling villagers and thatched home-
steads as the birds view them, from above! And
once a year there was a great picnic — family, ser-
vants, and a few close friends — at Ringstead — a
glen by the sea, a hidden woodland garden of ivied
trees, clear streams, and great ferns, guarded at the
entrance by a great mound of almost human shape.
Perhaps of all the delicious Stafford days, the
Rectory hay-carrying bore off the palm, when the
whole family would travel in the laden wagon
across the deep ruts, down the lane through the
grassy stable yard into the tithe barn.

"Our parents and the Floyers were absolute
rulers in the village, and they largely controlled its
dress, manners, and morals. Our father would often
be called in to make the people's wills. On one
occasion he mislaid a will he had drawn up, and
at the death of the testator he divided the property
according to his own ideas, the legatees being quite
satisfied with his judgment. Many years after-
wards one of us chanced to find the will, but our
father decided that it would only unsettle the minds
of the people to say anything about it, and that it
was best to let well alone. Our father was truly a
law unto himself!

" He had found the village in a very godless state
when he first became rector in 1836. His prede-
cessor, Archdeacon England, had been a great
breeder of horses, and he had always turned a blind
18

STAFFORD RECTORY

eye to one source of his parishioners' income. The
great tithe barn at the Rectory was placed at their
disposal, and often scores of kegs of brandy, which
had been smuggled from France to Lulworth Cove,
lay there, or in the church belfry, in perfect secu-
rity. His son used to say to his parishioners at
Came, ' Don't ee do as I do do, but do as I do
tell eel'

"The village schoolmistress could read but not
write. Two at a time, as they repeated their
lessons, she would pin the children by their aprons
to her gown to prevent their running away.

" Labourers 'wages in those days varied from five
shillings to seven shillings a week, and if there was
a large family, only one or two of the brood would
be sent to school, because the parents could not
spare the necessary penny a week. The labourers
seldom tasted meat ; their tea was usually made of
the scrapings of the black crusts of their loaves.
The women wore short lilac prints and sunbonnets,
the men smock-frocks. We were trained to live
much in the lives of the villagers, and the whole
place was like one large family : the babes were all
welcomed with presents, we called even the aged
men and women by their Christian names, entered
their doors without knocking, attended their wed-
dings and their funerals. * To stand at tea ' and
' go to Isaac Reed's funeral ' were among the treats
once provided for us by our mother, to console us
during her short absence from home.

" From his earliest years Bos worth made friends
with the cottagers, and his reminiscences of them
were countless. It was from men who, in the old
smuggling days, had had constant practice in cliff-
climbing, that he learned to approach the nests of
19

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

the cormorants, and gulls, and ravens that build on
the almost perpendicular cliffs near White Nose.
One of his chief friends was George Gill, the fore-
man on the estate, whose will neither squire nor
labourer dared to dispute. Gill's daughter recalls
how she often heard her father say, ' There goes
Master Bos, a-rummaging wi' the blessed birds
again.'

" Bosworth himself drew, in later years, a vivid
picture of this remarkable man, who, unable to read
or write, ' was able to arrange and carry in his
head complicated accounts, and to manage with
admirable skill his master's estate and all that
appertained to it.' ' In appearance he was most
striking ; his huge person, his sallow complexion,
his scanty hair, his prominent cheek bones, his
deeply sunken and obliquely slanting eyes, which
were often lit up with a twinkle of grim but kindly
humour, would bring to one's mind the description
one had read of the old-world followers of Attila
and of Timour the Tartar. " The last of the
Huns" one who knew him well not inaptly called
him. His conversation was always entertaining,
and sometimes even brilliant. The staple of it
was, of course, the politics of the village, the short
and simple annals of the poor, so uniform in their
variety, so varied in their uniformity, yet affording,
as the poems of William Barnes and the novels of
Thomas Hardy have so abundantly shown, a rich
field for the study of human nature, a school where
much can be learned that can hardly be learned
elsewhere. It was not Gill's master alone who
would consult him on matters of practical import-
ance. The village Nestor, who never called a
spade anything but a spade, would give his opinion
20

STAFFORD RECTORY

frankly — perhaps sometimes too frankly ; and was
quite as ready — perhaps more ready — to tell those
who consulted him when he thought them wrong,
as when he thought them right. He would use
many animated gestures, but he would generally
stand with his eyes fixed on the ground, or with his
back turned full on the person he was addressing,
and he would often also walk ten or a dozen steps
in the middle of his discourse, as if to emphasise
his advice, his surprise, or his contempt, and then
again return to the charge. . . . As one reflects on
the sterling integrity, the stalwart worth, the open-
handed generosity from amidst very scanty means,
the grim but kindly humour, the life dignified by
hard labour and, perhaps I may add, by humble
trust in God, of such a man as George Gill, one
feels indeed the full truth of the poet's utterance,
11 An honest man's the noblest work of God." '

"Another of Bosworth's great friends was Susan
Treviss, who assisted at all the bringings in and
layings out of the parish. Susan's cottage was a
picture, with its chimney-corner and dresser covered
with bright china, and on the wall hung a sampler
worked by her own hand —

' To think of summers yet to come that I shall never see,
To think that once a weed must grow of dust that I shall be.'

Susan used to have wonderful dreams, which Bos-
worth loved to hear her tell. ' The End ' was
usually the subject, and once she dreamt ' that all
in church, the gentry and such as we together, had
to pass up before the Almighty, who was seated in
the gallery.' ' First did come the squire, then
your Pa, then one and another, and when my turn

21

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

did come to go up before 'en, my legs did sheak
so, I did wake up.'

"If people were ignorant in the old days, there
was often a touching simplicity and originality in
what they said and thought. An old labouring
man at the beginning of his illness said he did not
so much fear his 'judgment,' for he had never
learnt to read or write, so he felt sure he would
not be ' tried in the scholar's class.' An old shep-
herd, when he was dying, said he had no fear that
the Good Shepherd would turn round on another
shepherd. One man, very old, very ignorant, and
reputed to be ungodly, used to go out at night, so
our father discovered, and kneel in the cold river
in penance for his sins.

" How faithful servants were then! Our beloved
nurse, Mary Marshfield, is with us still at the age
of eighty-six. Our old gardener, Bevis, used to
rise and begin work at 3 A.M. I can see him now,
a gruff, grim old man, with his ill-shorn chin, his
smileless eyes, his grey hair, and skin like a winter
apple. He grudged our being allowed to pick his
fruit, and he refused to waste his time over * such
nonsenses ' as flowers. If he respected any one,
it was Bosworth. When Bosworth got his First
Class at Oxford, he came up, and knowing no other
academical distinction, congratulated our mother on
' Bosworth's having got the spellen prize.' His
daughter, who was our cook all her days at twelve
pounds a year, was a grim person too, but she had
a soft place in her heart for the Rectory children.
'Buoys and gurls,' she said, 'they be all alike,
there b'aint no fault in 'em.'

"In later days, the villagers felt the elections
were the one precious opportunity for asserting

22

STAFFORD RECTORY

themselves against the power of the gentry. But,
on one occasion, a lady in the village made the
following satisfactory declaration of her husband's
principles : ' Tom have no political convictions of
his own, Miss, none whatever ! and what's more,
he don't desire none. He say, " We're born under
very good gentry" — your Pa, Miss, and Mr.
Floyer and Dr. Hawkins — " and what they think,
/ am content to think ! " And when them nasty
Radicals comes a botheren 'em, as in a place like
this they will, Miss, Tom turn round to them, and
he just say, " You be born to labour and labour
you must ! " '

The picture of " the beautiful and beloved village,"
to use the words of the Bishop of Durham, "bor-
dered with meads, and washed with silver brooks,
over which the grey church tower and the great
thatched Rectory (wonderful house and home, im-
possible to describe with all its charms) watch for
blessing," was ever in the background of Bos-
worth's thoughts and imagination, and the memory
of his parents was treasured with an only increasing
love and reverence. His own words can best
describe them and his devotion to them. Of his
mother, he wrote : —

" Her heart seemed wide enough for everybody,
and for everything ; no one ever went to her for
sympathy and came empty away.

" Energy of every kind was pleasurable to her.
To climb, at the age of fifty, mountains fit only for
a strong and active man in the prime of his life ;
23

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

to weary out, in her unflagging interest, the most
indefatigable of sight-seers in London, or archaeo-
logists in Rome ; to seek in ' foreign scenes ' the
relaxation which would better enable her to dis-
charge her duties in England, doing thoroughly
in a week what others would do superficially in a
month ; to sit up night after night till the small
hours of the morning, and that after the labours
of a long day in a house of which she had been
the life and the light and the soul, in order that
in undisturbed quiet she might read, or write,
or commune with the Unseen ; to take, when on
a journey, while others were resting from their
fatigues, a sketch of a building or a mountain which
will be treasured to all time for its beauty as well
as for its dear associations by those who have lost
her ; to pour forth rivers of melodious song which
enthralled the hearers, and which seemed to those
who loved her to have, even then, less of earth in
them than heaven, and which, like echoes from a
far-off country, still seem to be ringing in their ears ;
these were a few, a very few, of the multifarious
directions in which her natural tastes led her to
take the most keen delight, and in which she would
have shone, as few others have, had she given her-
self entirely to them.

" But these and other pleasures she was always
ready to give up, and was never so happy as when
she gave them up, at the call of duty ; in fact she
used them only as helps to fulfil that duty.

"Her most vivid happiness she found in self-sacri-
fice— nay, in self-annihilation. A darling scheme,
which she had planned for months, she would
give up when she found that it crossed the wishes
of others, and would settle down with zest and
24

STAFFORD RECTORY

energy to occupations for which she had a natural
distaste.

" She possessed the faculty of attracting new
friends even to the end of her life ; no one ever
kept her mind more open to new subjects and new
interests ; her sympathies and her capacities, great
as they always were, seemed to expand as she grew
older. One wonders whether they can be greater
even now ! "

Of his father, who lived on into a beautiful and
peaceful old age, he has drawn a picture which seems
to sum up all that was best and most charming in
a generation that has gone : —

" He spent his days in the little village of West
Stafford, the centre of a home which his children
may well regard as the perfection of a home, dear
to them always, and dearer to them now than ever ;
not receiving and not coveting any higher eccle-
siastical dignity than that of a canonry of Salisbury,
devoting himself primarily to the good of his parish
and to the advocacy of those great societies and
agencies for good which were, in his earlier career,
just starting into life, yet regarded by all who knew
him as a sort of unmitred bishop, a final Court of
Appeal, a perennial Christmastide of peace and
goodwill and reconciliation, to be consulted by
clergymen and laymen alike, on every disputed
question, moral, social, and religious ; better than
all, as the friend of God and of man, one who
seemed to reflect the very spirit of his Divine
Master, and whose sweet and genial influence
seemed to breathe around it an atmosphere of
25

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

peace, and hope, and forbearance, and humility,
and love, and holy calm.

"He belonged to the Evangelical portion of the
English Church, and he was always proud of the
name. But he was conspicuously devoid of all
narrowness and exclusiveness. The moment that
he recognised that the same religious depth and
fervour were to be found in the High Church party
which had given birth to the Evangelical, and had,
at one time, been practically confined to it, his
heart broadened out towards it. His tendency
was always in the direction of comprehensiveness
and of unity. His sympathies were never narrow ;
but they seemed to become wider and wider as he
neared the heaven which was already, in so large
a part, his home. Many men — indeed, most men —
are stereotyped in thought and character by the
time they arrive at middle life. Such was not
the case with him. As life mellowed, he took a
mellower view of everything and of everybody.
He possessed in large measure that Divine credu-
lity which sees the soul of goodness — perhaps tries
to see it, even where it does not exist — in things
evil. He was always ready to make allowance, to
give full credit to the motive, even when he deplored
the opinion or the act.

" When he preached, as he often did, on a verse
from the Sermon on the Mount, one felt that no
words, or few words, were needed to enforce the
lesson which was conveyed by the features, by the
expression, by the tone of the voice, by the manner,
by the man. His face was a beatitude in itself.
There was in it a delicate and subtle blending, as
of colours deftly shot into a fine and precious fabric,
of gravity and of mirthfulness, of religious fervour
26

STAFFORD RECTORY

and of religious reserve, of self-respect and of self-
forgetfulness, that was a message in itself, and went
straight to the hearts of all who heard him.

"He enjoyed life, so far as his feeble health
would permit him, in all its fulness, its richness, its
variety. A quiet mirthfulness indeed formed the
genuine under-current of his soul. He had his joke
for every one whom he loved, and there were few
except the supercilious, or the hypocritical, or the
worldly-minded whom he did not love. And it was
a joke that often twinkled in [his clear blue eye for
some moments before it rippled from his lips. A
joke against him, if indeed it can be called against
him, gave him at least as much pleasure as did a
joke made by him, and his childlike unconscious-
ness of self, his unbusinesslike habits, his delicious
obliviousness of time and place, gave abundant field
for them.

"His kindliness of heart and his generosity in
money matters often cost him dear. In defiance
of the political economist, his hand would go into
his pocket before he so much as heard the tale of
woe which a passing tramp would extemporise not
for the first time. . . . His tact and judgment
rarely failed him, and well was it that it was so, for
when he perhaps did happen to take what might
be a mistaken view on any public or semi-public
question, such was the influence of his name and
fame that, where it was a matter of voting, he
generally carried the day. ' If Canon Reginald
Smith said it was right, right it must be !'"

By the side of the Country Rector's picture must
stand that of the Country Squire, his lifelong
friend, John Floyer, for it well may seem, that
27

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

these pictures are not unworthy to hang in the
long gallery that contains, among many others, the
portraits of Goldsmith's Village Parson, Addison's
Sir Roger de Coverley, and Thackeray's Colonel
Esmond.

"Mr. Floyer, for many years M.P. for Dorset,
and for half a century the chief support of every
organisation which aimed at the good of his native
country, was a perfect specimen of an English
gentleman of the old school, absolutely straight-
forward in thought, word, and deed. He was
frank, genial, unaffected, simple. There was an
old-world courtesy, a quiet dignity, a sweet gravity
about him which drew respect and disarmed oppo-
sition. His mind was essentially open and evenly
balanced. His reading was wide and varied. He
kept up his knowledge of the classics, and read
them with pleasure even to the last. Wordsworth
was his favourite poet — a fact which helps to show
something of his love of nature, of his sympathy
with the poor, of his reverence for the sanctities
of domestic life. He was essentially a Dorset man ;
he loved Dorset ways, and was full of Dorset folk-
lore and reminiscences. He was not a born orator,
but his manly and noble presence, the radiant smile
which often played about his face as he spoke, his
incontestable sincerity, his innate refinement, some-
times made his speeches to be scarcely less effective
than if he were. His language was English pure
and undenled, but there was here and there about
it, so I fondly believe, a faint aroma of that nobly
expressive dialect which is so dear to all Dorset
men, and which has been embalmed in the im-
28

STAFFORD RECTORY

perishable verse of Mr. Floyer's old friend and
neighbour, William Barnes. His industry on be-
half of others was unflagging, and his only ambition
was the honourable one of doing all the good he
could in the world. He was a devout and humble
Christian. No man whom I have ever known lived
more truly, more wholly as in the sight of God.
To see his features and his bearing, Sunday
after Sunday, to hear the tones of his voice in the
little church, from which never but from necessity
during the last seventy years has he been absent,
was, in itself, a religious influence of no mean kind ;
it was, in itself, a religious education."

Of the twelve brothers and sisters who were
born at Stafford Rectory, Henry, the eldest, with
the heart of a poet and a passion for mountain
climbing, was fated to spend his days at a desk in
the War Office and to die of consumption at the
age of forty. Emily, the eldest sister, gifted and
charming as all the sisters were, married the
Rev. John S. Thomas, for many years Bursar of
Marlborough College, and died in 1879 of con-
sumption in Madeira. Ellinor, of whom Bosworth
could never, till the end of his life, speak without
his eyes filling with tears, died of consumption
when she was eighteen years old. She was tall
and fair, with masses of long, gold-coloured hair
and grey eyes full of light ; and her devotion to
Bosworth and her triumph at his success were only
equalled by his devotion to her. Two little sisters,
Harriet and Constance, and a little brother died
29

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

in early years ; Edward Floyer Noel Smith, the
creator and for twenty-six years the devoted priest
of the Marlborough College Mission at Tottenham,
died in March 1908, a few months only before the
brother, who had felt his loss so profoundly, was
to follow him.

One brother, Colonel Walter W. Marriott Smith,
late R.A., survives, and three sisters, Alice, Eva,
and Blanche (Mrs. Caledon Egerton), still live near
the enchanted ground of their old home.

"What a home it has been," writes one who
knew it as well as the Rectory children themselves ;
"the sick and sorrowful from far and near found
brightness, love, and comfort there. Orphans were
received into arms so kind and motherly, that they
almost forgot they were motherless."

If I have dwelt at some length on the early days
of Bosworth's life and the surroundings in which he
grew up, it is because the influences of his home,
with its atmosphere of austere and fervent piety,
mingled with intense enjoyment of earthly things,
and all irradiated by the joy of vivid imagination,
permeated his whole life, and the " memories of the
past fell always on his soul like dew to refresh it in
the toils of later years." From his warm-hearted,
gifted mother he inherited many of the tastes and
qualities that characterised him, and there are
several passages in his own sketch of his father
which one would hardly alter, had one wished to
describe himself. Ties of the strongest affection
3°

STAFFORD RECTORY

united the whole family, each to each, and no pic-
ture of Bosworth's life would be a true one that
did not dwell on the unending happiness which
the love and sympathy of his parents, brothers,
and sisters brought to him. Again, he loved the
Dorset villagers, he understood them, he appre-
ciated their homely wit, he delighted in their talk,
he respected their patience, their generosity to each
other, their simple piety. The soil of Dorset, its
water meadows, its heaths, its lonely clumps of firs,
its ancient manor-houses, drew him back to itself as
with a charm.

And apart from all other considerations, the
picture of the old-world village and Rectory, with
their patriarchal customs and simple inhabitants,
has surely an interest of its own. It belongs to
a past which we are leaving behind us at an ever-
accelerating pace, and in its quaintness, its unlike-
ness to our own days of restless movement, there
is a charm which may appeal, if only by force of
contrast, to those whose lives have been swept into
other currents.

31

CHAPTER II

MILTON ABBAS SCHOOL— MARLBOROUGH—
OXFORD

BOSWORTH'S earliest memories were, strangely
enough, not of his Stafford home, but of Madeira,
whither in 1841 his father was sent, as it was
thought, in an almost hopeless state of consump-
tion. The captain of the sailing vessel on which
the family were passengers was naturally treated
by all on board with great deference, as a person
of importance ; and his parents used to recall with
amusement how Bosworth, then a child of two
years old, looked up in the captain's face and
reminded him of the fate common alike to sea
captains and to ordinary mortals, by saying, " Cap-
tain Aerth will die some day ! " Bosworth always
asserted that he could remember the Portuguese
servants, and the hammock in which he was carried
up the hot hillside, as well as the little plaid dress
which he wore. The family came back in 1842 to
Stafford, and Canon Reginald Smith, though always
delicate, lived on till 1896.

The children's education was carried on by their
parents, assisted by various tutors, as well as by a
" writing master," to whose instructions it must be
32

MILTON ABBAS SCHOOL

owned that Bosworth did no credit, for his hand-
writing was, from the first, barely legible even by
his own family. On September 17, 1849, Bos-
worth's mother's diary records : " To-day my dear
husband told our dear boys, Henry and Bosworth,
aged eleven and ten, of his intention of placing
them at Mr. Penny's school at Blandford, which
they seemed to feel very much, specially dear Bos-
worth, who was quite depressed for some time ; "
and on their last Sunday at home, she writes that
their father preached on " conscience," and that
"dear Bosworth seemed to feel it. Most affec-
tionate and clinging they were, and listened to my
advice."

Milton Abbas School, where many Dorset boys
of that time and of earlier generations were edu-
cated, was one of " King Edward VI. 's Grammar
Schools." It was founded and endowed by the
Lord Abbot of Milton in 1521, and had been built
under the shadow of the stately Abbey of Milton
in the heart of Dorset, but about 1786 the Lord of
the Manor (Lord Milton), after long litigation, had
the school removed to the market town of Bland-
ford. Admiral Sir Thomas Hardy, Nelson's friend,
a Dorset man, is said to have been a Milton
Abbas schoolboy before the remove ; and Bishop
Smythies was a distinguished pupil of more recent
years.

" The Rev. J. Penny," says Mr. L. B. Clarence,
a school-fellow and lifelong friend of Bosworth
33 c

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

Smith's, " who was Headmaster of the school in Bos-
worth's time, was of St. John's College, Cambridge,
and thirtieth wrangler in the Mathematical Tripos
of 1842. Under his charge the school increased and
prospered greatly. No railway reached Blandford
in those days, but mail-coaches ran daily through
the town between Bath and Poole, Salisbury and
Exeter. It was customary for the boys on their
homeward journeys, at the end of the half — for
holidays came but twice a year in those days — to
arm themselves with pea-shooters, which were con-
cealed or imagined to be concealed in trouser legs,
as the wearers walked a trifle stiffly to the coach-
office ; these pea-shooters were sometimes let off
just as the coach carried the boys beyond the reach
of their master. The country round Blandford is
lovely, with its fertile fields and pastures, its clear
streams, its woodlands and high swelling downs.
Two of these high downs are especially striking,
namely, Hod and Hambleton, a few miles north of
Blandford. Hod is well-nigh precipitous at a point
where it overhangs a bend of the river with glis-
tening water-lilies. At Hambleton it was that, in
August 1645, Cromwell found the Dorset clubmen
gathered together ' to the number of two thousand,'
who, poor fellows, were quickly dispersed by Crom-
well's Major, who ' got in the rear of them, beat
them from the work, and did some small execution
among them,' whereon, as Cromwell noted in his
letter to Fairfax,1 they promised 'to be very dutiful
for time to come,' and ' will be hanged before they
come out again.' We schoolboys used to imagine
that Cromwell had performed the impossible feat of

1 Cromwell to Fairfax, August 4, 1645. Printed by Carlyle in
" Cromwell's Letters and Speeches."
34

MILTON ABBAS SCHOOL

arging w
of

charging with his Ironsides up the precipitous face

Bosworth Smith's own words, taken from an
address he gave to the boys of Milton Abbas School
at the prize-giving in November 1903, give a simple,
homely picture of his old school : —

" I have never enjoyed games more than those
played within the narrow compass of the school-
yard, some of them probably quite unknown to fame
now, such as 'Egg-hat/ 'Warning,' 'Crosstouch,'
all helped by the four old pollard elms and the single
yew tree of the playground. Better still were the

fames of cricket and hockey on the downs outside
haw's Folly, or of ' I-spy' on Mill Down, or on
the remote Stourpaine Bushes. I well remember
the horror with which, hiding in one of the thickest
bushes, we found the body of a man hanging there
by his neckcloth — a man who had disappeared
from Stourpaine some weeks before ; and I remem-
ber the weird fascination which we felt for the place
ever afterwards. We played hard, and we worked
hard. Mr. Penny, by precept and example, encour-
aged in us all a love for natural history, which has
been, to me at least, a joy through life. It was my
greatest pleasure here. There was not a wood
within six miles of Blandford which, in spite of the
terrors of the gamekeeper, I did not know well,
and which did not yield me some rare treasures or
something interesting to observe. Mr. Penny, know-
ing my taste, used to give me leave to go away by
myself at twelve o'clock on half-holidays, and I had
not to be back until eight in the evening. Some of
you may have read my account of the raven's nest
35

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

in Badbury Rings. I encountered almost equal
difficulty in getting to a heron's nest, a bird which
I knew was building in Lord Portman's cliff. It
was a pouring wet afternoon, and that favoured
my design. I had first to climb over the shed at
the bottom of the yard, made difficult by overhang-
ing wires, then to drop into the garden, climb the
garden wall, drop into the lane, and then run the
gauntlet of the windows, where, if Mr. Penny hap-
pened to be looking out, all my pains would have
been thrown away. Next I had to climb the park
wall, which at that time was guarded inside by spring
guns fastened by wires which, if you trod upon them,
brought down the keeper upon you at once ; then
to climb the lofty fir-tree under which Lord Portman
himself passed, observed but not observing, while I
was near the top of it. I got a sample of the eggs,
and ended by a tumble of some fifteen feet to the
ground, which, as the ground shelved rapidly away,
made me turn several times head over heels like a
shot rabbit. Mr. Penny had an excellent assistant,
Mr. J. J. Raven (now Dr. Raven, F.S.A.), an ac-
complished story-teller, who used to pour his stories
out into our delighted ears on our walks to all the
church towers and belfries within eight miles of
Blandford, that he might take the bell inscriptions,
a subject on which he is now one of the greatest
living authorities. We had among us, small though
our total numbers were, several pupils who have
made a mark in after life. Among them was Lang,
who never went to any other school, but who,
thanks to Mr. Penny's tuition, came out a high
wrangler at Cambridge ; James Handley, who be-
came a judge in India ; Charles Roe, now Sir
Charles Roe, K. C.S.I. ; Clarence, a devoted friend
36

MILTON ABBAS SCHOOL

of the school, who became member of the Supreme
Court in Ceylon ; Grenfell, who became Sirdar of
the Egyptian army, and is now Lord Grenfell ; the
three Stuart brothers, two of whom have become
successively Earls of Moray, the second of whom
married a much-loved cousin of my own ; Eugene
Noel ; Douglas, now Sir Robert Douglas, and one
of the highest authorities on China at the British
Museum ; and one whom you at Blandford all know, '
Williamson Daniell, of whom all his life I have known
nothing but good."

Mr. Clarence records that young Grenfell was a
most amusing boy, with a great turn for acting, and
that Bos worth was a hard worker, never idle, and
that he would often in springtime rise early to work
in order to be free for bird's-nesting later in the day.
Bosworth's own account of his adventurous expedi-
tion after a raven's nest in his " Bird Life " has often
been quoted, but, as it was a real feat of daring and
endurance which he recalled with special pleasure,
it must find a place in the record of his life : —

" I had for some years been fond of birds, in a
rather truer sense than that in which Tom Tulliver
was ' fond of them — fond, that is, of throwing stones
at them.' Some six miles from Blandford, between
it and Wimborne, at the end of a stretch of open
down, and near the park of Kingston Lacy, there
stands, on high ground, a noble clump of Scotch
firs, younger and smaller trees outside, older and
bigger within. Round the clump run several con-
centric circles of fosse and rampart, the work of
bygone races, British, Roman, or Saxon, which
37

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

give to the whole the name of ' Badbury Rings.'
There, from time immemorial, so tradition said, a
pair of ravens had reared their young, and many
attempts had been made without success to reach
their eyrie. The trees selected were too big in
girth to swarm, and the lower branches, for forty
feet upward, had disappeared. The raven, I knew,
was the earliest of all birds to breed — earlier by
some weeks than the rook and the heron, which
are the next to follow it.

" It was the 26th of February 1855, and the snow
lay thick on the ground. When school was over at
noon I applied for leave to go to Badbury Rings.
My good master, the Rev. J. Penny, after a decent
show of objection — ' the snow was so deep that we
could never get there,' ' the tree so hard that we
should never be able to climb it,' ' the season so
backward that no sensible raven would be thinking
of laying her eggs yet ' — gave me the necessary
permission. I was accompanied by T. H. Taylor,
now of Trinity College, Cambridge. We bought a
hammer and a packet of the largest nails we could
get, some sixty in number, and some ten inches long,
and we set out on our expedition ; but, what with
the weight of the nails and hammer, and the depth
of the snow, and our losing our way for a time near
the half-way village of Spetisbury, we did not arrive
till half-past three o'clock. As we approached we
heard, to our delight, the croak of the ravens, and
saw them soaring above the clump, or wheeling
round it, in the pursuit of one another. We entered
the clump. There were two or three raven-like-
looking nests, apparently of bygone years, and
we did not want to assail the wrong one ; so we
crouched down and watched till we saw, or thought
38

MILTON ABBAS SCHOOL

we saw, the raven go into one of them. Creeping
up, we gave the tree a smart tap and out the bird
flew ; but as birds often go into their nests and ' think
about it' some days before they lay in them, we
did not feel over sanguine as to its contents. The
tree was just what we had expected, and there was
nothing to be done but to go at it, hammer and
nails. It was a task of delicacy and difficulty, not
to say of danger, to lean with one foot the whole of
one's weight upon a nail, which might have a flaw
in it, or might not have been driven far enough into
the tree ; to cling with one arm, as far as it would
reach, round the bole, and with the other, to hold
both nail and hammer, and to coax the former into
the tree with very gentle blows — for a heavy blow
would at once have overbalanced me — and then to
climb one step upwards and repeat the process over
and over again. The old birds, meanwhile, kept
flying closely round, croaking and barking fiercely,
with every feather on neck and head erect in anger,
and often pitching in a tree close by. It is well
that they did not make-believe actually to attack
me ; for the slightest movement on my part to ward
them off must have thrown me to the ground. In
spite of the exertion, my hands and body were
numbed with the cold. I had taken up as many nails
as I could carry, some six or seven in a tin box tied
round my waist, and let it down with a string from
time to time, to get it refilled by my companion.
As I climbed higher, the work grew more danger-
ous, for the wind told more, and a slip would now
not only have thrown me to the ground, but have
torn me to pieces with the nails which thickly
studded the trunk below. At last the first branch,
some fifty feet from the ground, as measured by the
39

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

string, was reached, and the rest was easy. There
are few moments more exciting to an enthusiastic
bird's-nester than is the moment before he looks
into a nest, which he has had much difficulty in
reaching, and which may or may not contain a rare
treasure. One can almost hear one's heart beat,
and ' to my inexpressible delight,' if I may quote
the phrase I find that I used in my diary for that
night, my first glance revealed that the nest con-
tained four eggs. It had taken me two and a half
hours to attain to them. Two of the eggs are still
in my possession. They are speckled all over with
grey and green, twice the size of a rook's egg, and
perhaps a third larger than a crow's ; and if the
value which one puts upon a thing depends very
much, as I suppose it does, on what it has cost one
to get it, I have the right to regard them as among
my most treasured possessions. The nest was a
huge structure, nearly as big as a heron's, but built
of larger sticks and better put together. The eggs
lay in a deep and comfortable hollow, lined with
fibres, grass, dry bracken, a few feathers, some
rabbits' fur, and, strangest of all, a large portion of
a woman's dress, probably a gipsy's — for in those
days gipsy encampments were common thereabouts.
The descent would have been comparatively easy,
except for the darkness, which had come on apace,
and made it difficult to find the nails. We did not
reach Blandford till 9 P.M., worn out with cold,
hunger, and fatigue, but proud in the possession of
the first raven's eggs I had ever seen.1 It is a
curious coincidence that, in the very same year
(1903) in which I wrote the first draft of this

1 Mr. Clarence remembers that a search party had been sent out
to look for the boys.

40

MILTON ABBAS SCHOOL

account, Mr. W. H. Hudson, the noted naturalist
of the Pampas, when wandering, as is his wont,
through out-of-the-way parts of the country ob-
serving birds, should have happened to be at Six-
penny Handley, on the edge of the county of
Dorset, where he had never been before, and should
have asked, as is also his wont, a countryman in the
fields about the birds of the neighbourhood, and in
particular, whether a raven was ever heard or seen
there. ' Not often now/ replied the labourer, ' but
look over yonder' — and he pointed to Badbury
Rings, many miles away — ' a pair of ravens did
always used to bide and build there ; ' and he went
on to tell him how, many years ago, when quite a
young man, he had determined one day to go over
and try to get the young ravens. He had only a
bit of bread and cheese in his pocket, and when he
got there, very tired, he found that the tree contain-
ing the nest was 'stuck all over with big spikes,
which made it impossible for him to climb it,' and
he had returned disappointed and exhausted. The
' big spikes ' which — perhaps conjoined with his own
exhaustion and the terrors of the ravens' croaking —
had made it impossible for him to climb the tree,
were, doubtless, the very nails which alone had
enabled me — or could have enabled any one — a few
weeks, or a few years before, to climb it."

Bosworth became in time head of the school and
the winner of many prizes. His mother's diary
says, in the quaint phraseology of those days, in
which even the most natural and warm-hearted of
human beings felt bound to express herself, " Dear
Bosworth won the second prize for general history.

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

God be praised for this new proof of his diligence.
May he not be lifted up, but kept lowly ! " " In
those days," Bosworth Smith used to say in later
life, " we read our prizes as well as won them. My
sons, who have won their share of them, think that
prizes are meant to be looked at on a shelf, and
would never dream of reading them." His six
years at Milton Abbas School were very happy, and
he always felt he owed much to Mr. Penny's teach-
ing, as well as to his wise encouragement of his
special tastes. " I knew White's ' Selborne' pretty
nearly by heart before I was twelve," he said in
after years.

Mr. Penny is happily still living, and his words
about his "much-loved friend and pupil" have a
touching interest of their own : —

"I have shrunk," he writes, "from writing of
him lest I should not do justice to him. Again and
again I have thought of Daedalus, as Virgil repre-
sents him. He longed to set up a memorial in
gold of his son's misfortune, but Virgil says, ' Twice
fell the father's hands ; ' and so I would fain tell my
story in golden words, but words fail me. . . . Sixty
years ago your father was placed under my care,
and for close upon six years he was with me. In
most respects he was like other boys — but in two
things he distinguished himself : he loved the pur-
suit of natural history, loved it enthusiastically ; but
he never allowed his fondness for it to interfere
with his school work. This under no pretence
whatever was neglected by him. At the right
42

MARLBOROUGH

moment he was ready with all he had to prepare ;
and the secret of all was, that whatever he had
before him, whether in the way of study or of recrea-
tion, he did thoroughly. I have always regarded
his memorable achievement at Badbury Rings as
containing the great element of his character — in-
domitable perseverance — a determination to com-
plete whatever he undertook. As a boy, if he had
anything to do he did it ; and as time went on
there was the same all-conquering, unyielding
'labor improbus? Whether it was his 'Carthage*
or his ' Life of Lord Lawrence ' (at which, I know,
he worked until his eyes almost refused to serve
him for pain), or his charming ' Bird Life ' (the last,
to our sorrow, of his beautiful books), or the re-
miniscence of a friend, or a speech on any subject
— nothing that came from him was incomplete. It
was not necessary to say to him, ' Whatsoever thy
hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.' "

From Milton Abbas Bosworth went in 1855 to
Marl borough.

" He came there," writes Canon T. L. Papillon,
" at an unusually late age, and was at once placed
in the form next below the Sixth. We who had
worked our way up from the lower forms, and were
perhaps inclined to think our own experience the
only one worth having, soon found that this new-
comer was intellectually our equal, if not our
superior, and that his reading was wider, and his
tastes more varied, than were usually developed by
the then narrow curriculum of a public school. In
those days scant encouragement was given to nature
study in any form, and Bosworth, his pet raven, and
43

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

his knowledge, already wide, of birds and their
ways, was a new phenomenon in the upper part of
the school. He was also more of a politician than
most of us, and a readier speaker in our debating
society, and we could not help noting that the
master thought him worth talking to, and put trust
in his opinion on school and other matters. He
was withal a genial companion and a firm friend ;
somewhat ' peppery,' if suddenly crossed, but never
bearing malice ; and all who were thrown much into
his company both liked and respected him. As a
boy he had the courage of his opinions, and was
outspoken against anything wrong, or in support of
what he believed to be right ; and his influence
among his companions, and on the school generally,
was all for good."

" The Headmaster," Bosworth Smith writes,
" was Dr. Cotton, afterwards Bishop of Calcutta.
In my last year, when I was head of the school,
I was brought into much contact with him, and
owe more than I can express to his influence and
example. As head of the school, I had to present
the testimonial subscribed for by the boys on his
leaving for Calcutta, and he continued most kindly
to correspond with me until his untimely death in
the River Ganges."

A letter to Bosworth Smith from Dr. Cotton was
found on board the steamer which he was attempt-
ing to reach when he made the fatal slip from the
plank. Bishop Cotton's death in 1866 — the news
of which was broken to Bosworth with the greatest
44

MARLBOROUGH

kindness by the Rev. F. W. Farrar (afterwards
Dean Farrar) — was a deep grief to him.

An In Memoriam sketch of the man he loved and
honoured so profoundly was the first of many such
sketches which he was to write in after years.
These writings were due, partly to a natural
impulse of his warmly affectionate disposition,
partly to a sense that it was his duty to put in
words what others felt, but would be less willing to
express. Many of these brief memoirs, which de-
scribe character and influence rather than chronicle
events, were written under the influence of strong
emotion, and all of them with almost fastidious care.
They contain passages of singular delicacy and
beauty, and to many who have the best right to
judge, they seem to present a true and touching
picture of those whom they have loved and lost.
They possess, indeed, something of the qualities of
refinement of touch, of insight into the essential as
apart from the superficial and accidental, which give
a good portrait a charm to which no photograph
can lay claim.

Writing of Bishop Cotton — the first man of such
calibre with whom he had been brought into contact
— Bosworth says : —

"He was a man of few words, but we felt that
where a word was necessary it would be forthcom-
ing, and that beneath that calm exterior there was
a rare humour, dry or even grim, but a genuine
under-current of the soul, a subdued mirthfulness
45

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

of disposition. . . . When he condemned, it was
not the condemnation of one who had never failed
himself; it was a condemnation tempered by love.
. . . His self-command, combined as it was with
almost uniform gravity of presence and of counte-
nance, was appreciated most by those of us whose
duty it was to assist him in governing the school.
He was not what is called a man of tact — he
was far too great for that ; he never wantonly
offended prejudices, but neither did he tamper
with them or with his own sincerity. Always
open to argument, and ready even to undo a thing
when it was proved that it had been unwisely done,
he would never make a show of hesitation when he
did not really hesitate. But little would his rare
gifts of intellect have availed had we not felt that
there was more still behind. The greatest lesson
we learned from him was the lesson of his life.
With him we always felt that morality and religion
went hand in hand ; it was the life of Christ that he
set forth to us in his sermons, and that he evidenced
in his own life. His sermons, his confirmation
classes, his solemn addresses to the Sixth Form at
the close of each half-year — all were laden with the
same burden, the task of working our religion into
every action, however small, and blending duty with
religion until the two were inseparable."

When Dr. Cotton left Marlborough, he commended
his successor, Dr. G. G. Bradley, afterwards Dean
of Westminster, to Bosworth Smith's "care," and
Dean Bradley always remembered how much he
owed to the zeal and loyal help of his first Senior
Prefect, and a warm affection and sympathy existed
46

MARLBOROUGH

between them through life. " I well remember,"
writes Canon Robinson Duckworth, who from 1858
to 1860 was Assistant Master at Marlborough, " how
strong and valuable his influence was as head of the
school."

At Marlborough began his friendship with John
Shearme Thomas, who afterwards became his
brother-in-law, and who, as Bursar of the College,
for forty-seven years rendered such splendid service
to the school.1 " The Bursar," Bosworth Smith
said on the Jubilee Day of the College, "is the per-
manent element in the place, the depositary of the
whole of its history and of its traditions." Later on
he wrote : " He was at the service of every one who
loved the place, down to the youngest boy whose
life he could sweeten or whom, by a word in time,
he could save from what was wrong. He sought
not his own but the good of the community ; and
his loyalty begat loyalty in all around him ; his
energy begat energy; his sincerity, sincerity." John
Thomas, with his energy and thoroughness, his warm
heart and his unwavering faith, always seemed to his
brother-in-law and to his countless friends "a tower
that stood four-square to all the winds that blow."

" The beautiful downs and large fir-woods and
the unique Savernake Forest gave me plenty of
scope for my favourite pursuit of bird's-nesting.
Among my intimate friends and contemporaries at
Marlborough were several who have since become

1 He married, secondly, Evelyn, eldest daughter of Dean Farrar.
47

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

well known ; such are Courtenay Peregrine Ilbert
and T. L. Papillon, Alfred Robinson, and R. H.
Collins, perhaps my greatest friend — now Sir
Robert Collins, K.C.B., the tutor and intimate
friend of the late Duke of Albany, afterwards Con-
troller of the Duchess's household." l Sir Robert
Collins, whose charm of character won him devoted
friends in all ranks of society, always delighted to
recall the happy days bird's-nesting in Savernake
Forest, especially the crowning triumph of the dis-
covery of a raven's nest in a clump of silver firs in
1859. He and Bosworth never lost touch with each
other, and they were hardly separated at the end,
for Sir Robert passed away only a fortnight after
his friend.

Sir Courtenay Ilbert, K.C.B., Chief Clerk of the
House of Commons, whose warm and faithful
friendship followed Bosworth Smith through life,
has kindly written down something of his early
recollections : —

" Bosworth Smith, when I knew him first, was a
full-faced, fair-haired, grey-eyed boy of fifteen. I
was two years his junior in age, but I went
to Marlborough as a very small boy, and when he
arrived there and took his place in the Upper Fifth,

1 It was at one time the/idea of H.R.H. the Duchess of Albany,
who always showed the greatest kindness to Bosworth Smith
and his wife, to place her son, the present Duke of Saxe-Coburg
Gotha, in his house at Harrow ; but later on it became neces-
sary to give the young Duke a German and not an English
education.

48

MARLBOROUGH

I was already in the Lower Sixth. However, he
soon joined me, and during each of his half years
after his first we sat side by side in the Sixth Form.
He preceded me as Senior Prefect, and his initials
are still to be seen carved just above mine on the
Senior Prefect's desk in the Upper Sixth class-
room. I remember him as a quiet, silent, reserved
boy, very tenacious of his opinions and of his pur-
poses, and singularly independent in his ways.
Devoted though he was to all that concerned the
honour and welfare of his school, his personal
interest in the ordinary school games was small,
and he did not distinguish himself either at cricket
or football. His outdoor interests, then as always,
lay, not in the orthodox playing fields, but in the
observation and study of wild life, especially of bird
life. For such studies Marlborough, with its mag-
nificent forest on one side, and its wide-spreading
downs, besprinked with coppices, on the other, pre-
sented an unrivalled field. It was in the glades
and recesses of this forest, or high up among the
branches of some gaunt and ancient fir tree in these
coppices, that he spent every hour that he could
spare. And before his three Marlborough years
were over, there was not a bird that was to be
found within walking distance of the school with
whose ways and habits and haunts he was not
on terms of intimate familiarity. This, it must
be remembered, was before the time of compul-
sory cricket and football, when schoolboy life at
Marlborough, if less disciplined, was more varied ;
and when there was nothing incongruous in the
sight of a grave Senior Prefect ' shinning ' up a
lofty tree towards the nest of a hawk, raven, or
crow. My own tastes had much in common with
49 D

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

his, for though I had not his knowledge of bird
lore, I also was country bred, and had, in those
delightfully lawless days of the 'fifties' at Marl-
borough, often tasted the fierce delight of outwit-
ting or outstripping a surly farmer or keeper in the
pursuit of (shall we say?) natural science. Our
book studies too, as was natural to boys who sat
side by side during school hours, had a great deal
in common. He was a hard and conscientious
worker, a sound, but not, I should say, a first-
rate scholar in the narrow sense, and cared
more for history than for the niceties of language.
Even at school he was a ready and forcible speaker
when on his legs, and though his handwriting
always suggested the ramblings of a drunken
spider, his pen moved swiftly and easily. He had
views of his own, views which he maintained with
great fervour and conviction, about the things which
were not worth learning. Among them he num-
bered (he may have changed his opinion in later
life) the French language, and he was content to
scramble through his Guizot or what not, with the
aid of a rapid construe from me, just as he relied
on our dear old friend, Alfred Robinson, for assist-
ance in the detested problems of mathematics.
He was Senior Prefect during Cotton's last year
and at the beginning of Bradley's rule, and his
strong, independent character made him a great
force in the school during a critical period of its
history.

"We visited each other in our holidays, and I
think it must have been before he left Marlborough,
at all events before I did, that I went to stay with
his people in the thatched Dorset Rectory, and that
he came down to scramble with me over the South
50

MARLBOROUGH

Devon cliffs, which the red-legged chough had not
yet forsaken, and where the raven still builds.

"When I went up to Oxford in the autumn of
1860, Bosworth Smith was half-way through his
undergraduate course. He and Papillon were my
companions on my first Long Vacation reading-party
in the summer of 1861. We took lodgings in a
solitary farmhouse called Letter, on the north side
of Loch Katrine, far away from the stream of
tourists, who passed us daily in their crowded
steamer, but avoided the shore. The young
farmer studied at the University of Edinburgh in
the winter, and worked on his farm in the summer.
He recited Ossian to us, and borrowed our books,
which he read aloud to his mother in the evening.
One evening he read, or thought he read, how at
the battle of Marathon, Cynegeirus had his head
cut off by an axe, and died of the wound. The
mother thought the last statement unnecessary, so
the book was put down, and the pair sat up till late
in the night discussing, in earnest Scottish fashion,
why such an otiose remark should have been made.
The difficulty was submitted to us next morning,
and was solved by the suggestion that the dim light
had misled the reader, and that it was not the head
but the hand that had been severed.

" Our ages and temperaments were not such as
to be affected seriously by adverse weather, and it
did rain almost continuously. I don't remember a
single quarrel. We discussed politics, and espe-
cially the American Civil War, which was then
raging. Both Bosworth and I were strong Nor-
therners in our sympathies, and we took in John
B right's organ, the Morning Star.

" In the following summer, that of 1862, I met

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

Bosworth Smith accidentally in Switzerland, and we
travelled home together in happy and leisurely
fashion. I found that he had not got over his con-
tempt for the French language, and that he had
very definite and deeply based views about the
costume appropriate to 'the Continent,' an expres-
sion which, according to him, embraced, without
discrimination, a Swiss mountain side and a
Parisian street. This was an article of faith.

" Soon afterwards came the brief college fellow-
ship, cut short by a happy marriage, and the thirty-
seven busy, useful years at Harrow, of which others
will write with fuller and better knowledge. But
Harrow is within easy reach of London, and my
London memories, both in earlier and in later
years, are charged with pleasant Harrow pictures ;
the drawing-room, bright with lovely golden-haired
children, the new house a-building, whose rafters
tempted to perilous climbs, the garden ambitiously
advancing its boundaries down the hill, the odorous
corner where the raven called ' Holloway ' and the
great solemn owls blinked and snapped. And,
linking together the scattered, fragmentary memo-
ries of fifty-three years and more, runs the golden
thread of a friendship always warm, staunch, and un-
failing, both in hours of sorrow and in hours of joy."

" I was elected in 1858 to an Open Scholarship at
Corpus College, Oxford. I obtained a First Class
in Classical Moderations and a First Class in the
Final Classical School (1862), and very shortly
afterwards was elected to a Fellowship at Trinity
College, Oxford, and became also lecturer at Corpus.
Life at Oxford was never much to my liking
although I made many friends there."
52

OXFORD

Such is Bosworth Smith's own brief account of
his University career. Leaving Marlborough was
the final breach with his early associations, for
Marlborough with its downs and water meadows
and woods had still recalled his native Dorset, and
its isolated position made it, like his own home or
Milton Abbas School, something of a world to
itself. Up to the time of his going to Oxford he
had seen little enough of the outside world, nor had
he met many people beyond his own relations. His
attachment to his home and his own family was so
great that customs and ways of thought, other than
those which he knew there, seemed to him, at first,
altogether wrong, and it was not till later life had
familiarised him with men and manners of widely
different types that he lost a certain spirit of in-
tolerance, and something of the quality best ex-
pressed by the French word farouche, which were
due to his early upbringing. " I wonder how many
of what we consider to be our maturest convictions,"
he said himself in later life, " rest on, or are coloured
by, our earliest prejudices ? " Like all ardent and
impulsive characters, he was never free from strong
prejudices in certain directions, but nothing was
more marked, as years went by, than the steady
expansion of his sympathies and the ever-growing
warmth of his geniality and benevolence.

He felt leaving Marlborough very keenly, and
in the solitude of his first evening at Oxford
the contrast between his present state — unknown
53

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

and friendless — with the proud position he had
held at Marlborough, prompted some regretful
verses, written in the metre of " Locksley Hall"
— the only English verses, it seems, that he ever
wrote.

While he was at Oxford, Bosworth Smith spent
some of his vacations at the Holmwood Vicarage
in Surrey, the home of his father's Winchester and
Balliol friend, Edmund Dawe Wickham. The
Holmwood is a romantic village scattered over a
wide common, near to the fir woods of the Red-
lands and to the Leith Hill range; the Vicarage is
a charming large house with a beautiful garden.
Edmund Dawe Wickham came of an old Somerset-
shire family, who claimed kinship with the great
William of Wykeham, whose arms and motto they
bore, and with whose marked aquiline features
more than one member of the Holmwood family
showed a strong resemblance. Edmund Wickham
was Vicar of the Holmwood from 1851 till 1893.
He was a man of singularly handsome presence, a
good talker with a great love of a joke or a good
story, a clergyman and gentleman of the old school,
of real kindness of heart, deeply interested in
missions and in all that concerned his parishioners.
He married Emma, only daughter and heiress of
Archdale Palmer of Cheam Park, Surrey. Mrs.
Wickham was a woman of marked personality ; to
her children and her husband's parishioners the
best of advisers and the truest of friends.
54

OXFORD

" Her interests," Bosworth Smith wrote of her,
"were not in any way confined to her children and
the parishioners. She had an unusually wide circle
of friends with whom she corresponded, and to
whom, as to her children, her gifts, intellectual and
social, were the source of the keenest enjoyment.
Highly accomplished, quick-witted, ready at re-
partee, clever and amusing in conversation, she was
often able to pierce in a moment to the true kernel of
a difficulty, to point out the flaw in an argument, and
to pass a judgment which, if it was not elaborately
reasoned out, was always incisive, luminous, sugges-
tive. In thought, word, and deed she was sincerity
itself; and if the keenness of her insight, and the
frank directness of her speech, often probed a weak
place, it seldom left a sting behind. Exceedingly
rapid in thought and execution, it was not every
one that could understand her, but it may be truly
said that those who understood her best loved her
best."

The Wickhams — almost the only family, not of
his own relations, with whom Bosworth had ever
stayed before — had been brought up under a more
rigid and more conventional Evangelicalism than
the Stafford Rectory children, but there was no
lack of originality and force of character among
them.

The six daughters had been exceptionally well
educated, and they had been brought up to enjoy
the simple pleasures of country life. Emmeline,
the eldest daughter, afterwards married the Rev.
J. Franck Bright, for many years Master of Uni-
55

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

versity College, Oxford ; and Bertha, the fifth
daughter, married later Bosworth's elder brother
Henry, and secondly, the Rev. T. Holt Wilson of
Redgrave, Norfolk. The fourth sister, Flora, was
then a lovely girl of seventeen ; Bosworth fell in
love with her soon after they met at Stafford, and
they became engaged in August 1862, just after he
had won his First Class. She shared his love of
natural history ; her knowledge of the notes of
birds was greater than even his own, and the most
radiant days of a romantically happy engagement
were spent together in the open air. They met
thus at what was for both of them the outset of life,
and the nature of their attachment changed so little,
that in the letters which he wrote to his wife during
their last separation, he unconsciously repeated many
of the same expressions of affection which he had
used in his letters to her during their engagement
more than forty years before. A story was told
that once, when the sisters were running down a
hillside, one of them fell, and when some one asked
Bosworth, " Did you see Bertha ?" his answer was,
"No, I only saw Flora."

In May 1863, when his full energies were needed
in his Fellowship examination, his sister Ellinor, who
had been his special friend and companion, was
drawing near her end ; his thoughts and his heart
were all with her, and it seemed almost impossible
to remain at Oxford and to face the examination.
Her sister Eva writes of her : " She had a great
56

OXFORD

power of enjoyment, a strong imagination, a still
stronger sense of humour ; she was quick and pas-
sionate, but the spiritual side of her was vividly
developed, and her power of living in the interests
and feelings of others was extraordinary." She died
on May 23, and with a breaking heart Bosworth
went through his examination all that week, and
when the Fellowship was won it seemed scarcely to
touch him, since she was not there to rejoice in his
success.

Canon Duckworth writes : —

"It was a great happiness to me when he was
elected to a Fellowship at Trinity and appointed to
a lectureship. During the Fellowship examination
I acted as his amanuensis, and I wrote his English
essay from his dictation. His writing was difficult
to decipher, and it was felt that he would be unfairly
handicapped if he was not allowed the assistance
of a more legible scribe. He used often to refer
gratefully to this little service, which it was such a
pleasure to me to render. His lectures at Trinity
were thought very able and useful. He found time
to keep up his intimacy with the feathered creation,
and his pet raven had its home in the Fellows'
garden. We missed him sadly when he left for
Harrow."

Among the friends whose names appear most
constantly in his correspondence, besides those
already mentioned, are E. C. Boyle, C. H. Wright,
A. S. Aglen, Professor John Connington, and
Edward (now Sir Edward) Donner, with the last
57

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

of whom his friendship was specially close. "We
did nothing remarkable or interesting together,"
writes Sir Edward Donner, "we just lived and
thought together." Bosworth's own words, " A
great spurt and a little pause," characterise his
method of work, not only at Oxford, but through
life. His time at Oxford coincided with the great
Jowett controversy, and his letters to his future
wife show what he felt on the subject : —

" My sympathies are with him, as they always
will be with one who is persecuted for his religious
opinions, provided they are honestly arrived at,
however unorthodox they may be. I am not one
of those who believe that absolute truth has been
attained by the English Church or any other Church,
and the only way to get nearer it is to have free
inquiry. The Bible has everything to gain by
criticism, and hence I should be most sorry to see
a man who knows more of the Bible than any of
his persecutors, and certainly carries its spirit into
practice more than most people I have seen, driven
from a position where, cheated though he is of his
pay, he makes himself intellectually and morally the
guide and teacher of the whole University. ... A
' court of heresy ' I look on as a revival of mediaeval
iniquity."

Sir Kenelm Digby's most vivid recollection of
his friend at Oxford relates to the stormy scene
when the Jowett question came before Convocation.
" I can see his face glowing with righteous indigna-
tion," he writes ; " he had climbed up to a corner,
58

OXFORD

which placed him close to Archdeacon Denison,
who was opposing the vote on the ground of
Jowett's supposed heterodoxy. There was a good
deal of noise and confusion, but his voice was heard
shouting above all the tumult."

His letters mention " Mark Pattison's essay-like
sermon, which must have shocked the anxious
parents who swarmed in Oxford yesterday," and
"Stanley's parties, which are the pleasantest in
Oxford in every way — he did much to hold together
and strengthen the Liberal party. I was just in
front of him during his last sermon at Oxford,
and could see his soul moving in his face, as one
earnest appeal after another came out. The sub-
ject was our Saviour weeping over Jerusalem,
and he preached for an hour and a quarter — the
idea was, Oxford as it is compared with Oxford as
it might be."

In 1862 Bosworth was elected President of the
Union without a contest; his chief effort there was
a vehement three-quarters of an hour speech on the
subject of Kagosima. " My blood boils," he wrote,
" with indignation at the ruthless massacre we have
been perpetuating on the innocent Japanese. It is
one of the most fiendish things ever done in war."
He found warm sympathy with his attitude in Pro-
fessor Goldwin Smith, Francis Otter, and others of
the Liberal party at Oxford, and in January 1864
he made his first appearance in print by a letter on
the subject in the Daily News, and thus, on the first
59

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

occasion of public writing, he struck the note which
was characteristic of many of his writings in later
life — a passionate indignation against what seemed
to him a misuse of power by a civilised over a less
civilised race.

The following notes were kindly written by the
Right Hon. James Bryce, at present British Ambas-
sador at Washington, for whom my father always
felt the warmest admiration and affection. They
complete the picture of his Oxford days and of his
circle of friends.

" Corpus Christi College was," Mr. Bryce writes,
" when your father came up to Oxford as one of its
scholars, nearly the smallest college in the Univer-
sity, and certainly one of the most agreeable. There
was a particularly pleasant set of men in residence.
A spirit of good-fellowship prevailed. Undergra-
duates from other colleges were always glad to go
to dine in hall at Corpus, because everybody was
genial and kindly, and the college seemed like a
group of family friends. There seemed to be no
' sets ' and no jealousies. Among the scholars
who were intellectually its Zlite, as they had been
in the days when Arnold and J. T. Coleridge were
scholars of the College, there were some men of
striking ability, whose performances at the Univer-
sity had already marked them out for distinction in
the world. Among these were Sir H. A. Giffard,
afterwards a leading Queen's Counsel, and now
High Bailiff of Guernsey ; Henry Nettleship, after-
wards Professor of Latin, and one of the bright
ornaments of British scholarship ; Charles Bigge,
60

OXFORD

afterwards a Canon of Christ Church and Regius
Professor of Ecclesiastical History; Edward Donner,
now Sir E. Donner, Bart, of Manchester, one of
the first citizens of that great community ; George
Augustus Simcox, a scholar of extraordinary pro-
mise, and with literary gifts which were equalled
among his Oxford contemporaries only by A. C.
Swinburne. These were among your father's
friends at Oxford, and their society was very stimu-
lating as well as enjoyable. Edward Donner, who
was nearly his contemporary, and Henry Nettle-
ship, who was a little his senior, were, I think, the
two with whom he was most intimate. He came up
from Marlborough College with a great reputation,
of which I had already heard from our common
friend Edward Colquhoun Boyle, then Scholar and
afterwards Fellow of Trinity. Boyle was himself
a Marlborough man, devoted to his school, and he
had already formed a strong attachment to your
father, and expected great things from him. It
was my good fortune to know some other distin-
guished old Marlburians then at the University,
such as Anthony Aglen (afterwards Archdeacon
Aglen), and C. P. Ilbert (now Sir Courtenay Ilbert),
and T. L. Papillon and C. K. Chatfield, and in their
company, as well as in Boyle's, I met your father
pretty frequently. The Marlborough men kept
much together in those days. From the first I was
greatly impressed by the vigour of his mind, and
the quiet, self-contained strength of his character.
In a large party he generally listened more than he
spoke, but he was a delightful companion in small
gatherings and in the long country walks which we
undergraduates were then fond of taking, especially
on Sundays — I am sorry to hear that this habit has
61

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

begun to be less in favour at Oxford. He had already
acquired a great knowledge of birds and bird life,
and he loved all sides and aspects of the English
country, his own Dorsetshire most of all. We were
all very fond of him ; and one of the things that
attracted us was the sense of the deep fund of affec-
tion he possessed, and a peculiarly winning smile
that now and then broke over his face.

"With this somewhat reserved manner, he was by
no means a recluse ; and used to speak from time to
time at the Union, the famous debating society of
the University, which had then lasted more than
thirty years. He had an easy command of clear
and forcible language, and was among the best
speakers of his time. I recollect a motion he
brought forward in 1859 (I think) on the subject
of the existence of ghosts, which was debated
through two of the weekly meetings, and drew
many speeches from members who, like myself,
had never before 'taken the floor.' He was in
those days a strong Liberal, and sided with the
Northern States in the most exciting public ques-
tion of those days, the American Civil War. Like
most youthful speakers, he did not often indulge
that strong vein of humour which he already pos-
sessed, and which his friends already, and his
Harrow pupils long after, used to enjoy ; but was
generally earnest and serious in debate.

" In the autumn of 1861, E. C. Boyle and I, who
were also reading in Scotland, visited your father,
Ilbert, and Papillon at Letter, a lonely spot on Loch
Katrine, and this gave me an opportunity of getting
to know him still better. He loved the wild moun-
tain region round Loch Katrine, and already knew
all the birds."

62

OXFORD

There was no money, and it was necessary to
settle on a profession as soon as possible. Mr.
Matthew Arnold has frankly admitted that he
adopted the profession of school-teaching in order
to marry, and in point of fact the same motive
determined Bosworth Smith's career ; schoolmaster-
ing seemed the only chance of obtaining a settled
income immediately. At that time Rugby naturally
stood high among public schools, and he was anxious
to go there or to Marlborough, whither Mr. Bradley
pressed him to return. But when an offer of a
mastership at Harrow came from Dr. Butler, his
friends strongly advised him to accept it, and he
took up work there in September 1864. He had
already been to Harrow in December 1862 as an
examiner, and had stayed with Dr. Butler. He
wrote to his future wife on that occasion : —

" I was at once set at my ease by Dr. Butler,
whom I like extremely, and have very long talks
with every night, when the rest are gone to
bed. He gives me the impression of being very
able as well as a most perfect scholar, and he
alarms me not a little, when he takes up one of my
papers and opens a discussion upon some point of
scholarship connected with it. The first night
there was a formidable party of masters to whom
I had to be formally introduced. . . . The school
gives me the impression, after Marlborough, of
being too much split up into small divisions by
the number of houses. I had to read out the
results of the examination by torchlight on the
63

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

school steps, and you can imagine I was in rather
a fright."

His letters show that he left Oxford with the
feeling that he might have made better use of his
time, and when he revisited it a little later, he
apparently realised more fully how much he had
missed, elsewhere, the atmosphere of the place and
the companionship of his friends.

64

C H A|P T E R III

LIFE AT HARROW

ON September 16, 1864, Bosworth Smith writes:
" I found myself face to face with my form of
twenty-seven boys, half of them new. I trust
we shall rub along somehow. I occupy half the
Fourth Form Room, the other half being occupied
by another Mr. Smith, the greatest celebrity here
for his earnestness and the power he acquires over
all the boys in the school. He is a genuine apostle
in his earnestness and love." In 1878 the Rev.
John Smith, one of the most saintly men who
ever gave their lives to Harrow, wrote to Bosworth
Smith : " May I say how thankful I am that you
have taken up your abode here ; not only because
all your work is so first-rate, but because your
general influence is so good and healthy. I only
hope some day to see you one of a valuable com-
pany of lay preachers, addressing us in the chapel,
on equal terms with the clerical members of our
society."

After a year in Edward Bowen's house, came
Bosworth Smith's marriage, a marriage that brought
him complete happiness. From the first there was

65 E

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

absolute community of interest. His wife's energy
and practical ability relieved him from the necessity
of dealing with business details, which were uncon-
genial to him, and it was her sympathy, her devoted
care of him, and the self-sacrificing earnestness with
which she threw herself into all his pursuits, that
enabled him to widen his sphere of usefulness
beyond his actual daily work, and to lead, as indeed
he did, many lives in one. Not only did she com-
bine, in later years, the care of her large family
with the unassisted management of her great
household, but she often translated, abridged, or
criticised for him some work in a modern European
language of which he was ignorant, and she was
ready at all times, even at the close of a long day,
to copy his manuscript or letters, or to write at
his dictation far into the night. "If he had not
written so badly," she used to say, " I should never
have got to know his thoughts so well." He could
never be happy long without her, and there was no
subject that they did not discuss together. His
dependence on her and devotion to her seemed
only to grow with the years.

In the sixties there was little or nothing of the
suburbs about Harrow. The hill, crowned with
its stately church spire and red school buildings,
was set in a wide expanse of well-timbered grass
country. Between the hill and the circle of the
horizon, on which the landmarks of Hampstead
Heath, St. Paul's, the Crystal Palace, and the dim
66

LIFE AT HARROW

outline of Windsor Castle can be traced, there was
then hardly a house to be seen or a puff of smoke
to mark a railway. " Why, Bosworth," his old
relative, Colonel Pinney, looking out of the Knoll
drawing-room window, used to say, " what a magni-
ficent park you have, and nothing to pay for keeping
it up."

The town itself scarcely extended beyond the top
and northern slope of the hill ; nearly all the resi-
dents were more or less directly connected with
the school. Of late years the place has, with the
increase of building and multiplication of railways,
lost something of its distinctive character.

The public schools of England have the faculty
of calling forth the lifelong devotion and whole-
hearted service of men of the most different types ;
the very stones of the buildings, the trees, the sound
of the bell seem to those, for whom their school
means anything at all, not as other stones and trees
and bells. The traditions of the place, even the
routine itself, which pursues its way regardless of
who may come or who may go, are an inspiration
and an absorbing interest to those who feel their
power.

It was not long before Harrow became as dear to
Bosworth Smith, or almost as dear, as Marlborough
had been ; and when in 1869 he was invited by Dr.
Butler to build a house as an addition to the school,
his attachment to Harrow was cemented by the
acquisition of a home of his own.
67

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

" The Harrow recollections are of course count-
less," writes Dr. Butler to Mrs. Bosworth Smith,
"and I think I may say all delightful. One of
those which I cherish most is the brave ' venture
of faith ' which he made when first offered the
opportunity of converting the small house into a
large one. There had been some croaking owing
to a decline of numbers in the school. Fully believ-
ing that the falling off was not significant, I put
before him the prospect at once, and the risk of
building virtually a new house. He did not hesi-
tate, and long before the house was finished his list
was, as I knew it would be, full. How its pros-
perity was maintained no one now knows so well
as yourself, and with what special love your house
boys always regarded their dear master. He will
be long remembered at Harrow and by hundreds of
families in all parts of the world."

The garden became from the first his chief plea-
sure and recreation. " To acquire love of flowers
is like acquiring a sixth sense," he said himself in
later years. " Gardening is one of the few occupa-
tions and amusements which have no objectionable
element at all in them. It has no element of cruelty,
like all field sports, however pleasant they may be.
It gives no encouragement to drinking, gambling,
or betting. It is very difficult to believe that any
one who is really fond of flowers can have anything
seriously wrong with his character."

By a series of ingenious little lawns and paths,
the steep hillside with its fine elm trees was con-
verted into a charming garden, and here he kept
68

LIFE AT HARROW

his owls and his tame raven Jacob, whose cough and
imitation of his master's voice amused generations
of visitors.

The early years at Harrow were perhaps espe-
cially happy for him. He was devoted to little
children, and his own were an unending delight
and amusement and interest to him. He always
loved to recall their early sayings, which, like those
of most children, seem generally to have referred to
some religious problem. His eldest boy at the age
of five announced that when he heard a text he did
not like, he did not believe it — a not uncommon
method of dealing with such matters ; the same
child protested that he could not both try and
succeed ; and another of the same age was found
to repeat the Doxology thus: "Glory be to the
Father, and to the Sun and to the Moon " — a curious
and unconscious return to fire-worship! He was
especially proud of two little golden-haired sons
who ran a mile race with the boys of his house,
often sitting down to rest for a while, and then
starting on again to accomplish the distance in
their own time. The long summer hours with him
in the garden, or the winter evenings in his study,
when he would read aloud to them a Scott novel or
poem, are among the precious recollections of each
of his children.

The pleasant atmosphere of friendliness and
sympathy which seems to have pervaded the place
in those days was due not a little to the influence of
69

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

Dr. and Mrs. Montagu Butler. For Dr. Butler,
Bosworth Smith felt all through life the warmest
admiration and affection, and he was never happier
than when talking with Mrs. Butler and her sister,
Mrs. Cruikshank. A sketch which he wrote of
Mrs. Butler in 1883 seems to preserve something
of the fragrance of her beautiful character : —

14 There was a transparent simplicity, an artless-
ness, a grace about her, which took one captive at
first sight. No lapse of time can efface the pure
bright image which, in all the charm and freshness
of her early life, stamped itself in imperishable
colours on the writer's mind when he paid his first
visit to Harrow, now some nineteen years ago.
The thousand acts of kindness to him and his, and
the unbroken friendship of subsequent years ; the
singular beauty and poetry of her letters, one of
which seldom failed to come at the time when it
would be most valued ; the contagious influence of
an exhaustless fund of sympathy ; a divine incredu-
lity as to evil ; a not less divine credulity as to what
was good ; a blithesomeness of disposition which
communicated itself to all around her, and forced
them often, in spite of themselves, to forget their
troubles and grievances. ... It was not that she
was what would be called a great or brilliant talker,
or that she could have been ordinarily said 'to
shine ' in general society. Her nature was too re-
tiring, too refined, too simple, too deep for that. It
was hers to glow, rather than to shine ; to attract
attention rather than to challenge it ; to influence
and charm men and women alike, rather than to
dazzle. She would often sit for many minutes
70

LIFE AT HARROW

together, silently listening to a conversation which
she enjoyed, without taking any part in it. But her
silence, her looks, her presence, the occasional ripple
of laughter which burst from her when anything
touched her singularly delicate sense of humour, were
more eloquent than other people's speech. They
diffused warmth and brightness all around her."

There were not a few men of note among the
Harrow masters forty years ago. In a sketch of
his friend, the Rev. E. H. Bradby, afterwards Head-
master of Haileybury, he wrote :—

" Harrow in those days was favoured with the
presence of many remarkable preachers — Dr. Butler,
Bishop Westcott, Archdeacon Farrar, and Mr. John
Smith among them. One of these, perhaps, ex-
celled all others in spiritual fervour, in insight, and
in contagious enthusiasm ; another in learning and
in historical and moral sweep ; another in glowing
eloquence and in that indignation against all that is
base, which lifts the hearers more than one step
towards all that is noble ; another in the perfectly
unconscious revelation of a saintly life. Each of
these sermons was, from some points of view,
greater than those of Mr. Bradby, but there were
others in which they were less. Quietly and simply,
as though he were thinking aloud, he would go
straight to his mark with an unmistakable earnest-
ness, but with a sobriety of judgment and expres-
sion and a pregnancy of thought, not without an
element of poetry which indicated a great reserve
of strength."

The colleague with whom Bosworth Smith was

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

perhaps most intimate all through his Harrow life,
though weeks might at times pass without their
meeting, was Edward Bowen, a man in some ways
the direct antithesis of himself, but for whose true
and tender nature, devotion to duty, and generous
magnanimity Bosworth Smith had the warmest
appreciation.

"Seldom, surely," he wrote in 1901, "has any
one with such brilliant and varied gifts devoted him-
self so unreservedly to the work he had marked out
for himself at Harrow. He seemed to have an
unlimited supply of life, and an unlimited capacity
for enjoying. What, indeed, did he not enjoy, ex-
cept, perhaps, repose ? The humdrum and routine,
which must form so large a part of a teacher's life,
were never humdrum to him ; for round the driest
details of his work there played and flickered, as with
lambent flame, his joyous spirit, finding expression,
now in a striking paradox, now in a touch of humour,
now in that pathos which forms the under song of all
earnest life — which, all taken together, made every
lesson of his a revelation, every task a pastime."

Among other colleagues of whom Bosworth Smith
saw most in the first decades of his life at Harrow
were Henry Nettleship, Arthur Watson, James
Robertson, R. H. Quick, J. Stogdon, and his neigh-
bour George Griffith, all men of strongly marked if
widely differing individuality. James Bryce, Cour-
tenay Ilbert, and Francis Otter, would sometimes
walk down from London and spend Sunday in the
Knoll garden. In Harrow itself, several people
72

LIFE AT HARROW

were living whose society added not a little to the
interest of the place : Mr. Matthew Arnold and his
wife — of whom he said, " Fanny Lucy has all my
graces and none of my airs ; " Lord Charles Russell,
at that time Black Rod ; Sir Frederick Goldsmid,
whose wide experience of Eastern countries and
gentle, courteous ways made him a pleasant com-
panion ; and Sir Thomas Gore-Browne, the most
courtly and delightful of Colonial Governors, with
whose family the Bosworth Smiths formed a life-
long friendship.

Life at Harrow was by no means devoid of
varied interest. My mother's diary records German
readings, Shakespeare readings ; lectures by Ruskin
and Professor Connington ; Joachim and Schumann
Concerts ; visits to the school paid by Mr. Glad-
stone, the Queen of Holland, the Emperor of
Brazil. She mentions a dinner party, one of many
at the Knoll, with the names of Dr. Butler, Mr.
and Mrs. Matthew Arnold, Mons. Masson, James
Bryce, Mr. and Mrs. Steel, F. W. Farrar, the Hon.
Mrs. Norton and her grand-daughter Carlotta. No
one, however young, who once saw Mrs. Norton
could forget her commanding stature, her dark hair,
and her flashing eyes. With equal brevity and
sangfroid she records on the same page : —

"November 29, 1868. — Uncle Edward died. He
passed behind me in the dining-room at Harrow."

This was Bosworth's uncle, Major Heathcote
Smith, a charming old gentleman, whom she had
73

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

never known well ; my mother, who is in no degree
visionary, learnt afterwards that he had always much
liked her. He appeared to another relation also at
the moment of his death.

The new house was of course an absorbing in-
terest and anxiety, but chance brought the Knoll a
first head boy, who helped to assure its future at
once. " Ecce" Dr. Butler wrote, "here is a remark-
ably good-looking, active, manly fellow, just the
one to be head of your new house." This was
Robert Yerburgh, who, in after life, as M.P. for
Chester and in many different ways, not least as
President of the Navy League, has done excellent
service to his country. Bosworth Smith always
felt a warm affection for him — an affection that was
repaid by countless acts of kindness on Mr. Yer-
burgh's part. " If Mr. Yerburgh has any reason
to be proud of his house, I am sure his house has
reason to be proud of Mr. Yerburgh," he once said
of him.

Outside his own house, the boys of whom Bos-
worth Smith saw a good deal in early days, before
the pressure of public work came on him, were
Henry Montgomery, afterwards Bishop of Tas-
mania, and then a member of both the elevens ;
James Cotton Minchin, than whom for the forty-
four years that followed he had no more faithful
friend ; the four Carlisles ; the Bovill brothers ;
Randall Davidson, now Archbishop of Canterbury,
with whose family he and his wife stayed in Scot-
74

LIFE AT HARROW

land in 1867 ; and Bosworth's cousin, Kenelm Wing-
field Digby, afterwards of Sherborne Castle and
M.P. for North Dorset. Kenelm's father had placed
his son in another house " because Bosworth was
such a red-hot Radical," but Kenelm spent most of
his spare time at the Knoll.

The first impulse to write came to Bosworth
Smith indirectly from Dr. Butler, who had
initiated a kind of Essay Society among the
masters. The essays were to be written on any
subject that interested them outside their usual
school work ; and it was an essay, written in this
way, that first suggested to Bosworth the possi-
bility of independent study and composition. The
writings of Max Miiller, Dean Stanley, and F. D.
Maurice had turned his thoughts towards the study
of comparative religion, and the relations between
civilised nations and those on a different plane of
culture had already begun to interest him.

His " Mohammed and Mohammedanism " took
the form of four lectures, which were first delivered
in 1872 at Harrow before a small number of
friends, and in 1874 before the Royal Institution
of Great Britain. Charles Darwin, Llewellyn
Davies, Dr. Congreve, Dean Stanley, Lord Stan-
ley of Alderley, Professor Tyndall, and Matthew
Arnold, among other well-known people, attended
some or all of the lectures ; and as soon as the
course was over, they were published in book form
by Messrs. Smith, Elder, & Co.
75

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

No author could have wished for a kinder pub-
lisher, a more courteous critic, or a truer friend
than Mr. George Murray Smith. His little notes,
exquisitely written and expressed, took the sting
out of many a hostile review, and added pleasure
to one that was appreciative. His daughter, after-
wards Mrs. Yates Thompson, became one of the
Bosworth Smiths' truest and dearest friends.

From this time on, the outlook began to widen
in every direction, and henceforward, almost month
by month, new friends and new interests began to
come into his life. The bare record of his literary
work, of the causes for which he wrote and spoke,
the people he met, presents a picture of a full life,
apart from all consideration of his continuous, self-
sacrificing, and devoted work at Harrow.

His "Mohammed" brought him into touch with
many interesting people, and this first sight of a
wider world was full of pleasure and excitement for
him. Dr. Badger, the great Arabic scholar, with
his long white beard, his energetic expressions, his
hearty laugh, and the hookah prepared for him by
Mrs. Badger, was a special delight to the children,
for he would amuse them with an endless variety of
curious tricks, or sometimes send them strange and
uneatable Arab sweetmeats ; they were scarcely
less impressed by the massive gold bracelets which
Mrs. Badger wore, and which had been given to
her by the Sultan of Zanzibar. More awe-inspiring
from the children's point of view but not less like-
76

LIFE AT HARROW

able was Dr. Blyden, the Negro savant, at that
time Plenipotentiary for the Republic of Liberia.
His intellectual countenance, his quiet and dignified
manner, and his beautiful English made a great
impression on all who met him. My father always
considered Dr. Blyden as one of the most remark-
able men he knew. Dr. Blyden would often bring
Negro missionaries or merchants or native princes
with him, and he fully convinced his host of the
great possibilities of the Negro race.

Then there were the Rev. T. P. Hughes, a mis-
sionary from Peshawur, who wore Afghan dress ;
Lady Strangford, petite, elegant, and clever, then
fresh from her relief work in the Balkans, where
her name is still gratefully remembered ; Mr. Syed
Ameer Ali and other Mohammedan gentlemen of
high culture ; and Captain Eastwick and Colonel
Yule.

A letter written about this time to Edmund Wick-
ham, his old Winchester schoolfellow, from Captain
William Eastwick, who afterwards became one of
his closest friends, records his first impressions of a
visit to Harrow. " I was much struck with Mr.
Bosworth Smith's intellectual power and enthu-
siasm. He certainly will not spare pains to make
himself master of every subject he undertakes. He
has brought out forcibly the lights and shades of
Islam ; previous writers have generally been con-
tent to dwell on the shades, but that to my mind
is not impartial history."
77

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

When the Russo-Turkish War broke out, Bos-
worth Smith's sympathies, for reasons which will
be found elsewhere, were on the side of the Turks.
He wrote two letters on Turkey and Russia, the
first of many to the Times on burning questions,
and an article on the same subject in the Contem-
porary Review, the forerunner of many articles on
different matters, most of which appeared in Sir
James Knowles's publications.

" Mohammed " was scarcely launched when Bos-
worth Smith began to work in earnest on a subject
which had since his Oxford days attracted him — the
history of Carthage. The materials for such a study,
as he pointed out, are extremely fragmentary ; the me-
dium through which they are presented is distorted
by the bias of the Roman historians. He could not
hope to add much, if anything, to what was already
known of Carthage and her two greatest citizens ;
but he could at least attempt to draw an impartial
picture of the great struggle between Rome and
Carthage, and to throw "some new interest around
a city and civilisation which have never been able
to speak for themselves." "I have, in all cases,
gone direct to the fountain-head," he writes ; " read-
ing carefully every passage that has come down to
us from the ancients, comparing conflicting state-
ments with each other, and always endeavouring in
the first instance to form an independent judgment
upon them. On points which seemed in any degree
doubtful, I have afterwards consulted the chief
78

LIFE AT HARROW

modern writers on the subject " — no light task,
where disputed points, such as Hannibal's route
over the Alps, are concerned. In his comparison
between the rival cities he was aware that he must
sometimes appear to be the advocate of Carthage,
although he was himself convinced that the victory
of Rome meant on the whole the victory of civilisa-
tion and progress. The comparison and contrast
between the characteristics of the rival cities them-
selves form one of the most interesting chapters.

His enthusiasm for his subject was able to illu-
minate what historians themselves have felt to be
the dull period of the First Punic War. His power
of seeing his subject as a whole gives a dramatic
completeness to his treatment, and the reader is
carried on, even through the mazes of Hannibal's
last thirteen years in Italy, with an interest which
culminates in the tragic fate of Carthage itself.
Hamilcar Barca and Hannibal, the Hasdrubals,
the Magos, the Hannos, the long succession of
Roman Consuls and Generals, stand out as real
human beings, with personal characteristics that
modify or direct the course of history.

In 1877, Bosworth Smith went to Tunis with
his wife and his friend Mr. Stogdon, to see for
himself the site of ancient Carthage. It was his
first sight of Oriental life ; and his delight in the
vivid picturesqueness of Tunis, as yet untouched
by the French, was only less than his deep interest
in the cisterns, the harbours, the outline, all that
79

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

is left above ground of ancient Carthage. "It
seemed to me, throughout, that I was taking a last
rather than a first view of the sight of ancient
Carthage, and was driving home impressions that
had been made long before, rather than forming
new ones."

It was his personal interest in Tunis, added
to his deep sense of what is due to a weaker
race and his hatred of aggression, that in 1881
prompted him to make a strong though unavailing
protest in the Times against the French occupation
of the Regency.

The book was now complete ; but before it was
published, his mother, to whom he had dedicated it,
and to whom he was intensely devoted, died after
a sudden illness, and for a time his grief seemed
to blot out all the interests of his life.

Early in 1878 he gave seven lectures on Carthage
at the Royal Institution, the success of which pro-
mised well for the success of the book itself. Mr.
Gladstone, Dean Stanley, and other well-known
men were at times among the audience. Dr. Butler,
in talking to Sir Richard Temple, some years later,
said he considered the "Taking of Carthage" as one
of the best bits of historical writing that he knew ;
and Mr. Bryce characterised the first lecture as the
best historical lecture he had heard. It was at a
dinner at Mr. Bryce's, about this time, that Bos-
worth Smith first met Mr. Gladstone.

The book was published in May 1878 by Messrs.
80

LIFE AT HARROW

Longmans, and in October a second edition wa
ready. It met with a most cordial reception not
only in all the chief reviews and newspapers at
home, but also in Germany and France, including
the Revue des Deux Mondes. The critics said that
English readers had here for the first time a vivid
presentment of the imperial city which had rivalled
Rome, and that, as a general history of Carthage,
no book equalled it in brilliancy and completeness.
"His masterly descriptions read with that kind of
fascination which the story of a modern campaign
excites." A condensed edition was published later
by Longmans in their series of " Epochs of Ancient
History," under the name of " Rome and Car-
thage " ; this was published also by Scribner in the
United States, where it was well received. Al-
though its chief sale of late years has been perhaps
as a school book, it has been widely appreciated as
a delightful and vivid monograph, by students as
well as by the " general reader." The style, as
Mons. ReVille was quick to note, recalls that of
Gibbon and Macaulay ; and though, of late years,
taste in historical writing may have undergone some
change, surely no fitter models could have been
found for the chronicle of events so heroic and so
tragic as the life and death struggle of two imperial
nations.

A far heavier task now lay before Bosworth
Smith. During the summer of 1879 — a year
marked for him by the bitter grief of the loss
81 F

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

of his sister Emily, Mrs. Thomas, and his brother
Henry — he was asked by the family of Lord
Lawrence to undertake his biography. For the
next three years, every hour that was not given
to his school work was devoted to the fulfilment
of his trust. The task was of such absorbing
interest to him, it brought him into touch with
so many notable people, and it so fully called forth
his highest powers, both mental and physical, that
it has seemed best to treat this part of his life
separately. The book was published in 1883,
and passed through five editions within the year —
the record, it is said, for any work on an Indian
subject.

So well did it establish his reputation as a biog-
rapher that he was afterwards asked — among other
such propositions — by the families of those con-
cerned, to undertake the life of the first Earl
Russell, of the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, of
Lord Stratford de Redclyffe, and, by a firm of
publishers, of the Duke of Wellington. Three
of these propositions once reached him in the
course of a single week. The suggestion which,
in the abstract, would have tempted him most
was the biography of Lord Shaftesbury. But the
materials were such, that he did not feel he could
gain a lifelike portrait of the man himself from
them ; and the idea of compiling a man's biography
while he was still living with, at best, his partial
assent to the project, was highly uncongenial.
82

LIFE AT HARROW

He felt much honoured by the trust shown in
him by Countess Russell and her son, the Hon.
Rollo Russell, by their proposition. It was thought
at the time that there was little private corre-
spondence available ; but Mr. Russell states that,
later on, many letters were found, and this of
course facilitated the biographer's work. Bosworth
Smith's friends and relations did what they could to
dissuade him from undertaking this second task.
They doubted whether his health could stand the
second strain after the first. They doubted whether
he would be able to repeat the great success which
he had achieved in his " Lord Lawrence," and it
was thought his Harrow work might suffer. But
it was with great reluctance that he brought himself
to decline the invitation, and, in a sense, it was a
turning away from literary ambition. The follow-
ing letters from him show what passed in his mind
about it : —

To the HON. ROLLO RUSSELL.

HARROW ON THE HILL, March 29, 1884.

I do not like to let a post go by without writing
to thank you for the high compliment which I con-
sider that Lady Russell and you have paid me by
asking me to undertake so honourable and so re-
sponsible a work, and one of such great national
interest, as would be the life of Lord Russell.

Of course it is a matter requiring deep and earnest
consideration before I can give even a provisional
83

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

answer one way or another. The objections are
naturally these which strike one most strongly at
first sight.

The labour would of course be very great, when
added to all my other work. It may be answered
that I have already done such a work with success
and general approval, but I nearly killed myself
with the labour which Lord Lawrence's Life involved,
and I could hardly hope that my health would stand
such another strain.

Then, again, I had not the pleasure of a personal
acquaintance with Earl Russell — an acquaintance
such as, in spite of all its other difficulties, gave me
a little start in beginning Lord Lawrence's Life.
Once more, I have no special knowledge at pre-
sent of the period covered by Earl Russell's life,
nor do I think I have quite the aptitude or tastes
which you would look for in a man who is to write
the life of an English statesman. My interest, for
example, in Parliamentary life and strife of parties
is not naturally keen. On the other hand, there is
hardly a single object which Earl Russell proposed
to himself in his long and eventful political life with
which I should not have a lively sympathy. I am
afraid, from your account, the materials for the
biography as distinguished from the political and
historical part of the work are rather meagre. One
wants letters, anecdotes, conversations with intimate
friends, if one is to put flesh and blood in the central
figure and to make him live and breathe, as I hope
I have in some measure been able to do with Lord
Lawrence. Do you think there are sufficient mate-
rials available for this ? Are many intimate friends
of his living, and would they be able and willing to
give considerable help? Many other questions
84

LIFE AT HARROW

occur to me, but I need not bother you with them
now. In particular it would help to give me
courage to undertake the work if I knew that a
certain number of people, besides your own family,
who knew Earl Russell well, were strongly in
favour of my undertaking it. What, for instance,
would Mr. Gladstone or Lord Halifax think of it ?
It is a little curious that just a year ago Lord
Portman, in writing to me about " Lord Lawrence,"
remarked, "How I wish that Lady Russell would
ask you to undertake the life of her husband ! "

To COUNTESS RUSSELL.

May 2, 1884.

It cost me a good deal, I can assure you, to say
no, and I hope I have done rightly in the matter.
There are parts of Earl Russell's life which I
believe I could have made intensely interesting.
... I should like to have had the writing of that
part of the biography which turns on the rela-
tions between the Queen, Lord Russell, and Lord
Palmerston. I could certainly have made a good
defence for Lord Russell in all respects.

The years that followed the completion of " Lord
Lawrence " were scarcely less fully occupied. Bos-
worth Smith had already lectured on Mohammed
both at the Midland Institute at Birmingham and at
Newcastle-on-Tyne (where he had stayed with Dr.
and Mrs. Spence Watson, for whom he always re-
tained a warm admiration). Later on, at different
times, he gave lectures either on Mohammed, Car-
thage, or Lord Lawrence at Toynbee Hall, Sion
85

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

College, Haileybury, and Marlborough, and to the
clergy of Kensington.

In 1885 the fear of an attack on the Church of
England by the Liberal party moved him to write
a series of letters to the Times> which attracted
great attention, and served for the moment to stem
the tide against Disestablishment. It has seemed
best here, again, to deal with his views on Church
matters and home politics separately, and only to
mention that from this time forward he wrote and
spoke constantly on both subjects.

A reaction had been certain to come after the
overstrain of the years of work at Lord Lawrence's
Life. He was always subject to bad headaches and
to sleeplessness, and in 1889, after some attacks of
terrible pain, he broke down so completely that, on
the advice of his friend, Dr. Symes Thompson, he
gave up work for a time. Mr. Edward Graham,
who had been his pupil and head of his house, and
to whom he was greatly attached, took charge of
his house for him, and he and his wife went to
Egypt, where they went up the Nile and later stayed
in Cairo with Sir Colin Scott-MoncriefT, with whom
and with whose family a permanent friendship was
formed. This tour and the return by Greece was a
time of intense enjoyment to them both.

But troubles about his health were by no means
over. In 1891, he slipped on a plank and broke his
leg. Very serious complications followed the acci-
dent, and for twelve weeks he lay very ill at the
86

LIFE AT HARROW

Knoll. There were many days and nights when it
seemed scarcely possible that he could survive the
agonising attacks that came upon him. But the
same will-power which had so often enabled him to
do his work, whatever it might be, when physically
unfit for it, came to his aid, and the devoted care of
his wife, nurses, and doctors brought him back to a
fair measure of health. In the following year he was
well enough to take an active interest in political
questions once more, and to share in the Uganda
campaign with the greatest enthusiasm and effect.

The three breaks of the school year are the sal-
vation of men who do their school work with all
their hearts ; toil of such a kind almost necessitates
travel, and Bosworth Smith travelled at different
times a good deal on the Continent. He went
with his wife twice to Norway to shoot, in the days
when there were very few restrictions on grouse-
shooting ; and he travelled in Italy and in Spain —
which he enjoyed perhaps most of all — in Germany
and France, and in Sicily, where his travelling com-
panion, Mr. Edward Graham, found him, with his
accurate and vivid knowledge of its past history,
the most delightful of companions.

Bosworth Smith, unfortunately, could not speak
or understand conversation in any modern language,
nor could he master a foreign coinage, far less a
Bradshaw, nor find his way in an unfamiliar place.
The duties of courier, which fell on his companion
— his wife, Edward Graham, or his brother Edward
87

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

— were, naturally, apt to be heavy ; but his appre-
ciation and enjoyment of all he saw, his well-stored
memory, together with his gratitude for all that
was done for him, atoned amply for the anxiety he
sometimes caused his guide.

When he did not go abroad, he nearly always
went to his old home at Stafford, for no bird-nest-
ing, no heather in bloom, and no wild-duck shooting
seemed to him to have the same charm elsewhere,
just as no society gave him more pleasure than that
of his parents, brothers, and sisters. He very often
stayed at the Down House for shooting with his
cousin, Sir William Smith-Marriott, and at Somerton
Erleigh, in Somersetshire, where his aunt and god-
mother, Lady Smith, lived with her old brother,
Colonel Pinney, one of the kindest as he was one
of the most original of men. For many years in
succession he spent a supremely happy fortnight of
August grouse-shooting in Scotland, either with his
friends the Sandersons at Inverpolly, or the Crosses
at Inverlair, or, on one occasion in Ross-shire, with
the Hon. Charles Lawrence — a day here, when he
shot thirty brace of grouse to his own gun over
dogs, stood out as a red-letter day in his memory —
or, again, at Barwhillarty, with Mr. Yerburgh, where
the conversation interested him no less than the
grouse-shooting. Very often a house was taken at
Lyme Regis, in Dorset, and his attachment to the
place, with its early associations with his own
family, its steep old-world streets, its Cobb, cele-
88

LIFE AT HARROW

brated by Jane Austen, and the romantic Pinhay
Cliffs beyond it, was so great that he was at one
time inclined to settle there permanently.

Every spring he would snatch a happy day when
he would go off to Oxhey Wood, *' a great pre-
serve," says Mr. H. T. Hewett, " a few miles from
Harrow, whither, upon a whole holiday in the bird's-
nesting season, he would bring a happy party of
lucky boys, to the indignation of the keepers, who
had no notice of the projected visit. But even an
indignant keeper could not be cross with Bos, once
he had speech with him." Another red-letter day,
which he commemorated in his " Bird Life," was an
expedition with Mr. Henry Upcher, one spring, to
Lord Walsingham's mere in Norfolk ; and a visit to
White's Selborne, where his friend Canon Edward
Bernard was then living, was another pilgrimage
after his own heart.

Bosworth Smith never believed that his school
work suffered in any degree from the existence of
interests which lay beyond it, or from his wide
circle of friends. He had a horror of getting into
a groove. " I do my form work better, not worse,
if I have the stimulus of seeing interesting people,"
he used to say. If the great fatigue, the constant
rush and strain of school life, combined with almost
incessant literary work and many social engage-
ments, did indeed use up his strength prematurely,
still I think that he would never have chosen to
have filled his years otherwise. As to Edward
89

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

Bowen, so to him also, it seemed better to wear out
than to rust out.

It is impossible, in the space available to me, to
chronicle in any detail the engagements outside his
school work which gave zest and variety to his life.
Lists of guests or visits, however interesting in
themselves, make tedious reading, unless notes of
the conversation which gave distinctive charm to
the occasion have been preserved. But my father's
affection for his friends was so warm, his admiration
of their gifts, his enjoyment of their talk so great,
that to omit all mention of the many visitors who
came to the Knoll would be to blot out much of the
light and colour of his life. In many cases, indeed,
the names themselves are suggestive enough, for
among those who sometimes dined or stayed at
Harrow were Dr. Martineau, Miss Anna Swan-
wick, Sir Mountstuart Grant-Duff, Sir Clements
Markham, Mr. Thomas Hardy, Sir Richard Temple,
Canon Ainger, Canon Duckworth, Admiral Colomb,
Mr. Main Walrond, Sir William and Lady Flower,
Canon Elwyn, Colonel Yule, Captain Eastwick, Sir
Frederick Halliday, Mr. Meredith Townsend of
the Spectator, Sir Henry Cunningham, Sir George
Trevelyan, Canon Tristram, Prince Krapotkin, Sir
Archibald Geikie, Sir Courtenay Ilbert, Captain
Lugard, Mr. and Mrs. Bryce, Mr. and Mrs. Yates
Thompson, Mr. and Mrs. Murray Smith, Dr.
Blyden, Lord Acton, Sir Henry Howorth.

It was probaCle, of course, that some of the
90

LIFE AT HARROW

guests in parties which were made up of varied
elements should appreciate each other less warmly
than their host appreciated each of them ; but it
was still more probable that, when rival authori-
ties on the same subject met, mutual appreciation
should diminish almost to vanishing point. The
parties to which old friends of Lord Lawrence's
came were composed, naturally, of men of the
same school of thought in Indian politics ; their
store of reminiscences, their delightful personalities,
and their pleasure in meeting each other, made
these 'parties specially pleasant. It was otherwise
when two notable but, unfortunately, rival authori-
ties on natural history met at dinner ; and a no
less distinguished naturalist of a younger gene-
ration, Mr. G. E. H. Barrett- Hamilton, was an
interested auditor of a heated discussion. The
situation became threatening during the course
of the evening, but it was temporarily saved by
the well-timed ignorance of a lady present, whose
bewilderment over the nesting habits and migra-
tions of the "cream-coloured coursers," which she
had not unnaturally assumed to be the late Queen's
celebrated ponies or a special race of Arab barbs,
providentially served to amuse the combatants and
to avert a catastrophe.

Another critical moment was the unexpected
meeting — unexpected to them — of three well-
known African travellers on the lawn before dinner.
There were hurried questions which told their

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

own tale. "That is never Sir !" "I hope

that is not really ? " But when the first

shock was over, savoir faire and good temper
prevailed, and every one parted the best of friends.
Bosworth Smith was always more anxious to
hear what others had to say than to talk himself;
although he was a little shy by nature, his intense
interest in the small things of life as well as the
great quickly made him forget himself. In later
years, especially, in spite of the growing deafness,
which was his great trouble, his deference to the
opinion of others, his genuine sympathy, his eager-
ness to know and to hear, his wonderful and ready
memory, his sense of humour, made him the kindest
and most delightful of hosts.

" Among the residents of the town of Harrow,"
writes Mr. Edward Graham, "not connected with
the school, he had many friends, and always the
kindliest welcome from innumerable acquaintances.
It was astonishing how many personal calls he
managed to pay, and how many talks he had with
those who had any interesting experience to talk
about. For active social work among his fellow-
citizens he had neither the gift nor the leisure.
But those occasions on which he spoke in public
were always marked successes, and showed the
respect in which he was held by all alike, whether
they approved or disapproved of the view he had
expressed."

It was not only in Harrow that the Bosworth
Smiths saw their friends. They often dined in
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LIFE AT HARROW

London at houses where they met interesting
people, among others Tennyson, Robert Brown-
ing, Professor Drummond. One luncheon party
at Dr. Moncure Conway's included Mr. Lowell,
Froude, and John Bright. At the house of Bishop
Walsham How — a man whom every one loved —
they once met three authoresses, Edna Lyall, Jean
Ingelow, and Charlotte Yonge. They went regu-
larly to the receptions of the Royal Society and
Indian Association. In 1880, Bosworth Smith
became a member of the Athenaeum, and though
he did not go there very often, at one time his
visits generally meant talks with men like Dean
Bradley, Bishop Magee of Peterborough, Lord
Aberdare, Sir Edwin Arnold, or his old relative,
Colonel Pinney, from which he would come back
to his work happier and fresher.

He had, to no small extent, the faculty of venera-
tion, a faculty which is now held in light esteem,
and which seems, indeed, to have become almost
obsolete. Many of the friends whom he rever-
enced and loved belonged to the older generation,
and of those whose friendship, perhaps, he prized
most — Captain Eastwick, Sir Henry Yule, Lord
Ebury, Dr. Martineau, and Miss Anna Swanwick
— all have now passed away.

Among those whom my father came to know
in middle life, there was no one whom he rever-
enced more than Dr. James Martineau, the great
Unitarian divine, whose intellectual and moral in-
93

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

fluence on his own time are unquestioned. Sir
Edwin Arnold, in a letter to Bosworth Smith,
says : " He is, in my judgment, one of the three
chief masters of the high art of writing English
prose." Dr. Martineau, with his fine head, his
silver hair, his sad, clear blue eyes, which seemed to
look beyond material things, always appeared the
most impressive figure in any assembly where he
might be ; the eye was arrested by him, and his calm
and austere personality seemed to detach itself from
his surroundings and to exist on a more spiritual
plane. The impression of austerity lessened when
he spoke ; his kindness, his simplicity of character,
and his wealth of reminiscence made him a delight-
ful visitor. Dr. Martineau's many letters to Bos-
worth Smith show a remarkable openness and
confidence in him, and there was no man, perhaps,
with whom my father spoke more freely of the
deepest things of life than with Dr. Martineau.
Projects for ecclesiastical reform, which should
pave the way for national Christian union in
England, lay very near Dr. Martineau's heart, and
many of his letters refer to this subject. He seems
to have felt that he was before his time in these
ideas, and that the Church of England must abate
some of her claims before this union could become
possible. "Who can suppose," he wrote, "that
the expelled minorities will be charmed into her
embrace by the sound of the word ' Catholic '
in its present excommunicating sense ? . . . Such
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LIFE AT HARROW

as I am would easily be drawn into your Church
by a widening that is by no means impossible.
But the portion of the nation which represents
the Puritan element is as hopelessly irreconcil-
able with ' Prelacy ' as ever the Covenanters
were."

Once or twice my father kept notes of his many
talks with Dr. Martineau. In March 1888, he
writes : —

" Talk with Dr. Martineau on Liturgy. What
object in repetition in daily service of a creed,
by repeating which so many laymen forfeit their
honesty ? Why not keep it for ordination, con-
firmation, &c. ? Why also repeat all impreca-
tions in Psalms? Danger of all religious news-
papers becoming narrow, in that the reason of
their existence is to uphold one or other definite
line of thought. Had recommended new French
version of Bible by Reuss (aided by John Muir)
to Dean Bradley for use in his lectures on Job. —
Carlyle's bursts of fun after his explosions of wrath —
1 Those workmen are breaking every one of the ten
commandments with every stroke of their hammers ; '
his deference to his wife, her wit, her comparison
of a certain noble poet to 'a little cock robin
hopping about.' — ' I can bear the alterations in
the Old Testament better than I can in the New.'
No revision satisfactory by a committee. ' Deliver
us from the evil,' perhaps best, meaning ' the evil
of temptation.' — Cruelty less in England, except
among boys, than elsewhere; terrible in Africa
and China and Portugal."
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REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

Miss Anna Swanwick, the translator of /Eschylus,
was another friend of middle life to whom my father
was greatly attached. Miss Swanwick, in her puce-
coloured satin gown and black mittens, seemed to be
a kind of "fairy godmother," she was so diminutive,
so fragile, so old-world in appearance, so gifted,
and so wise. She ,was a wonderful talker — able
to hold her own, as the writer remembers, even
with Mr. Gladstone himself. Her words came
with a finish and grace and fluency which made
most other speech seem rude and halting ; but
when a reviewer characterised her conversation
as didactic, my father hastened to challenge the
criticism : —

V

" ' Didactic ' is the very last word which any one
who was capable of appreciating her delightful
conversation would think of applying to it. If it
was ' conversation ' in any true sense of the word
at all, it could not be ' didactic ' ; and if it was
'didactic,' it could not be really delightful. It
was sustained, suggestive, brilliant, original ; but
it was also simple, sympathetic, reciprocal. She
put every one at his ease in a moment, and she
talked almost as much upon the subjects suggested
by her friends as she did upon those started by
herself. Its charm, indeed, defied analysis. She
put the whole tenderness and variety and purity
of her character into it. No one ever came away
from a lengthened talk with her without feeling
himself strengthened, elevated, refined, humbled by
it. If he did not, it was his own, not her fault."
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LIFE AT HARROW

Dr. Martineau once said of her to Bosworth Smith,
" She was the noblest woman I have ever known."

It is often the small thing, the unimportant, that
one remembers when the memory has ceased to
hold the greater ; and the present writer recalls
a dinner-party at the Knoll, at which Sir Mount-
stuart Grant-Duff and Miss Anna Swanwick were
present. The conversation turned on ghost stories,
and Sir M. Grant-Duff read aloud a letter he had
just received, with a story of a lady who, when
for the first time she went over a house in Scot-
land which was said to be haunted, felt a strange
familiarity with each room, even recognising a
change made in the arrangement of certain vases.
She asked the housekeeper if she had ever seen
the ghost. With some hesitation, the housekeeper
replied, " Why, yes, madam, for it is you, yourself,
whom I have seen here." Miss Swanwick related
how, on one occasion when table-turning was in
vogue, she had taken part in a stance, at which
a celebrated medium was present, and how a ring,
that she herself was wearing at the time, had, as
her hands rested on the table, burst in two and
fallen on the table.

Yet another friend, whose letters and talk my
father appreciated very highly, was the vener-
able Lord Ebury. An acquaintance which was
begun by the return of a book which my mother
had left in the train, became a steady friendship.
Lord Ebury never failed to write sympathetic and
97 G

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

suggestive comments on any letter from Bosworth
Smith that might appear in the Times. After
his death at the age of ninety-two, in 1893, he
wrote of him in the Times : —

" While he had much sympathy with what was
new, his pronunciation of certain words and the
general tone of his thought carried one back to
the time of those who might have listened to Pitt
and Burke and Wilberforce. . . . An Englishman
to the backbone, enthusiastically fond of all English
sports, conspicuously aloof from all mere party spirit,
a supporter of every philanthropic scheme, clear-
headed, single-hearted, combining much of the
mellow wisdom of old age with much, feven to
the end, of the freshness of youth, God-fearing
and God-loving, he has carried many precious
memories with him, and there are, it is to be
feared, not too many public men of his kind left
among us."

Captain .Eastwick, who had been at Winchester
and Oxford with both Bosworth Smith's father
and father-in-law, was another friend of the older
generation, whose vivacious conversation and de-
lightful letters were from 1877 till his death in
1883 a constant source of pleasure to my father.
Captain Eastwick had been, among other things,
assistant political secretary at the India Office ; he
had translated a great deal from Persian and Hin-
dustani, and he had prepared a valuable handbook
on India for Mr. Murray. A man of generous
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LIFE AT HARROW

enthusiasms, of deep religious convictions, and great
warmth of heart, his strongly marked features and
bright eyes, with his look of intense life and in-
telligence and energy, recalled not a little the
outward characteristics of Mr. Gladstone, for whom
he was more than once mistaken.

Colonel, afterwards Sir Henry, Yule, was in
many ways a great contrast to his friend Captain
Eastwick. Colonel Yule had served with dis-
tinction in India under Lord Dalhousie and Lord
Canning, and on the India Council. His " Marco
Polo" and other works on Asiatic travel had
placed him in the front rank of geographers.
Colonel Yule, with his white hair, his refined and
beautiful face, and his quietness of manner, was in
outward appearance the ideal of a mediaeval stu-
dent ; but nearly everything that he said or that
he wrote — learned foot-note to a book of travels
or private letter to a friend — was illuminated by
a touch of humour, which made him the most
charming of authors and of companions. An
entry in my father's commonplace book (a store-
house of stories or passages which struck him
in the course of reading or conversation, from
which, however, it is, unfortunately, impossible to
quote here, because he nearly always forgot to
add the sources from which the words came),
says: "Colonel Yule told me of an Afghan trans-
lation of the New Testament, which turned the
command, ' Judge not, that ye be not judged,'
99

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

into ' Do not do justice, lest thou shouldest be
done justice to.'"

In 1895, Bingham's Melcombe, "an old manor-
house, which has every charm a house can have in
my eyes," came unexpectedly into the market. The
place had been familiar to Bos worth Smith, as an
ideal, at all events, all his life, and when the tele-
gram came which announced that he was the
successful purchaser, and that, thanks to the kind
exertions of Sir Robert Pearce-Edgcumbe, the
place was his, he was overjoyed. He could now
leave Harrow without the desolate feeling that he
was "going into the world houseless and homeless,
not knowing where I shall live." His father, of
whom his own words have drawn a picture to which
nothing need be added, died on Holy Innocents'
Day that year, and the old home at Stafford — the
cor cordium of his life — was broken up. But it was
something to feel that he was still rooted to Dorset
soil. His attachment to Bingham's Melcombe grew
with every visit that he paid to it during the school
holidays, and he looked forward to the time when
he should watch the whole seasons, and not parts
of each, pass over the woods and garden and downs
of his own home.

But the parting from Harrow was a wrench, all
the more, perhaps, that it was rather long drawn.
Dr. Wood, for whose continual kindness Bosworth
Smith always felt warm gratitude, asked him to
stay an additional two years after the age fixed for
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LIFE AT HARROW

masters to retire. At the final house-supper on
July 1 1, 1901, the largest gathering of its kind ever
known in Harrow, their beloved master spoke to
his old pupils for the last time ; he reviewed his
thirty-seven years at Harrow, and recalled old
stories and characteristics with the simple pleasure
which they had always given him.

" I never missed a house-supper," writes Mr. F.
Gore-Browne, K.C., " while I was in the house or
afterwards. It is difficult to say whether the
master's individual recollection of and affection for
each boy or the boys' enthusiasm for their old
friend was most remarkable. At the final house-
supper every heart was full, and the best crown we
could offer for the past years of generous work was
our gratitude and love, which every one present
gave to the utmost extent."

Mr. Yerburgh, on behalf of all the old pupils,
presented Mrs. Bosworth Smith with a diamond
bracelet, and to him they gave the fine portrait of
himself by Mr. Hugh Riviere. It was not the
first time his house had shown their affection to him
by presents in which they had all shared ; on his
silver wedding day they had given him a fine silver
dessert service ; but the portrait seemed to him to
represent the " concentrated affection of all the
pupils who had ever been under him." To those
who knew him best, the portrait, in refinement and
delicacy of characterisation — above all, in the ex-
pression of his blue eyes, thoughtful, gentle, and
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REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

profoundly touching — seems to be almost strangely
life-like, and to reveal something of the beauty of
his soul and mind.

Sir Archibald Geikie, K.C.B., then Director-
General of the Geological Survey of the United
Kingdom, wrote at this time : —

" In your case there will be an infinity of conso-
lation. . . . You have a splendidly useful past to look
back upon. You have gained the esteem and affec-
tion of every boy who ever sat under your class-
room roof, and of every governor who knew how to
appreciate the loyalty, devotion, and genius which
you have so long and so unsparingly given to the
school."

The thirty-seven years at Harrow were over,
and he could look back on a very strenuous, but on
the whole a very happy life. His children had,
most of them, gone out into the world. His eldest
son had married and settled in Florida ; his second
was in the navy ; two others were in South Africa,
and one in India, in the Indian Civil Service —
Nigel, who had rejoiced his father's heart by his
success at Harrow, where he had been head of the
school, winner of many prizes, in both the elevens,
and school racquet player. His youngest son was
already high up in the school at Harrow.

He had served under three Headmasters — Dr.
Butler, Mr. Welldon, and Dr. Wood ; and with the
death of Edward Bowen, he had lost the last col-
league who had been at Harrow when he first came
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LIFE AT HARROW

there. The sons of more than one of his old pupils
had passed through his house or form. He had
seen many changes, to which he could not always
easily adapt himself. He had made countless
friends, both connected with the school and beyond
it. He had produced three notable books, and he
had given of his best in letters, articles, and speeches
on many subjects, in burning protests against in-
justice, in appeals to patriotism in its best sense.
The time had fully come when he might learn one
of the few things he had never learnt — the joy of
leisure.

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CHAPTER IV
WORK AT HARROW

IF Bosworth Smith had at any time been asked to
write an article on his own theory and method of
education, he would undoubtedly have declined, on
the ground that he had nothing definite to say.
Probably he never formulated his theories even to
himself, and much of what he did for his pupils, and
of what he was to them, came from the unconscious
influence of his own personality, rather than from
any set scheme which he had put before himself.

For this reason, it is easier to show, by their own
words, what was the nature of his influence on those
around him, than to attempt to lay down the exact
principles that guided him. This chapter is little
more than a collection of impressions of his work
at Harrow, written by men who, in spite of the
natural divergence between their several points of
view, yet seem on this subject to think and feel
alike to a very remarkable extent. Influence, if it
is of the highest value, must touch the many, not
alone the few, and only by such a collection has it
seemed possible to bring out at all forcibly the deep
impression he made on men of many different
stamps.

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WORK AT HARROW

The following sketch of his work at Harrow, both
in relation to his pupils and to his colleagues, is by
Mr. Edward Graham, who knew more of him in
both capacities than any one else, for Mr. Graham
was head of his house, and later on returned to
Harrow as a master. They had much in common
with each other, including a love of flowers and
birds, and Mr. Graham proved himself, not least in
times of trouble and ill-health, the firmest and most
helpful of friends.

In a letter to Mr. Graham in 1901, thanking him
for an affectionate appreciation of his work at
Harrow, which he had written in the Harrovian,
Bosworth Smith said : " When I die, I shall
neither need nor deserve any other obituary notice
than yours, though I don't deserve half you have
said. What you have said of my wife is specially
precious to me." It seems peculiarly fitting, from
every point of view, that it should be Mr. Graham
who should sum up and describe, as far as possible,
his friend's work at Harrow : —

" For more than thirty years Reginald Bosworth
Smith presided over a house at Harrow, which was
always in full demand, and which for a considerable
period was the house in the school. Of all the
many generations which passed through his hands
the boys loved and respected him, and in after-life
treasured his friendship.

" What was the secret of this success ?

" First I would put the fact that he built and
opened his own house, and he was able to establish
105

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

his own traditions, and stamp his character upon the
life of his boys. Many a good schoolmaster has
had to fret and chafe for years against the inherited
traditions of his predecessor and the conservative
aversion of boys for change. ' Bos,' as every one
called him, was free from such trammels, and able
to strike out new lines for himself. He was all his
life a hater of ' red tape/ routine and those useless
privileges which entail the sacrifice of the weak to
the strong, or the young to the old ; and it suited
him to have no such restrictions to the freedom of
his own special developments in the government of
his house.

" But this consideration, though important, would
not carry a house-master far on the road to success.
He must be in himself a man of strong character,
wise tolerance, and real sympathy.

"In these three qualities Bosworth Smith was pre-
eminent. The rules he made were neither vexa-
tiously numerous nor draconic in their inelasticity.
But, with all good temper, he saw that they were
obeyed, and the punishment for the breach of them
was sure. His pupils were taught to feel that a
dishonourable action tarnished the house and deeply
pained the master of it. One of them has said that
he once went to the study in a totally unrepentant
frame of mind for some piece of ungentlemanly con-
duct : but when he realised how the knowledge of
it had hurt Bos, he said he could have kicked himself
all the way down the stairs. Indeed, his distress
and sorrow and sympathy often did more to touch
the heart of the offender than the punishment which
he had to bear. ' The worst of it all was, that it
hurt Bos so much,' one boy wrote to his father.
Troubles with his boys seemed to shake him to the
1 06

WORK AT HARROW

foundations, but it was in hours of remorse, or, it
might be, personal grief, that the boys learnt to know
more of his God-fearing, devout, and simple nature,
with its wide charity and firm beliefs.

"Again, it was a token of his strength that he im-
pressed so much of his own character on the house,
and induced the boys to do so much for him cheer-
fully. Did he wish a large field to enter for school
prizes, and attend his preparatory lectures on divinity,
history, or geography, at the sacrifice of their own
spare time ? He would select his candidates, often
from unpromising material, and his persuasion or
pressure to compete never failed. The house in
consequence reaped a rich harvest of prizes and
honours ; but Bos was just as pleased when a dull
boy got a good place and an honourable mention,
as when a clever boy was first. Did he require
maps and plans drawn for his lectures on Carthage
before the Royal Institution ? A pupil felt honoured
by the task of executing them on a sufficiently
gigantic scale, just as another would be proud to
write at his dictation some pages of the book he
was writing. Every boy was proud of doing him a
service; nobody thought of taking a liberty with him,
or at all events nobody thought of doing so twice.

" His tolerance was no less marked than his
strength : indeed the one was the outcome of the
other. One result of this tolerance was seen in the
cosmopolitan tincture of his house, especially during
his later years at Harrow. Bos worth Smith was a
name to conjure with in Eastern lands ; and he was
pressed to take under his roof princes from Persia,
India, Egypt, and Zanzibar.1 His colleagues often

1 The present ultan of Zanzibar and Prince Mohammed Hassan, a
cousin of the Kh dive's, were at one time in his house.

107

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

shook their heads over this admittance of coloured
races : but Bosworth Smith's own sympathies were
wide, and he thought that the advantage of an
English education should not be less widely opened.
Certainly the foreigners could have come under no
more tolerant guide of youth : he smoothed their
paths among English companions, and himself
showed them all that was best in English character.
On the whole his policy was justified by results.

" It is a common reproach against our public
schools that their products are too stereotyped : and
this is also true, to some extent, of the individual
houses in a school. The boy who deviates from
the house ' pattern ' is apt to suffer in the process of
having ' his corners rubbed off,' and the master too
may unconsciously contribute to this result, by a
failure to show interest in what are to him the less
congenial types. But Bos could be all things to all
boys. His mind had as many sides as the facets of
a diamond, and all were bright and attractive to the
young. The scholar and the athlete, the bookworm
and the sportsman, the naturalist and the traveller,
all alike found in him interest, encouragement, and
information. His first question to a new boy was,
' What is your hobby ? ' and he never committed
the faux pas of forgetting the individual's taste.
' Always aim at having a hobby of some sort outside
your usual work and play,' he said in 1903 to the
boys of his own first school. ' Collect something,
make yourselves strong in something ; even stamps
are better than nothing. But take up some branch
of natural history or poetry and it will be a joy to
you through life.' 'I would rather draw out what
is good in a boy than try to put anything into him,'
he used to say. And so in his nightly wandering
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WORK AT HARROW

round his house, from room to room, he would sit
and chat with each boy on his own subject. The
studious lad was led on to discuss his books ; the
naturalist told with glee of his last-found nest, or
mouse, or flower ; the traveller described his holiday
ramble, and received more illuminating information
in return ; the athlete found a sympathetic listener
to his scores or his failure to score. No boy or man
was ever dull in his eyes, except indeed the conceited,
and for them he had no soft corner of his heart.
But the unconventional boy was treated with the
same wise tolerance as the typical, and knew that
to his house-master he could look for that friendly
support which saved him from the sensations of a
pariah.

"And no less marked was his tolerance for the
offenders. It was his nature to trust boys, and to
let them know that they were trusted. I will not
say that he was never deceived : but he never
regretted confidence, and never failed to trust again
the boy who was clearly making a fresh start. Of
all the hundreds of boys who passed through his
hands, I only remember one whom he could not
forgive, and the mention of whose name he could
not bear — and he was right. He made allowance
for the weakness and inexperience of youth, and
maintained that offenders at school often made the
soundest of men in after life.

" Nor did he make the common mistake of exag-
gerating peccadilloes into deadly sins. For instance,
his house always had a notoriety for catapulting,
and many were the complaints from suffering neigh-
bours. The offenders, when caught, were duly
punished : but Bos in his heart was amused by this
outlet of the sporting instinct, and never pretended
109

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

that it was wicked. He himself alluded, in one of
his house-supper speeches, to the exploits of one
' master caterpulter who, like the left-handed Ben-
jamites of old, could catapult " to a hair's breadth and
not miss." In vain did he promise that he would
break himself of it, till he destroyed his store of
catapults. He kept his promise for just a fortnight,
and then, one Sunday morning, I found two wrens
lying dead side by side. His friend Barlow had
not yet been sent out, as he generally was, to bury
the dead and put a mark upon their graves. 1 went
up to Ramsay's room and simply said, " Where is
it ? " and he produced the fatal catapult.'

" He lived among his boys, and entertained them
frequently at his table with a flow of unaffected
chaff and amusement. One very special treat for
the boys with country tastes was an annual expedi-
tion to the neighbouring woods of Oxhey or Ruislip
in the summer term. A whole holiday would be
selected, and a long day's bird's-nesting enjoyed.
The score of nests and eggs discovered by each
member of the party was elaborately kept ; but no
one was allowed to take more than one or two eggs
from each clutch. Lunch and tea was provided by
Mrs. Bosworth Smith, and the incidents of the day
discussed over supper at the Knoll after the return.
One year he had first decided against an expedition
for a certain whole holiday : then about ten o'clock
he changed his mind, and sent for two boys to invite
them. To his surprise they raised difficulties and
urged postponement. However, he insisted, and
the expedition was made. Again he was surprised
to find languid searchers after nests, and his astonish-
ment culminated when several of the boys (includ-
ing his own son) fell asleep over tea. Then the
1 10

WORK AT HARROW

secret came out : at daylight in the early summer
morning the disappointed boys had escaped by a
sheet from a window, and had only just returned in
time to receive his invitation for an expedition to
the woods which they had already ransacked for
hours.

" Another institution at the Knoll, which no one
will ever forget, was the triennial house-supper, to
which every old boy received a cordial invitation.
' To the boys at large he seemed happiest, perhaps,
at some of the triennial house-suppers, which he
spared no pains to make memorable and complete.
His pride in his boys on those occasions was so
plain, and, as we thought, so amply justified. His
reminiscences, even of the ne'er-do-weels, were so
shrewdly humorous, so genially acute. And his
affection for us all, for good and bad, for prodigies
or dunces, was so large, so undeniably sincere, that
even the most grudging spirits must respond.' l

" The numbers attending these suppers steadily
grew, until the dining-hall at the Knoll became too
small, and a tent on the lawn was necessary to hold
the guests. * Old boys ' came from all corners of
the three kingdoms to meet their house-friends, to
discuss the old days and repeat the old stories, and
above all to testify their devotion to the master. It
was the custom, in the great speech after supper, to
record the achievements of the house during the
past three years, the distinctions of the former
members in their several professions, and the move-
ments of all those who had written to him from
distant lands. For every 'old boy' was encour-
aged to write to him from time to time ; and
they knew how it would rejoice Bosworth's heart

1 Mr. C. E. Mallet, M.P.
I I I

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

to hear of their doings, and their impressions of
travel, especially in the more untrodden paths of
the world. In this way, to a large extent, grew his
wonderful collection of antiquarian and barbarian
curios, sent to him by pupils and other friends,
whose wanderings led them far afield. Their letters
and their gifts show how often he was in their
thoughts, and how sure they were of his abiding
interest in all that they might see or do.

" But perhaps the greatest and best lesson that
he instilled, and that by his own example, was
simplicity. No man was ever more transparent
and free from mauvaise konte. His three great
books — the Lives of Mohammed, Hannibal, and
Lord Lawrence — show that he was an ardent hero-
worshipper : and of all heroic qualities he was most
attracted by simplicity. Again, he was a champion
of the weaker races of the world against aggression
or oppression : and it was the simplicity of these
children among the nations that most appealed to
him. And he was the same in all his dealings with
boys. If their lives and conversation were natural
and unassuming, he loved them one and all : but
for affectation and conceit he had a righteous horror.
The boys, too, saw his open life, for nothing was
concealed : and everything that he said or did was
straightforward, simple, and of good report.

" At that period of his life when he undertook so
much literary work, many of his friends, including
Edward Bowen, feared that the extraneous tasks
might absorb his energies to the detriment of
his service to school and house. But his boys
saw as much of their master in these as in other
years, and the rapidity of his work enabled him to
find time for literary tasks and social duties, added
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WORK AT HARROW

to his scholastic routine. That his subsequent health
suffered from the strain of these years is probable :
but at the time the difference was little noticed.

"And what of his teaching in form or pupil-
room ? Here, again, I think that the prevailing note
was unconventionality and freedom from routine.
He was a classical master, and during his thirty-
seven years at Harrow he took almost every form
in that department of the school, from the lowest
up to the Second Fifth. The classics, therefore,
were the staple of his teaching : but he treated
them in his own way, making more of the subject-
matter and the literary qualities of the author than
of the grammatical and linguistic envelope. Forty
years ago he was one of the first classical tutors at
Harrow to break away from the tyranny of Latin
verses, then enforced on all boys, for the majority
of whom they were useless and repellent. In their
place (though he continued to teach them admirably
to the good scholars) he substituted much geography
and history, of which subjects he was a born teacher.1
These lessons, with others on the Bible and Milton,2

1 Bosworth Smith says, in some notes on history teaching : w I
have no belief in teaching general truths or laws, unless there is a
good substratum in the learner's mind of facts behind them. The
abuse which Locke called ' principling ' the young is to be avoided
in history, even more than in other studies. General principles are
taught by crammers with frightful ease, and are reproduced with
frightful and often misleading fidelity by the examinees. If the boy
has a sufficient basis of facts to go on, he will be able to justify, to
illustrate, to criticise or to overthrow the general views brought before
him in lectures or in books, and he will be working on the inductive
method."

* He was wont to say that a passage could be found in " Paradise
Lost " to illustrate every event in human life and every condition of
mind, and the passage would usually rise at once to his memory with
the occasion that suggested it.

113 H

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

will always dwell in the memory of the boys who
passed through his form. The subjects, as treated
by him, lived and glowed with illustrations poured
upon them from all sources interesting to boys. No
one who had been to his history lectures could feel
again that history was a dull subject, and no geo-
graphy pupil could fancy again that geography was
a question of statistics and lists of products ; his
interest in travel, in native races, in ancient build-
ings, in different conditions of life, made geography
in his hands a most fascinating study. This power
of illustrating one subject by another, one period by
another, from his extraordinary memory and store-
house of knowledge, was attractive to the form,
but often sorely puzzling to his colleagues. Bos
would tell his form to find out by the next day
an incident parallel to some story in the life of
Abraham or Epaminondas or Oliver Cromwell.
' Ask your tutors,' was the only clue he gave : and
his poor colleagues would be tasked to search the
pages of Grote or Gibbon or Scott, rather than con-
fess to ignorance. In teaching the Bible he dwelt
chiefly on the historical groundwork of the Scrip-
tures and the moral qualities of Bible characters.
Illustrations from the Koran or other Eastern writ-
ings, from the ancient monuments and inscriptions,
and from secular history, made the Bible studies lucid
and human. I remember that during my own term in
his form, now more than thirty years ago, the period
was that of the Captivity and the Return ; and how
we all became absorbed in the identification of the
various Ahasueruses and Artaxerxes. Every week
this form had to write an exercise on the last Scripture
lesson : and the boys cheerfully spent hours in search-
ing the sources of information which he had indicated.
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WORK AT HARROW

" One of the duties of every tutor at Harrow
is to prepare boys for the annual Confirmation in
the school chapel. Bos's addresses were eminently
practical, and typical of his own simple and stead-
fast faith. I think now that his Christianity, at all
events thirty years ago, was strongly leavened by
the teachings of Dean Stanley and F. D. Maurice.
He did not dwell much on the Sacramental aspects
of the Faith. English boys are not often expan-
sive when being prepared for Confirmation : but he
invited us to bring him our difficulties, and I ven-
tured on some boyish objection to certain phrases
in the Church Service. His answer was charac-
teristic. He told me that, though the Prayer-book
was not altogether such as would nowadays be
written, he had personally only one serious objec-
tion, and that was to a phrase, or rather one word,
in the Invitation to Holy Communion, 'to be by
them received in remembrance of His meritorious
Cross and Passion, whereby alone we obtain remis-
sion of our sins and are made partakers of the
Kingdom of Heaven.' He thought the word
' alone ' was inconsistent with the boundless mercy
of God, as excluding from salvation so many millions
who could never have even heard of the Atonement
of Christ. And this remark was made just at the
time when he was publishing ' Mohammed.'

" Another feature of his form-teaching was the
introduction from time to time of ' Flower-schools.'
This meant the conveyance into school of large
baskets of flowers or leaves, which were held up
one by one, or passed round the benches for iden-
tification, and marks of course were given to the
knowledgeable boys, or the successful guessers. Or
again, he would spend ten minutes, before or after

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

school, on the terrace garden, of which he was for
years the loving custodian, and where a memorial
will shortly be erected ' to him by his old pupils.
Here he would go round the borders, followed by
his boys, telling them the names of shrubs and
flowers, and often awakening a lifelong love of
gardens. Or yet again, he would carry into school
a box containing a tit's nest with the mother closely
incubating, and pass her round the form. Or he
would stop the lesson in progress to ask a stumbling
construer to identify the bird that happened to be
singing in the garden below his windows. But
enough has been said to show how every lesson
was humanised, and why so many boys, whom other
masters pronounced dullards or Philistines, found
under him an outlet for general knowledge, and
continued to look back on their months under
Bosworth Smith as an efficient period of school-
teaching.

" So far I have written of Bos in his relation to
boys — what is my recollection of him as a colleague ?
Certainly he was highly popular with the staff: the
very fact that to every colleague he was 'Bos'
speaks for itself, and shows that there was nothing
distant or ' stand-offish ' about his personality. Not
that his friendships ever degenerated into famili-
arity, but that he kept no colleague, however junior,
at arm's length. He was punctilious about making
calls on the newcomers, and his hospitality at the
Knoll was widespread. Indeed, he was almost the
last of those who felt that regular and frequent
entertainment of his colleagues was a duty and a
pleasure. He had a quick eye for all men's good
qualities, and a generous recognition for keen and
devoted service to the school. No assistant master,
116

WORK AT HARROW

I think, ever had a serious quarrel with him, though
his assiduous vindication of the amiable culprits in
his house sometimes taxed the patience of more
draconic colleagues. Though friendly with all, and
censorious of none, he had of course his closer inti-
macies, with Dr. Montagu Butler, his Headmaster
for twenty years, with E. H. Bradby, Arthur
Watson, James Robertson, Charles Colbeck, H. G.
Hart, Thomas Field, and above all, with Edward
Bowen. To such friends the inmost treasures of
his mind and heart were revealed, with them he
took counsel on the more important issues of their
lives and his own. But to all his colleagues he was
accessible for advice in difficulties ; and the lessons
of his ripe experience were freely communicated,
and always given on the side of good temper, leni-
ency, and conciliation. At the same time he was,
in school matters as on public questions, fearless
in denunciation of injustice and wrong, whether to
masters or boys. Many a second chance was
given, at his timely instigation, to a young colleague
who seemed at first incapable of maintaining his
influence. Report has it that Bosworth Smith,
like Edward Bowen, was during his first term at
Harrow himself the victim of persecution from the
boys. Many a hasty or severe sentence on erring
youths was mitigated at his request. Many a jar
between discordant masters was smoothed or ex-
plained away.

"He was not, I think, strong in the talent for
organisation, for he loved a free hand himself, and
could not brook over-centralisation of authority or
1 bossing ' of any kind. Thus, in his later years at
Harrow, he was often found in opposition to reforms
which had become necessary in the organisation of
117

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

school studies, because he knew how to get good
work out of the old conditions, and dreaded the
inelasticity of new rules. When changes were
made, he would calmly proceed on the old lines,
and people only smiled and said, ' Bos is a char-
tered libertine.' Nor was he always effective at
the masters' deliberations. He lacked the rapid
play of Bowen's subtle argument and the concise
and business-like acumen of Colbeck's advice. He
relied too little on the living voice of advocacy, and
too much on written arguments, which he read from
manuscript, and which were often more weighty
than convincing."

What has been said of Bosworth Smith as a
colleague is borne out by the testimony of many
others. Dr. Butler writes : "He was, far more
than most men, ' born to be loved ' — so true, so
sympathetic, so loyal, so affectionate. What a
brotherhood we were years ago ! They were very
happy days, and I think we can see God's blessing
rested on them." " I am only one of hundreds,"
writes Dr. T. Field, Principal of Radley College,
" in whose lives his words and teaching and example
are a living force — people who are different and
who are better than they would have been, if they
had never known him — and, as they think of this
or find themselves doing that, say, not unfrequently,
' This was his way and that is what he said.' " " One
of the dearest men that ever lived has gone," writes
another colleague, Mr. A. J. Richardson, who was
most kindly " lent " to him by the Rev. J. Sanderson
118

WORK AT HARROW

of Elstree, when he could ill be spared. " How I
cherish his memory, and how vividly I remember
the two happy terms I spent at the Knoll. I
assuredly learnt far more than I taught."

What was the feeling of his pupils towards him,
and what was the impression that he made on them ?
The answer can best be given in their own spon-
taneous words, taken from a few of the many sources
available.

Sir George Douglas, Bart., writes, in some
Harrow recollections published in " Scottish Art
and Letters " : " With special gratitude and affec-
tion,the writer remembers Mr. R. Bosworth Smith.
What could be done to instil life into instruction,
to rouse the powers of the budding mind — this that
gentleman assuredly accomplished. Whether others
felt as I did I know not, but for myself his wide
range of learning, to which * the charm of nature '
in him imparted unfailing interest, made the hours
spent in his class-room by far the pleasantest of the
day." " I never knew an old Harrovian whose face
did not light up with a kindly smile when his name
was mentioned," writes one who was not himself a
Harrovian. " It was you," writes a former pupil who
is making a career in literature, " who first impressed
upon me the need for that width of mind and the
broadest culture which your works so splendidly
illustrate." Another, who found himself the master
of a great factory soon after leaving school, writes
that he owes his love of English literature, which
119

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

is the joy of his short leisure, to Bosworth Smith's
suggestive lessons. " He humanised everything,
even Latin and Greek," is a phrase that recurs
constantly when men wrote or spoke of his teaching,
and the burden of many letters is, as one of his
numerous Australian pupils put it, " Our affection
for you grows greater as we become better able to
appreciate how good you were to us."

" There never was a kindlier teacher and friend,
nor one who did more to develop whatever good
or useful was to be found in his pupils," writes Mr.
F. Gore-Browne, K.C. " No one could wish for a
better training for a young mind than he gave ; it
was well for me that that time of growth was
directed by the kindliest and most intelligent care,
which could overlook weaknesses and vanities, or,
better still, could direct them so as to be sources of
advantage. It has always been marvellous to me
how any man could, in addition to his school work,
undertake such exacting literary work as he did.
I can only say that the stupendous labour never
prevented us boys getting attention to all our needs
and helps in our own affairs."

" He made us all feel that the ordinary work was
part of a large whole," writes a pupil who had good
reason to know him well, " and that education was
not simply learning things for examinations. He
could make the different things interesting by allu-
sions and quotations, and the secret of his success
in actual teaching was that he was so intensely
120

WORK AT HARROW

interested in the subject himself. Although I was
very bad at history and geography, I remember I
used to love these lessons with him. He made all
the characters so human and the places to which he
had been so real. He kept us all alert and atten-
tive. It was his idea to stimulate us to effort and
thinking for ourselves, more than merely to teach
us facts. I remember how extraordinarily success-
ful he was in making boys keep their eyes open to
what was going on around them. When a boy was
asked if he had noticed something or other unusual
on his way to school, and said he had not, Bos used
to make him come to him every single school and
tell him of some new thing he had noticed. I re-
member one boy who, after a few weeks of this,
became splendidly observant. He made us all love
Milton, even though we could not really understand
it very well then. He read it out to us, asking
questions and explaining it as he went. My general
impression of the effect of his form on me and other
boys was, that we began to be interested ' in things
in general.' Of course I was very lazy then, mainly
because I wanted to have two terms instead of one
in his form."

The mother of a boy in his form once gave him
real pleasure by quoting what her boy had said :
" Why, mother, it's delightful ; it's the nicest form
in the school ! "

" One day in school," writes one who remembered
the incident, " a sound of laughter came up from

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REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

Mr. Field's schoolroom not far off. Bos sent down
a boy to ask Mr. Field, 4 Please, sir, Mr. Bosworth
Smith wants to know what the joke is ? ' And when
it was duly brought up to the form, it had the same
happy effect there. Mr. Field had been asking who
had been born in different places, such as 'Who
was born at Stratford-on-Avon ? ' and ' Who was

born at ? ' when a very small boy, quite low

down and usually silent to every question, became
wide awake, and volunteered quickly to give the
answer. ' Well, who was it ? ' ' Please, sir, /was.' "
" No one can tell what he did for me at Har-
row," writes one who was in his house there, " and
what a good friend he was to us all — he was more
like a kind father to his house, and we always felt
our troubles and joys were his as much as ours."
" I owe and never could have repaid a great debt
of gratitude to him for kindness and sympathy and
encouragement at a time when they were of very
special value to me," writes another. " All that he
was to us boys at Harrow we can never adequately
measure or express. His power of never losing
that most attractive care and sympathy for all who
had been in his house has been most inspiring and
touching to us all," writes a third. Such testimonies
could be .multiplied almost indefinitely ; they show
the close tie between the boys and the master, of
whom again and again they wrote, " he was not like
a master to us, he was like a friend ; we trusted
him and we loved him."

122

WORK AT HARROW

He won this trust and love without conscious
effort, for no man ever courted popularity with boys
less than he did. He was simply his natural self
with them ; always young at heart, the boy in him
responded quickly to what was amusing in their
ways and ideas, and his sympathy was always open
to the less easily understood or the less generally
liked among them. His own words about one who
was cast in no ordinary mould throw a sidelight on
his relations with a difficult type of character, and
illustrate the deep interest he felt in the careers of
his pupils. Harold Brown, who was a fearless
traveller in little-known countries, was one of
Wilson's force, who in 1894 died fighting against
heavy odds in Matabeleland.

"I doubt," he wrote, "whether a spirit such as
his could have remained subject to any strict or
unsympathetic discipline without a violent and
probably, at least, a partially successful effort to
throw it off. He could not put two lines of Latin
and Greek together without alarming mistakes.
What he did not like, he could hardly be prevailed
upon to do at all. But he was a fellow of great
ability, of wide and varied reading, and with almost
a touch of genius, which came out alike in his
English verse and in his English essays. Above
all, he was a true and stalwart and resourceful
friend. I well remember how his face, which was
usually firm set, would brighten up when anything
came uppermost in form which appealed to the
spirit of adventure, the spirit of discovery, which
have done so much to build up and preserve the
123

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

vast fabric of the British Empire. He never re-
turned from one of his adventurous journeys with-
out coming straight to me to report progress, as
I had begged him to do, when I first saw in my
form the stuff of which he was made. ... He
was with the pioneers who first made their way
to what is now called Fort Salisbury, and a letter
which he wrote to me describing his adventures
with the lions which then swarmed in the country,
was so full of out-of-the-way information and so
graphic, that I sent it on to the editor of the Pall
Mall Gazette, who published it anonymously. It
caught, however, the ever-wakeful eye of Mr. Cecil
Rhodes in South Africa, who immediately wrote
to the editor, asking him to divulge the name of
his talented correspondent, doubtless that he might
utilise his resourceful energy in extending and
cementing that South African Empire, the furthest
bound of which he has just stained with his blood.
It is probably the death of all others which, if die
he must, he and his companion in the death struggle,
Harry Kinloch, would have chosen to die."

It was a delight to Bosworth Smith to keep
in touch with his pupils. Their long letters to
him from all parts of the world, telling of their
sport or work in life, whatever it might be,
show how sure they were of his sympathy and
interest, although some twenty or even thirty
years might have passed since they had left
Harrow. He was wont to dash off an answer by
return of post — a delightful letter, that could have
been written by no one else — often barely legible,
124

WORK AT HARROW

in spite of his efforts, full of sympathy and
news and interest. " I had so much to tell
him," wrote a former pupil, whom he loved,
from a distant city in Asia Minor, when the
news of his death reached him, for no one could
appreciate more keenly than Bosworth Smith
accounts of native character and customs, or know
better the topography and history of that remote
region.

No fact about his Harrow life made more im-
pression on his own family — and they alone could
fully realise all it meant — than his painstaking pre-
paration of each lesson as it came. "Surely you
know all about Hannibal or Ovid or the Battle of
Salamis ? " they would say to him ; and so in all
probability he did : but for all that, he would leave
his gardening or his absorbing literary work, and
concentrate his mind on the task in hand ; and it
is not too much to say, that he never once went
to his pupils without having gone carefully through
the lesson beforehand and having verified the
illustrations and quotations which suggested them-
selves. Only by this conscientious refreshment of
his memory could the teacher, he thought, keep
his knowledge accessible, and bring freshness and
accuracy to his lesson.

Possunt quiet posse videntur — "They can, be- |l

cause they think they can " — was the motto he

gave his form, and there is something stimulating

even in the possession of such a motto, however

125

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

little individuals may live up to it ; more stimu-
lating still was the force of the daily example of
untiring service and unflagging enthusiasm before
them.

From one point of view, what a Sisyphean task,
renewed three times a year, to bring a batch of
boys up to a certain point of knowledge by the end
of a term, only to know that they will be succeeded
by another set for whom the same process must be
repeated ! But Bosworth Smith's enthusiasm for
his subjects, his human interest in his work, and his
sense of humour, helped him through much which
would otherwise have seemed monotonous drudgery.

In his speech at his final house-supper, which
abounds in humorous allusions and reminiscences
of too personal a nature for quotation, he rejoiced
in the keenness his house had shown in taking
part in competitions for prizes, in the " intellectual
energy, which is the greatest of all desiderata at
Harrow, in extra work, and in voluntary work "
which these competitions entailed. " This has
produced an esprit de corps in the house, such
as, I think, nothing else could have done. Once
and again, when after we have, perhaps, carried
off three prizes out of four, or perhaps all four,
and some one in the house has come out
fourth or fifth, I have sent for him to condole
with him, the response has almost invariably been,
' Never mind, sir, the house has got it.' That is
house patriotism of the noblest kind."
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WORK AT HARROW

" Boys are undeniably anxious to excel at
games," Mr. H. T. Hewett wrote, in an appre-
ciation of his old master, which appeared in
Bailys Magazine for December 1908, "and do
not require any incentive to do or die for the
glory of their house. Intellectual distinctions
are generally a more selfish and personal matter
— at least, so we always regarded school prizes,
until Bosworth Smith came along and taught
us to win prizes for the honour of the house.
The English subjects — history, geography, and
divinity — as being open to all, whether or no
they possessed a profound knowledge of Latin
and Greek, were the subjects upon which he
elected to coach his boys, and to teach them to
improve their minds for the good of the house.
The idea of impressing upon boys the existence of
esprit de corps in extra work of a voluntary nature
was a daring one, and other masters must have
smiled inwardly at these boys of no marked ability,
who were the first to yield with puzzled faces to
his gentle pressure.

" Here is an instance of his method : a member
of his house, with a mere bowing acquaintance
with the classics, was fortunate enough to get into
the school football eleven. Bos was most sym-
pathetic in his congratulations. ' But,' he added,
with a twinkle in his eye, ' you must not let your-
self be known merely as an athlete ; you must culti-
vate your abilities more than ever in other respects.
So come to my private reading-classes and help
the house to win the geography prizes as well
as the Cock House match.' And, of course, the
footballer became — thanks to skilful coaching — a
127

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

geographer, and did happen to pull off the double
event."

As to the " gentle pressure " alluded to by Mr.
Hewett, Bosworth Smith was wont to say that
in later years it was rather the boys who pressed
him than he who pressed them. "Once or twice
I have forgotten to ask one boy or another to
come in, and he has generally come to me with
a stern rebuke."

But though the English subjects that he taught
were specially dear to him, though he cared greatly
for the prestige of his house, it was in no sense
for the momentary success of prize-winning that
he worked. It was of the life beyond and after
Harrow that he thought. His flower - schools,
his lectures on natural history, the hours devoted
to history or geography which might have been
play hours, did they not show the way to habits
of observation, which must needs stand a man in
good stead, be his career what it may? to new
fields of pleasure and interest, which would only
increase with the years ? When he taught his
boys to respect the high traditions of the house,
to care for its honour, and to spare neither time
nor effort for its sake, was he not training them
to reverence what is best in the past, to feel re-
sponsible for "moral continuity" with it, and to
an ideal of citizenship, of self-sacrifice for cause
and country?

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WORK AT HARROW

This record of the impression made on many
minds by Bosworth Smith's personality and teaching
would not be complete without some allusion to
his relations with the parents of his boys. Two,
out of the many kind and cordial letters which
came to him, must stand as a testimony to what
many parents felt and said : —

" Under your admirable influence," wrote the
late General C. E. Luard, " my boy's career at
Harrow has been a constant source of satisfaction
to me, and whilst feeling very proud of him, I
very fully recognise the deep debt of gratitude
which I owe to you for all your goodness to him.
It is your own high character which moulds your
boys, and I know that our connection is not severed
simply because my boy will no longer be under
your charge."

"Although I am a stranger to you," wrote Mr.
R. Reade of Wilmont, Co. Antrim, "you are not
a stranger to me. My acquaintance with you
began by my reading the ' Life of Lord Lawrence.'
It has been ripened by my two boys, who were
at Harrow — not in your house — to whom you ex-
tended the great kindness of occasional invitations,
and who used to speak of you with enthusiasm.
It was, indeed, under a title, wanting apparently
in dignity, but which, I believe, actually signified
both affection and respect."

One who knew Bosworth Smith well has re-
corded his impressions of the many talks on school-
129 i

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

mastering they had together in later life, when
Bosworth's own direct connection with the work
was over : —

" I always thought he was a wonderful example
of how impossible it was for boys to understand
what is really being done for them by schoolmasters.
I knew so many Harrovians who were under him :
all of them loved him, but they naturally did not
realise the immense cleverness that underlay his
methods in dealing with boys. They looked on
his keenness for his house and so on just merely
as some personal characteristic of his own, never
stopping to think that the man, who was writing
books that will always live, could all the time carry
out a deeply thought out scheme for the moulding
of those who came under him, on lines broader
than anything conceived by the ordinary type of
successful schoolmaster. In fact, he was one of
the very few in our profession to set before him-
self something beyond the school and its life, and to
work for a citizenship of manhood, hoping — perhaps
often against hope — that such work might really
endure. It was the wider outlook, the larger scope,
the instinct that taught him that nothing based on
compulsion can permanently endure, which led him
to work on lines all could not understand. He
spent his life in a profession where motives for a
particular course of action are nearly always mis-
understood, where patience is too often mistaken
for leniency, and where success from the world's
point of view is generally the result of the exercise
of just those qualities which should never or very
seldom be brought into play in dealing with the
young. The ' successful ' schoolmaster is often the
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WORK AT HARROW

man who is too inclined to be intolerant of the
tiresome, the backward, and lazy boy ; who is too
apt to regard a flower-bed standard of excellence
and a good all-round show in an examination as
the criterion at which we ought to aim. Bosworth
Smith was the exact opposite of this ; he was
always ready to leave the ninety and nine and go
after the one lost sheep ; and not only that, but
the splendid spirit of contradiction within him led
him to see all sorts of dormant qualities for good
in the sinner, which these strenuous, self-centred
persons had neither the time nor patience to
discover. Here lay the secret of his power,
and his personal * encouragement ' that was the
watchword of his Gospel. He once said to me,
' Till boys are twenty years old, we ought to try
and educate ourselves to believe that, no matter
how flagrant their actions may appear, they are
too young and inexperienced to do anything which
should really put them out of court.' That was the
man's view of life. A high standard for himself,
a broad outlook for those with whom he had to
deal, an outlook terminated neither by the class-
room or playing field, infinite patience, infinite
enthusiasm, and above all a sense of humour which
nothing could dim or destroy. He saw something
good in every one, and he believed in dwelling
on the good side."

" School life may have its limitations," Mr. C. E.
Mallet, M.P., writes, "but it never limited Bos's
activity or dulled his mind. It gave him a daily
opportunity of doing admirable work. It enabled
him to take, outside of Harrow, a part in literature
and politics which reflected honour on the school

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

he served. It won him a wide company of warm
and grateful friends. And it has left to those
of us who knew him the memory of a nature
singularly true, counting, with its simplicity and
tenderness, among the best things that our lives
have known."

From the many letters which came from those
who had been with him at Harrow, after he had
passed away, it would be almost sacrilege to quote ;
but two sentences, eloquent in their simplicity, may
bear witness to the love his pupils bore him : " I
am too miserable to write, but I must tell you
how all my heart is with you, and how it aches.
I loved him so much, and he was such a friend
to me." "He was the best friend I ever
had."

To those who read that outburst of affection,
it seemed that he would have wished no more
precious memorial. But he would have prized,
as those nearest to him prize, the great memorials
at Harrow — the marble tablet in the chapel, and
the beautiful balustrade on the chapel terrace,
which will remain as a lasting testimony to the
warm and generous affection he called forth.
The words inscribed in the chapel can hardly
fail to bring up a picture of his many-sided
and beloved personality, not only for those who
know how true they are, but for generations
yet to come : —

132

WORK AT HARROW

IN MEMORY OF V

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford,
From 1864 to 1901 a Master at Harrow,

Historian, Biographer, Naturalist.

A Born Teacher of History and Literature,

A Weighty Speaker on Truth and Justice,

A Generous Champion of Weaker Races,

A Loving Student of Birds and Flowers,

He drew to Himself the Hearts

Of Boys, Masters, and Friends,

And left a Name Honoured and Beloved

At Harrow, in His Country,

And in Distant Lands.

Born June 28, 1839. Died at

Bingham's Melcombe, Oct. 17, 1908.

133

Y

/VCHAPTER v

MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM

As soon as the idea of writing on Mohammedanism
had assumed definite shape, Bosworth Smith set
himself to study all the material in European lan-
guages which was accessible to him on the subject.
The Koran itself he read several times continuously
from beginning to end, both in the orthodox and
chronological order — a task which Bunsen and
Sprenger and Renan all pronounce to be almost
impossible.

The fascination of the subject grew quickly upon
him. The unchanging nature of Islam, the sim-
plicity of its creed, its resistless spread, the wild
races who profess it, the character of its founder,
its likeness and unlikeness to Christianity — all ap-
pealed almost equally to the intellect and to the
imagination.

Further study made him realise that "most
Christian writers had approached Islam only to
vilify and misrepresent it " ; and his strong sense of
justice impelled him to make an attempt "to treat
it, not merely with a cold and distant impartiality,
but even with something akin to sympathy and
friendliness."

134

MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM

It is impossible here to give more than a bare
outline of the scope of the book, but this much at
least is necessary, to account for the storm of criti-
cism which some of the opinions it contained created,
and also because, though time of course modified
many of those opinions, still his general attitude to
religious questions remained unaltered to the end of
his life.

Moreover, a study of the relations between
Christianity and Mohammedanism cannot but be
of permanent interest and importance to English
people, for "the King of England rules over sixty
millions of the followers of the Prophet in India — a
greater number, that is, than those under the direct
rule of the Sultan of Turkey himself" ; and with the
extension of our Empire in Africa, we must in every
direction come into contact with the forces of Islam.

Briefly, then, the preface states that the lectures
are " an attempt to render justice to what was great
in Mohammed's character and to what has been
good in Mohammed's influence on the world. To
original research they lay no claim, nor indeed to
much originality at all."

Starting with the postulate that all religions are
holy ground, and that they differ in degree rather
than in kind, Bosworth Smith claimed that from
the study of Mohammedanism, the latest and most
purely historical religion, something of the develop-
ment of other religions could be learnt. Christianity
should not claim the monopoly of all that is good
135

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

and true, nor is it the only revelation of Himself
that God has given to the world. Then he traced
the history and spread of Islam, and drew a com-
parison, which was not in favour of the Christians,
between the success of Christian and Mohammedan
missions, notably in Africa. He examined the life
and character of Mohammed himself, and the violent
misrepresentations of the Prophet and his work
which had obtained everywhere, down to the days
of Gagnier, Gibbon, and Carlyle ; and while he was
compelled to admit certain grave moral charges
against Mohammed, he yet claimed that he was in-
deed an inspired Prophet of God, and that Moham-
med himself had never lost his own faith in his
inspiration and in his mission. The essence of
Mohammedanism was a belief, not only in the unity
of God, but in Him as a righteous Ruler, to whose
will it was man's duty to submit ; and this faith,
which, if need be, might be enforced by means of
the sword, meant the overthrow of idolatry wherever
it spread in Arabia and Africa, and the substitution
of a far higher form of worship and a far purer
moral system.

Finally, with the question before him, what should
Christians think of Islam and how should Christian
missionaries approach it, he dwelt on the points of
resemblance rather than of difference between the
two religions, and on Mohammed's reverence for
the Founder of Christianity, although he knew only
the Christ of tradition, and not the Christ of the
136

MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM

Gospels. Christianity, he argued, was better suited
to the higher and more progressive races and
Mohammedanism to the lower and more stationary
races of the world. It was impossible that Islam
should give way before Christianity altogether, but
Christian missionaries might do much to revive and
purify Islam, not by discrediting Mohammed and
the Koran, but by dwelling on the morality rather
than on the dogmas of Christianity, and on the
simpler truths which underlie and are common to
both religions.

The limit of time imposed for the lectures necessi-
tated great condensation, but the style was forcible
and eloquent, and there was throughout a sincerity
and earnestness and a spirit of tolerance, combined
with a strong religious feeling, which lifted the book
to a high plane. If it contained passages which
might have been written otherwise, had the author
himself lived in Mohammedan countries ; if it con-
tained passages which he modified or omitted in
later editions, this scarcely detracted from the value
of the book as a whole, and the general verdict,
when the clouds of controversy had cleared away,
seemed eventually to be that the lectures had marked
a new era of criticism on the subject.

At first, however, the book met with scant appre-
ciation. The Church papers — the Guardian alone
excepted — fell on it, almost with one accord, with a
bitterness and violence which showed plainly enough
the need of its teaching. The Church Missionary
137

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

Intelligencer, in particular, though the reviewer
asserted that there was nothing original in the book
from cover to cover,1 devoted some twenty pages
to the demolition of both its theories and statistics.
Another paper found that the author's ignorance of
Oriental languages and his lack of acquaintance with
Mohammedan countries put him out of court at
once ; a third inquired what the parents of Harrow
boys must feel, now that they realised into what
hands they had committed their sons.

Bosworth Smith had, of course, expected criticism
from certain quarters. His first assumption, that
religions differ in degree and not in kind, his views
concerning miracles, shocked many of the older
school ; his comparison, actual or implied, between
the Koran and the Bible, and between Mohammed
and the Founder of Christianity — reverent and
entirely Christian, as it must seem now to an unpre-
judiced reader — laid him open among one class of
critics to the charge of Unitarianism ; while his bold
assertion that Mohammedanism is better suited to
certain races than Christianity itself, and his sugges-
tions as to the methods of Christian missionaries,
naturally aroused great indignation among the mis-
sionary societies. Contempt and obloquy, though

1 Much the same view was apparently taken by the author's eldest
son, then aged five, who, seeing the book in a shop window, asked
his father, " What is Mohammed and Mrs. Mohammed about ?" and
when a short explanation was given him, said, " It has either all been
told before, or else it is a make up " — a veritable dilemma, as his
father had to confess.

138

MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM

they are scarcely criticism, are yet capable of inflict-
ing real pain ; but what concerned him far more
than newspaper attacks was the attitude of some
of his personal friends and near relations. Here
again, however, he had realised beforehand that
many of his views must needs perplex and pain
those who clung to a different idea of Christianity ;
and it is a proof of his sincerity, if proof were
needed, that when he published his book, he knew
that he must face the risk of grieving his parents,
whom he revered and loved so intensely. The
long correspondence about the book, which followed
its publication, with his parents and with others of
the same way of thinking, brings out his gentleness
and his respect for the opinions of others, even
when they seemed to him bigoted and illogical.
"I firmly believe," wrote an old friend, "that God
speaks of the Mohammedan delusion as smoke from
the bottomless pit. . . . God may use Mohammed,
as He did Sennacherib or Satan himself, but that is
a different matter."

To a lifelong friend, Mrs. Knipe, Bosworth Smith
wrote on June 4, 1874 : —

" It is a new and very strange sensation to me to
feel that, though the book has as yet a small circu-
lation, it is stirring so many widely different minds.
I certainly feel the responsibility which you spoke
of before. I am quite aware that if the book is
misrepresented, as it is almost sure to be in all the
so-called religious newspapers, it must be the in-
139

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

direct cause of some mischief, but I cannot look
upon myself as responsible for misrepresentation.
The thrill of delight that Gladstone's letter gave
me was, I believe and hope, quite as much because
of the earnest it seemed to give me that the book
was good and useful, as that it was that he was
kind enough to consider it able and interesting.
But a review such as that in the Christian Obsewer,
which is sure to be followed by similar ones in the
Record, will, I fear, do not so much harm to the
book, as make the book the innocent cause of harm,
and this really troubles me : moreover, it will perturb
my dear father's mind again, after he has taken it
all so sensibly and justly and equably. Altogether,
just now I am more anxious than happy about it,
though I am as convinced as ever that the book
was called for, and that it is really an influence in
the right direction, and essentially Christian. ... I
am glad you like the style of the book, though it
was the last thing I thought of in writing. My
object was always to let the thought set the style
and suggest it, and not vice versa"

To a friend who took a very severe view of his
opinions, he wrote later on : —

" I feel, as you remark, the great responsibility of
publishing a second edition of my book. I know
that I have made mistakes of details, that I may be
wrong in some important matters, that I have pur-
posely not dwelt upon the dark side of the picture
in Mohammedan countries now ; but, on the other
hand, subsequent study, and the opinion of compe-
tent judges in all parts of the world, encourage me
to cherish the hope, that the spirit with which I at
140

MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM

least tried to approach the subject is the right spirit
for my purpose. The creeds as creeds have very
much in common, and the system of morality they
inculcate has so many points in common, that I am
very sanguine as to the influence Christianity may
have on Islam, even if it does not make many
Muslims Christians."

" Never having been in the East," Bosworth
Smith says in some notes on this subject which he
made in 1886, "and not having the chance of study-
ing Oriental languages, I had only ventured to hope
that the book might interest some who were almost
ignorant of the subject. But much to my surprise
and pleasure, the book was taken up and carefully
criticised by Orientalists everywhere.1 It was re-
published in America, and has been translated into
Hindustani (by Mir Aulad AH of Trinity College,
Dublin). It was reviewed appreciatively by Dr.
George Percy Badger (the famous Arabic scholar)
in the Contemporary Review ; by Professor Noldeke,
the highest German authority on the subject ; by
Professor E. H. Palmer in the Quarterly Review ;
and by Dr. Blyden in a series of very remarkable
articles in Frasers Magazine. Dr. Blyden is an
African of the purest Negro blood, a man of great
ability, and an accomplished linguist ; his articles
form, I think, an epoch in the history of the Negro
race. To this day, I am told that I am prayed for
in the mosques along the West Coast of Africa, as
having attempted to do justice to Islam, as a civi-
lising and elevating agency among pagan Negroes.

1 It is not too much to say that the book has been used and quoted
as an authority by the writers of nearly every subsequent work on
Mohammedanism or kindred subjects.
141

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

This is worth mentioning, as showing that in the
uncompromising support I have given to the best
of my ability to the English National Church, I
have done so from no mere narrow or partisan or
sectarian point of view. The book has brought me
close friends and interesting correspondents in all
parts of the world, not least among the native
races, to the better aspects of whose creed I have
attempted to do full justice, such as the Persians,
the Afghans, the Mohammedans of India, the
Turks, the Moorish races, and the Negroes."

Keenly sensitive as Bosworth Smith always was
alike to praise and blame, appreciation from a quarter
where appreciation meant valuable encouragement
gave him intense pleasure.

The first favourable review of the book appeared
in the Academy, and was from the pen of Mr.
Stanley Lane-Poole. Mr. Lane-Poole comes of a
family of celebrated Orientalists, and the grand-
uncle of whom he speaks was Edward William
Lane, the acknowledged chief of Arabic scholars,
author of " Modern Egyptians," translator of the
" Thousand and One Nights," and compiler of
the Arabic lexicon.

"On this subject," Mr. Lane-Poole writes, "there
is not now much need of original research. Spren-
ger has collected almost everything that bears upon
the question of Mohammed's character and teach-
ing. What is wanted is exactly what Mr. Smith
possesses — a clear judgment, unfettered by a too
142

MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM

dogmatic form of religious belief, and free from the
cynical distrust of humanity which Sprenger occa-
sionally manifests."

And in a private letter to the author, Mr. Lane-
Poole says : —

"You will be pleased to hear I talked the whole
question over very carefully with my grand-uncle,
Mr. Lane — to whom I, like my father, am indebted
for whatever knowledge of Arabic and of Arab ways
and thoughts I have — and I am led to believe that
my grand-uncle takes almost exactly the same view
I do myself with regard to your very interesting
book. If he and I differ at all on the subject, it is
only on account of the difference which must always
exist between one man's view of a religious question
and another's. You may therefore look upon my
view as being substantially Mr. Lane's opinion,
though he probably would take scarcely so enthusi-
astic an estimate of the Prophet as I do."

Two characteristic letters from Mr. Gladstone,
for whom at this time Bosworth Smith felt the most
enthusiastic veneration, must be quoted : —

21 CARLTON HOUSE TERRACE, S.W.,
May 14, '74-

MY DEAR SIR, — I am very much obliged to you
for kindly sending me a copy of what I easily per-
ceived to be a very able and interesting work on a
most important subject.

In your general principles of judgment upon

religions other than our own, if I understand them

aright, I should concur : but it seems to me that

there may conceivably be a difference in kind of

143

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

religions taken objectively, while there may be a
difference in degree only as to religions taken sub-
jectively. Nor have I as much faith as you in
amalgamated religion. Thus far I have only read
the two first lectures, but I shall proceed to those
which follow with an enhanced desire.

You would do me a favour if you could direct me
to any sources where I might obtain information as
to the preference of the Arabs or other Orientals for
the mare. I believe the point to run back in a most
curious manner as far as Homer.

It gives me much pleasure to learn that my transla-
tion of the reply of Achilles interested you. — Believe
me, faithfully yours, W. E. GLADSTONE.

HAWARDEN CASTLE, CHESTER,
October 22, '74.

MY DEAR SIR, — I have only very lately received
your interesting letter of the 4th.

I am very glad that you take so indulgent a view
of my paper on Ritualism, and that you so accu-
rately estimate its purpose.

I perceive its point of fact with your own most
interesting disquisition. From that point of contact
there opens a subject of exceeding width, as to the
principle of accommodation in religion. I think you
would find much interesting matter on this subject
in two authors whom I will venture to mention.
One of them is Gioberti in the Gesuita Modicino.
He discusses at great length and censures severely
the accommodations of the Jesuits in China. The
other is a greater man by much, though Gioberti
was not small ; namely, Leibnitz, who, living at the
time, discusses the same questions, and I believe
takes the side of the Jesuits strongly against the
144

MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM

Pope. But I have not read what he has written.
I speak from a very full and large account of his
opinions by Dr. Pichler, Theologie des Leibnitz,
Munchen, 1836.

Thank you very much for all you have told me
about the mares. The preference certainly sup-
plies a new link between Homer, and thus between
Europe and the East, and helps to make up an
item in a body of evidence which I think will finally
prove to be of the utmost interest and historical
importance. — I am, my dear Sir, very faithfully
yours, W. E. GLADSTONE.

Professor John Tyndall, the celebrated natural
philosopher, "who did more than any other man
of his generation to spread scientific knowledge
among English people," wrote to him : —

" Your lectures made an impression upon me which
suggested thoughts more or less like these : —

"Science has been long withstood — it is nowa-
days gaining ground, but it has still much to claim
in the way of recognition. But after it has gained
all that it ought to gain, after it has dissipated all
that deserves to be dissipated, will it suffice to
satisfy the demands of human nature ? I do not
believe it. I believe that the ethical and aesthetical
side of man will have its yearnings after the satis-
faction of the understanding. The objects which
satisfied these yearnings in time past cannot con-
tinue to satisfy them — they are losing their hold
more and more — but that they are destined to
perish without a substitute, I do not believe. In
another age I believe they will be remodelled so
145 K

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

as to do no violence to exact thought. In the
passage from this age to that other age, men of
earnest, pure, and elevated minds are specially
needed — men who have a life within them strong
enough to maintain itself through a period of transi-
tion, when doubt has for a time destroyed the old
stimuli. I thought, as I heard you, that you were
one of those men ; and hence your lectures had a
profound interest for me."

Bosworth Smith wrote in reply, on May i,
1874:-

" One line of thanks for your very kind and
most interesting and suggestive letter. I wish that
fortune would one day throw me into your company
for a short time. I should much enjoy a talk to you
on the subject of your letter. From my point of
view, I should be inclined to say, not that the
objects of man's infinite yearnings will perish, but
that the way of looking at them will be different.
Dogma as to the unseen will of course be swept
away, but there will be boundless toleration for
every sesthetic or spiritual belief which does not
trench (a) on morality, (b) on science. My lectures
may be, I hope, a help to some in that direction."

Dean Stanley sent him three sheets of notes,
jotted down as he read the book, partly verbal
criticism, partly warm commendation ; Mr. Llewelyn
Davies said that, though he dissented from many
of his conclusions, he was "delighted with the
modesty, straightforwardness, reverence, and en-
146

MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM

thusiasm which characterise the book." George
Eliot wrote of his "brave truthfulness, especially
in relation to our actual dealings with nations whose
culture and genius differ from our own. Permit me
to say also that the dedicatory page is one of those
which I read with much interest." l
Matthew Arnold wrote : —

"It seems to me to be done in a way to be useful,
which is what I most care for in English books. In
Germany all books but novels and poems are written
for a public of professors. In England we have no
public of this kind worth speaking of; we have only
the general public ; but, on the other hand, this
public is far more interested in literature and science,
and far more influenceable by them, than the general
public on the Continent, and this is a great advan-
tage to the nation. Any book on an important
subject, which is at once readable by our general
public, and at the same time carries fresh and sound
doctrine to them, is a real and valuable help — and
yours, in my opinion, is such a book."

Monsieur A. ReVille, Professor Noldeke, Ernest
de Bunsen, Lord Stanley of Alderley, Professor F.
W. Newman, Mr. Syed Ameer Ali, Mr. Syed
Ahmed Khan Bahader, Mr. M. H. Hakim — three

1 The dedication runs : —

Uxori meae

Nullius non laboris participi
Hujusce praesertim opusculi instigatrici et administrae

Studiorum communitatis
Has, qualescunque sunt, primitias
Dedico.

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

Mohammedan writers of distinction — were amongst
those whose letters or reviews gave him special
pleasure and encouragement.

Mr. Syed Ameer Ali, writing in March 1879,
said : —

"Your book has not only confirmed me in my
own faith, but it has given me a far higher idea of
Christianity than I yet possessed. Like all those
who grow up amidst the corrupted form of a once
pure religion, and whose constant attempts at
accommodating what they know to be true to what
they have been taught to regard as true, seem to me,
if not entire failures, at least in great confusion, I
had naturally begun to be sceptical on many points,
and it was a relief to find that some matters, at any
rate, which were hitherto quite obscure to me, could
be explained on a more rationalistic principle than I
had yet seen applied to them."

This passage from Mr. Syed Ameer Ali's letter
suggests that, just because he had not been in
Mohammedan countries, it had been possible for
Bosworth Smith to write with greater detachment,
and to depict Islam as it was in its earliest and
more ideal form.

The thanks of the Ottoman Government for his
attempt to do justice to Islam were conveyed to
him through the Turkish Ambassador, Musurus
Pasha ; but it must be added that, when some
copies of the book were sent to Constantinople,
with a view to translation into Turkish, the autho-
rities, with the amusing inconsistency which is
148

MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM

characteristic of Turkish proceedings, refused to
admit them into the country, and only after long
correspondence were they allowed to pass the
censor.

Perhaps one of the chief encouragements of all
was the verdict of Dr. George Percy Badger,
whose colloquial knowledge of Arabic was un-
rivalled, and whose personal experience of Arabs,
whether at Aden, in Syria, or Zanzibar, entitled
him to speak with the highest authority. Dr.
Badger's English-Arabic Lexicon is still the standard
work on the subject.

Lady Strangford, who knew Dr. Badger well,
forwarded a note from him to herself, in which he
said : —

" I have read his book with the deepest interest,
and without committing myself to all his views, I
do not hesitate to pronounce it the best work yet
written on the difficult but deeply important subject
of Islam."

After Dr. Badger's review of his book in the
Contemporary, in which he had expressed his dis-
sent from many of Bosworth Smith's conclusions,
the latter wrote to him : —

" Your review seems to me to come as near to
the highest ideal I can form of the way in which
criticism ought to be conducted. It is sympathetic,
careful, and appreciative, and at the same time in-
cisive, suggestive, and scrupulously just. ... I am
particularly grateful to you for having allowed me
149

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

to speak for myself so often by quoting the ipsis-
sima verba. It is very interesting to me, from a
purely intellectual point of view, to notice the in-
sight with which you point out the weak places — my
vague use of the term ' inspiration,' for example — in
my armour."

Dr. Badger replied : —

" That you should have taken my hard hits —
albeit kindly aimed — is a proof to me that I rightly
estimated your character. Your book convinced
me that you were a true man, loving truth for
truth's sake."

Dr. Badger's letters to Bosworth Smith abound
in wise sayings, which illustrate Eastern modes of
thought. For example : —

" Islam," he says, "will admit of no doubt, no
reasoning, no discussion. Believers among our-
selves in the verbal inspiration of the Bible are
Liberals as compared with Muslims. Those now-
adays who doubt are incipient unbelievers, not
because they have found reason to doubt the de-
clarations of the Koran, but because they dislike
their strictness."

Perhaps none of his then unknown correspon-
dents, many of whom afterwards became personal
friends, interested him more than Dr. Blyden, the
Negro savant, missionary, and diplomat. It was
Dean Stanley who had first drawn Dr. Blyden's
attention to " Mohammed," and he at once wrote
to the author to confirm, after years of travel in
150

MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM

Africa, the views which he had put forward as
to the influence of Mohammedanism there. This
was the beginning of a constant correspondence
and lifelong friendship between them.

Another interesting and original correspondent,
whom Bosworth Smith never actually met, was Mr.
Stewart E. Roland, then Chairman of the Maritime
League. Part of Mr. Roland's adventurous life had
been spent in North Africa, Turkey in Asia, and in
North Persia, where he had lived for some years,
usually in tents with the Bedouins.

The rapid growth of the spirit of tolerance during
the last forty years finds an illustration in the atti-
tude of the Church of England towards my father
and his opinions. Twice in after years he was
invited to speak on Mohammedanism at the Church
Congress ; and when the third edition of his book
came out in 1889, it was warmly welcomed by some
of the very newspapers which before had con-
demned it.

The first invitation to speak at the Church Con- V
gress, in 1889, he reluctantly declined, because he
felt he could not deal adequately with so vast a
subject during the twenty minutes allotted for the
purpose, and that, " by flinging his bare conclusions
at the heads of his hearers, he would give needless
offence." Canon Isaac Taylor, who took his place,
rushed upon the dangers, which Bosworth Smith
had foreseen, without adequate study of his subject,
and his over-favourable picture of Islam, and de-

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

preciation of Christian missionary work, raised a
storm, which raged in the Church papers, the Times,
and the Reviews for weeks, and even months after-
wards. Canon Isaac Taylor, who had naturally
resorted to easily accessible sources for the pre-
paration of his paper, had, among other authorities,
largely used " Mohammed."

Bosworth Smith felt that Canon Taylor's state-
ments needed many modifications, and that a com-
parison between the precepts of one religion and
the practice of another could never be a just or true
one. In the fifteen years that had passed since his
"Mohammed" was written, he had learnt much of
Africa from Government officials, missionaries, and
natives themselves ; his information was more
accurate, his outlook wider, his views more mature.

In a fine and temperate article in the Nineteenth
Century, full of curious illustrations and anecdotes,
he endeavoured to weigh the work done by Islam
and Christianity, respectively, in Africa. Islam
dominates half, if not three-quarters, of Africa;
Christianity has touched but a few spots. Islam
elevates the pagan who embraces it morally and
socially ; it prohibits strong drink, combats fetishism
and its horrors; but, on the other hand, it allows
and encourages the evils of slave trade, religious
wars, polygamy. Christianity has, so far, failed
in Africa, because the Negro learnt it first as a
slave from his owner in a strange land, and because
no Christian nation has clean hands in Africa;
152

MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM

because Christianity came to the Negro as some-
thing foreign, alien, dogmatic. It is the educated
Christian Negro of America, rather than the white
man, who can best impart Christianity to his
countrymen in the form in which they can best
receive it, and through the Negro missionary
Mohammedanism may, perhaps, be leavened by
Christian morality. Above all, the success or
failure of a religion should never be gauged by the
number of converts it makes, for " the conversion
of a whole Pagan community to Islam need not
imply more effort, more sincerity, or more vital
change, than the conversion of a single individual
to Christianity."

This article gained the warm approval of Sir
Robert Montgomery, the Hon. George Brodrick,
Colonel Yule, Mr. Eugene Stock, Secretary of the
Church Missionary Society, and Mr. Bunting (now
Sir Percy Bunting), editor of the Contemporary,
who said : "When I finished your article I felt there
was nothing more to be said, it was so complete,
though perhaps you do not think so."

In the paper which he read before the Wey mouth
Church Congress in 1905, Bosworth Smith repeated,
with no uncertain sound, his matured convictions
as to the way in which Christian missionaries
should approach Mohammedanism ; once more he
urged that they should dwell on what is common
to both faiths. " Let us endeavour," he went on,
"to exhibit Christianity to the untutored mind in
153

x

. REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

its very simplest form, as it was taught by Him
who spake as never man spake, and was lived by
Him who lived as never man lived." "A creed,"
he said, "unless it be of the simplest and shortest,
like the creed of Islam, ' There is no God but God ;
and Mohammed is His prophet,' tends, ex vi ter-
mini, to be legal, logical, technical, metaphysical.
It registers results, rather than stimulates growth.
It is protective and polemical in its form. It aims
at exclusion rather than at comprehension. We
hear, as it were, the strife of tongues between each
sonorous cadence of the Nicene ; we catch, as it
were, the distant echoes of the clash of swords be-
tween each balanced antithesis, each perilous defini-
tion, each dread anathema of the Athanasian Creed."
But the completest statement of his thoughts
on the whole matter can perhaps be found in a
simple and convincing speech which he made on
. the British Empire and its Missionary Responsi-
* bilities at the annual meeting of the S.P.G. in
1903. What he said won the enthusiastic apprecia-
tion, not only of the Archbishop of Canterbury and
Bishop Montgomery, but of others who were not
naturally in great sympathy with foreign missions.
It was a subject on which he had spoken and
written many times, but he came to it again with
ever-fresh enthusiasm, and with ever-deepening
convictions. British rule, wherever it penetrates,
must of necessity disturb the beliefs of uncivilised
nations, and only by the determination to " implant
154

MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM

something better in the place of what we sweep
away," and by giving of the best we have to give —
Christianity in its simplest form — can we justify our
conquests and our annexations.

" If we believe Christianity to be truer and purer
in itself than any other religion, we must needs
wish others to be partakers of it, and the effort to
propagate it is thrice blessed. It blesses him that
gives, no less than him who takes — nay, it often
blesses him who takes it not. The last words of
a dying friend are apt to linger in chambers of the
heart of him who has heard them, till the heart
itself has ceased to beat ; and the last recorded
words of the Founder of Christianity are not likely
to pass from the memory of His Church till that
Church has done its work. They are the marching
orders of the Christian army — the consolation for
every past and present failure, the earnest and
the warrant, in some shape or other, of ultimate
success."

Was there an inconsistency between Bosworth
Smith's earlier and his later views? Had he
ceased to think that Mohammedanism was better
adapted to certain races than Christianity itself?
Did he, indeed, desire the extinction of Buddhism,
Confucianism, and Islam itself in an all-absorbing
Christianity? He never made a "fetish of con-
sistency," and the fact that he thought in one way
yesterday could never bind him to the same opinion
if to-morrow he should learn that it was ill based
155

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

or one-sided ; but here I scarcely think that any
inconsistency will be found if, not the bare gist of
his argument, but each of his sentences, with its
qualifications and reserves, the one balancing the
other, be studied.

And further, it must be remembered that he
had always held that Christianity, if offered in
its simplest and purest form, had lost none of its
attractive power, and that, in its widest aspect, it
was wide enough to embrace all mankind. Forty
years ago Christianity, as he knew it best, had
scarcely freed itself from the trammels of a narrow
formalism, and when he first spoke, devout and
earnest men were not able to receive his words.
But, if indeed he was among the first to catch
sight of truths that were then hardly above the
horizon, it was because the atmosphere was already
clearing, and, before long, in the broadening light
of day, men forget that there had ever been a time
when things had been less distinct and evident.
It was the wider spirit of tolerance, the more liberal
tone of the great religious bodies, and the more
common-sense methods they adopted, that led him
in later life to hope confidently for a return of what
seemed to him to be the Christianity of the Gospels.

A letter which reached Bingham's Melcombe in
November 1908 speaks for itself: —

" Representing the Muslim community of Sierra
Leone, the undersigned beg most respectfully to
convey to you on its behalf the deep feeling of
156

MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM

sorrow with which it has learned of the death
of your beloved husband, who has laboured so
long and so successfully in the cause of the Holy
Religion they profess. May God accept him and
cool his resting-place. They had hoped that such
a worker as your husband would have lived almost
for ever in this world, but it has not so pleased
God, and He has taken him just as he was entering
old age."

157

/y CHAPTER VI
LIFE OF LORD LAWRENCE

BOSWORTH SMITH owed his first introduction to
Lord Lawrence to his friends, Mr. and Mrs. Henry
Hart. Mr. Hart, at that time a master at Harrow
and, later, Headmaster of Sedbergh, was married
to the only daughter of the great Sir Henry Law-
rence, and his mother was a sister of Sir Bartle
Frere. Lord Lawrence's youngest son was then in
Harrow School, and in this way it happened that
the chief representatives of the " forward " and
"backward" schools of Indian frontier policy — Sir
Bartle Frere and Lord Lawrence — met sometimes
at the same house at Harrow. The strong opinions
which Bosworth Smith formed on the frontier ques-
tion were the result — in part, no doubt — of the long
conversations he had from time to time with Lord
Lawrence, who, broken in health and almost blind
as he then was, from the first made the deepest im-
pression on him. Two letters which Bosworth
Smith wrote to the Times during November 1878,
in which he protested against the policy which led
to the second Afghan war, woke a warm response
in Lord Lawrence, who had then just made his last
158

LIFE OF LORD LAWRENCE

heroic effort on behalf of the policy which he had
always advocated in Afghanistan. The last time
that they met was in March 1879, at his house in
London, for in June the end came.

The first intimation that the Lawrence family
wished Bosworth Smith to undertake the " Life "
was brought to him one Sunday in the summer by
Lady Lawrence's second son. Mr. Hal Lawrence
had, much to his amusement, almost to force his
way past a small boy of six, who had stationed
himself at the gate of the Knoll as a voluntary
guard, to keep his father's leisure hour among the
strawberries undisturbed, and who inquired if the
stranger wanted to see his father about anything
" important, like a dinner-party " ?

The first feeling was that the thing was im-
possible. The magnitude of the subject, which
must necessarily involve the history of India for
the past fifty years, and the heavy responsibility
of presenting a life-like picture of such a per-
sonality as Lord Lawrence to the world, might
well have appalled him. He had no special know-
ledge of Indian affairs, he had never been in
India, nor had he been thrown at all with Indian
officials. His work at Harrow was already
arduous enough, and the physical labour alone
seemed to be an insuperable obstacle ; but it was
evident that, in spite of his natural hesitation, he
could hardly bear to turn his back on so magnificent
a subject.

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

On October 29, 1879, he wrote to Lady Law-
rence : —

"... I have, of course, thought much on the
subject ; indeed, I cannot get it out of my mind for
an hour together, and I confess that the difficulties
in the way do not seem to diminish. Every one
tells me that the labour would be enormous, and I
feel that the two books I have written, both being
founded on printed matter and referring chiefly to
times long gone by, are not much of a preparation
for this, which turns chiefly on unpublished docu-
ments, and deals to a considerable extent with burn-
ing questions and with people still living. On the
other hand, it is fair to say that nearly every one
whom I have consulted in the matter is urgent, and
in many cases is enthusiastic, for my making the
attempt. Colonel Yule declared that he was de-
lighted to hear it, that he thought nobody could do
it better ; and Mr. Froude took the same view.

" One point on which I should be very anxious
to get a clear idea from you is as to the amount of
help you, personally, and members of your family
could give. The official and semi-official corre-
spondence of which you speak will, no doubt, be
most valuable, especially as I feel sure that Lord
Lawrence, unlike most public men, always wrote,
even in official documents, exactly what he thought !
But still these alone would, I think, hardly enable
him to live before me, as he ought to do if the biog-
raphy is to be a good one. What one wants most
are characteristic anecdotes, which would show his
splendid figure in its different aspects. The more
of these you can entrust me with, the more likely
am I not to make a failure. If the task seems more
160

LIFE OF LORD LAWRENCE

difficult as I think more of it, it also seems more
fascinating, and I do not think I shall bring myself
to give it up, unless I am convinced that, owing to
lack of time or of knowledge, it would be a failure
in my hands. ... I do not think the Afghan
frontier question need be any difficulty. I agree
strongly with the backward as opposed to the for-
ward policy, and wrote to Lord Lawrence to express
my general agreement after his first two letters."

Three months passed from the time when the
question was first mooted, before he wrote to Lady
Lawrence, definitely accepting the task, and three
months again elapsed before he felt able to write
the first word of the biography. They were months
spent in unremitting study of all that could throw
light on the subject or on the character of the man
himself, in interviews with people who had known
Lord Lawrence well. Help was promised on all
sides, and the existence of an index to the vast
official correspondence, which had been prepared
by Lord Lawrence's lady secretary, Miss Gaster,
now Mrs. Garbett, was a definite encouragement.

" When the great boxes of books and letters and
other documents came down," Bosworth Smith
writes, " my heart sank within me." How well his
family remember the piles of bound MSS., with
paper stained and ink faded by the Indian climate,
much of them in the clear handwriting of Lady
Lawrence herself, that covered every available
corner of his little study — floor, shelves, and tables
— for the next three years. How well they re-
161 L

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

member the illegible sheets of foolscap, written and
re-written, which he himself could scarcely decipher,
all of which had eventually to be copied by his
indefatigable wife. How well, too, do they re-
member the white, strained look on his face as he
sat at his study table, or wandered in his garden for
the few minutes' refreshment that he allowed himself.
It was a task which, however great his enthusiasm
for his hero might be, had to be faced doggedly day
by day. "At times I almost despaired of success,"
he wrote. He could not wait till he was in the mood
to write — the work had to be done in stray half-hours ;
but he used to say that, by reading back for a page
or two of his MS., he could always recover the train
of thought, and start with renewed interest. He
worked usually far into the night; and when he
stopped, his mind was often seething with the effort
too much to allow him to sleep. The holidays he
spent in constant toil, much of it of a kind not
naturally congenial, dealing as it did with highly
technical matters, all of which were new ground
to him. But there was no part of his task — the
vexed question of tenant right or of land assess-
ment included — to which he did not conscientiously
bring the full force of his mind. One great en-
couragement came before a word of the biography
had actually been written. Mr. George Murray
Smith wrote on December 6, 1879 : —

" I do not remember having written to an author
in the manner in which I am writing to you. My
162

LIFE OF LORD LAWRENCE

custom is to wait until it is his pleasure to write to
me. But I cannot refrain from saying to you that
the paragraph which I saw in the Times newspaper
set me a-thinking how much I should like to publish
your ' Life of Lord Lawrence.' "

Bosworth Smith replied : —

" How very kind of you! I am delighted to find
you are willing and anxious to publish the book
when it is ready. Only I feel at present so weighed
down by the responsibility and difficulty of the work
I have undertaken, the materials are so enormous ;
and I am so heavily handicapped at starting, not
having been in India, and only having known Lord
Lawrence during the last five years, that I shrink
at present from contemplating anything like publica-
tion. Indeed, I have told Lady Lawrence that I
must be free to give up the work if I feel that I am
unable, as I fear I may be, to do the subject anything
like justice. In any case it will be the work of many
years. Lord Lawrence's papers alone form a library
in themselves, and the burning questions and repu-
tations of living people who are involved add to the
difficulty. . . . Longmans wrote to me in the same
sense as you did, on the day the paragraph in the
Times appeared."

A letter to a friend, who had asked him for his
opinion about a certain book, shows incidentally
what Bosworth Smith considered a biography should
or should not be : —

" The book is very painstaking," he wrote ; " it is
scrupulously just and moderate, and several of the
163

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

chapters, especially those in which the writer is able
to speak from his own experience, are very interest-
ing and life-like. It seems to me that the writer
has made the best of his materials ; but then the
materials must have been singularly scanty, and
would probably, under no circumstances, have
enabled him to do much more than he has done.

There are very few letters of 's own, there are

hardly any of interest written to him, there are no
incisive expressions or remarks such as would make
him live. There are very few parts that carry one
away with them. . . . And then his whole domestic
life is an absolute blank, with one sole exception.
How much do you know of a man, if you do not
know anything of him as he was in his family ?
The impression one gets of the man, his gentleness,
his goodness, his unselfishness, is pretty clear ; but
still the whole man does not seem to live, to have

sufficient flesh and blood upon him. That was

a truly noble, chivalrous character no one can doubt
who either reads the book or has heard, as I have
heard, his chief contemporaries speak of him. But
I am not sure that he will not stand higher, in the
estimation of posterity, on the strength of a very
few strong expressions of admiration, which are to
be found in books dealing with the period, than if
they are scattered over a memoir which must con-
tain many chapters not of general interest."

To Colonel Randall, Lord Lawrence's son-in-law,
he wrote : —

"It is one of the thousand difficulties that meet
me — the great fault of books on the Mutiny, it seems
to me — that they do not tell the whole truth, do not
164

LIFE OF LORD LAWRENCE

bring out the characters in sufficient light and shade.
Moreover, the prevailing tone in them is to applaud
every act of ' vigour,' to show a recklessness of
human life, provided it was Sepoy life. I had heard
much in old times of Lord Lawrence's severity in
the Mutiny. ... I do not think I could have under-
taken the biography, certainly i I could not have done
it con amore, had I not convinced myself, before I
finally undertook it, that he was for saving human
life, wherever it was possible to do so. ... Except
my wife," he adds, with a touch that says a great
deal, " there is absolutely nobody here who knows
anything of the subject, or whom I can ask for an
independent judgment on anything."

The inclusion of a certain number of private
letters evidently seemed to him essential in a biog-
raphy, if much were to be learnt of the man himself,
and Lord Lawrence's private correspondence was
unfortunately small.

But if private letters were few and far between,
there was another way in which it was possible to
learn much of his personality. In 1880, many of
those who had served with him in the Punjaub or
in later days, and who had themselves played great
parts in India, were still living, and there was hardly
one of all these men whom Bosworth Smith did not
come to know personally — some of them, indeed,
intimately. It was his duty, as a biographer, to face
many difficult problems, to sift evidence on contested
points, and through all the mass of detail to see
clearly for himself the figure and character of his
165

REGINALD BOS WORTH SMITH

hero, and then to make this figure equally clear and
distinct for his readers ; and if he succeeded in his
task, it was due, not a little, to the kindness of Lord
Lawrence's friends, who ungrudgingly gave him all
the help they could. The list of those whom he
consulted personally or with whom he corresponded
during the next years, comprises the names of the
chief survivors of half a century of Indian history :
Sir George Lawrence, General Richard Lawrence,
Colonel Randall, and Sir Henry Cunningham,
among Lord Lawrence's own relations ; Sir Robert
Montgomery, Sir Alexander Taylor, Sir Henry
Norman, General Reynell Taylor, Sir Frederick
Halliday, Sir Alexander Arbuthnot, Sir Henry
Maine, Sir William Muir, Sir George Birdwood,
General John Becher, Mr Edward and Mr John
Thornton, Dr. Farquhar, Dr. Hathaway, Mr. Raikes,
Mr. R. B. Chapman, Sir George Campbell, Sir
Charles Trevelyan, Sir Peter Lumsden, Sir Henry
Daly, Sir Owen Burne, Sir Richard Temple,
Colonel Malleson, Sir Erskine Perry, Sir Richard
Pollock, Sir Seymour Elaine, Sir John Strachey,
General Strachey, General Crawford Chamberlain
and Sir Neville Chamberlain, Sir Bartle Frere,
Lord Hobhouse, Lord Halifax, Lord Napier of
Magdala, Lord Roberts, Lord Ripon, the Duke of
Argyll, and, not least, Mr. Walter Seton Karr, who
made most valuable suggestions and, with self-deny-
ing kindness, accomplished a great labour of love
for the sake of his friend, Lord Lawrence, by read-
166

LIFE OF LORD LAWRENCE

ing through the whole manuscript of his biography.
The list, though by no means complete, is a long
one ; but it proves that Bosworth Smith did not
consult with men of one school and one way of
thinking only, but that his impressions and his in-
formation came first-hand from men to whom the
events and characters he was to describe were real
and living. To the reminiscences of men like these
are due countless touches, that give a personal
interest to the book, and help to make the central
figure human and lifelike.

" Old Indians ! " a lady once said to my mother ;
"aren't they all very old and ugly and cross and
worn out?" — a general impression, perhaps, but
strangely at variance with one's recollections of
the many who came to the Knoll — the handsome
Pollocks and Chamberlains, for instance, or the
genial Sir Frederick Halliday, whose gigantic
stature had so greatly impressed the natives of
Bengal, and many another, whose vivacity and sim-
plicity, no less than their stores of experience, make
them charming and interesting visitors.

Among others whose help and encouragement
were unceasing was General John Becher, C.B.,
and to him Bosworth Smith was always greatly
drawn. He writes to him : —

" The notes of our three talks have been of the

greatest help to me, and I often want you at my

elbow when I am writing. A hundred things occur

to me to ask you about. . . . What a beautiful

167

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

tenderness there is in all John Lawrence writes to
you. His letters to you and Donald MacLeod
stand by themselves in that respect."

A letter from General Becher to Dr. Farquhar,
written after the book had appeared, says : —

"It (the book) has greatly absorbed and inter-
ested me, and I admire much the great masterly
labour and quick enthusiasm which it evidences. I
do not think a better biographer could have been
found, or a more painstaking — besides this, he is a
scholar, and with literary experience which I think
no Indian official could equal. ... I was delighted
with the frank, genuine kindness and simplicity of
himself and his wife."

To Colonel Yule, Bosworth Smith writes on
July 21, 1884:—

" I am grieved beyond measure to gather from
your note that dear John Becher is dead. He was
a delightful man. Of all the Indian celebrities with
whom I have conversed during the last few years,
I do not think I got more pleasure from any one
(except yourself) than from him. He had very
delicate feelings and keen sympathy combined with
a sense of humour. His conversation was sugges-
tive, and many of his hints I have worked into the
book with, I think, good results. He was one of the
few men who were equally attached to Henry and
to John Lawrence, and appreciated them equally,
and John Lawrence was really attached to him."

Bosworth Smith read aloud nearly the whole of
his MS. to Lady Lawrence, whose help and sym-
168

LIFE OF LORD LAWRENCE

pathy were unfailing, as well as to other members
of the Lawrence family. The chapter on the two
brothers, Henry and John — the part of the work
which perhaps needed the most delicate handling
of all — he read to Sir Henry's only daughter, Mrs.
Hart. When he ceased reading, she rose and
silently kissed my mother — a tribute, surely, to the
sympathy and understanding with which that parting
of the ways for the two great brothers had been
treated. He read to Sir Robert Montgomery (who,
from 1859 to J865, had been Lieutenant-Governor
of the Punjaub) the parts of the book which related
to the time when Sir Robert occupied the third
seat on the Punjaub Board — "no bed of roses."
Sir Robert's kind and genial personality stands out
among the many " old Indians," from whose un-
assuming modesty no one would have guessed the
great parts they had played, and Bosworth Smith
always spoke of him as " dear Sir Robert." Inter-
course with men of this stamp was, of course, a
delight to him, and if the actual labour which the
book entailed has been much emphasised, it is only
just to dwell on the other side of the work ; the new
friends he made, many of whom he came to love,
and who came to love him ; the great widening of
interests ; the sense of living constantly in the pre-
sence, as it were, of a man of such heroic mould as
John Lawrence ; the sense, too, of discharging to
the utmost of his power, what seemed to him
nothing less than a national obligation, and the
169

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

consciousness, as time went on, that his efforts were
not to be unsuccessful.

The feeling of relief was naturally intense, when
the work drew near completion, and a lecture which
he gave on the subject at Harrow, as well as a
course of lectures early in 1883 at the Royal Insti-
tution, met with a very cordial reception. His great
friend, Colonel Yule, it is true, slept peacefully at
intervals during the lectures, but Colonel Yule pro-
tested he would sleep under the preaching of St.
John Chrysostom, or while Shakespeare was read-
ing " Hamlet."

On February 12, 1883, the book was published
by Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co., and it was reviewed
in the chief newspapers on the day of publication.
Within five days the first edition of one thousand
copies was exhausted, and by the middle of April a
fourth edition was called for ; a sixth edition was
published in 1885. The reception of the book in
America was equally remarkable, for the American
Government paid it the high compliment of placing
a copy in all the great public libraries and on every
man-of-war in the United States Navy. The work
was translated into Urdu, and was much read in
India.

The public success of the book was gratifying
enough ; but what pleased the author yet more was
the fact that those who had entrusted him with the
great responsibility, Lord Lawrence's own family,
felt that he had done justice to his subject.
170

LIFE OF LORD LAWRENCE

On February 25, 1883, Lady Lawrence wrote
from Pau : —

Hal has sent me your letter to him, which has
indeed rejoiced my heart. I am more glad and
thankful than I can say — for your sake, as well as
my own. I believe this work will live, and your
name be also immortalised with it. Believe me,
how grateful I feel to you and your dear wife. The
more I read it, the more I am astonished at your
grasp of Indian subjects, as well as of the noble
character you so grandly develop and show to
the world. Surely such a work must do good and
inspire other lives. I have had several letters from
my own brothers most truly appreciative. . . . God
bless you and yours. — Believe me, always yours
most affectionately, H. LAWRENCE.

Lord Lawrence wrote that he could with difficulty
express his thorough appreciation of the book, and
that people in his own neighbourhood were " raving
about it." A friend had told him that his father
was never known in this country, and that now
people, after reading this book, would be able to see
what sort of man he was. Lord Lawrence's third
son, the Hon. Charles N. Lawrence, wrote : —

MY DEAR Bos, — I heartily congratulate you on
the success of the book. I have so far heard
nothing but praise from all whose opinion is worth
having, and this cannot but be gratifying to you,
after the enormous labour you have had to wade
through. . . . The chapter on the two brothers is,
in general opinion, quite first-rate. I am sure all
our family owe you a lasting debt of gratitude.
171

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

Mr. Francis Buxton, Lord Lawrence's son-in-law,
named a number of well-known people who had
expressed the great pleasure the " charm of the
writing" had given them: "they say they cannot
put it down." " I am proud of this record of my
father-in-law, and must express to you my very
great gratification and pleasure. How glad you
must be to get it over, and how still more glad
must be Mrs. Bos worth Smith." Lord Lawrence's
brother-in-law, Dr. Kennedy, told him he did not
wish one word changed.

Next to the opinion of the immediate family,
Bosworth Smith was naturally anxious to know the
verdict of Lord Lawrence's friends and colleagues —
the men of all others who had the best right to
speak and to criticise his work. Nothing strikes
the reader more, even after the lapse of a quarter
of a century, than the generous appreciation which
these men accorded to him, and the warm, un-
grudging way in which it was expressed. A few
letters, taken from those written by Lord Lawrence's
most intimate friends, bear witness to what they
deemed the truthfulness and charm of the picture
he had drawn : —

From SIR ROBERT MONTGOMERY, K.C.B.

March 5, 1883.

I have finished Lord Lawrence's " Life." It is a
grand work, and is a fine monument to his memory
172

LIFE OF LORD LAWRENCE

and a lasting testimony to your own great merits as
a biographist and public writer — no one could have
done it so well. You have brought out his whole
life in a marvellous manner, from boyhood to
mature age. It's a work that will be read by future

fenerations. An example of devotion to public
uties rarely, indeed never, met with, and carried
out so consistently, with a determined mind and a
clear head, under extreme difficulties. ... I much
regret I have come to the end of the " Life" — the
more I read the more interested I became. . . . For
the general reader it may be too long, though it
would be hard to say where it could be curtailed.

From, the same.

May 5, 1883.

I have watched carefully the progress of your
book. There is a perfect consensus of applause,
and in families the book is most frequently read out
to the circle. This is, I find, common. The Duke
of Argyll read it to the Duchess. He told me he
did not know you — seemed to wish he did. . . .
You might write to him, as legibly as you can, and
say you would call on him : you may retort legi-
bility on me, and I won't be offended. Sir Henry
Lawrence used to say that if I only made the first
and last letters of a word clear, that was all he
wanted ! . . . Many of Lord Lawrence's intimate
friends had no idea of his greatness till they read
your life of him. The publication has raised his
character, and I congratulate you and your de-
voted wife — such a helpmeet! It would be against
human nature if no fault could be found, but the
success is immense — well-merited; and so long as
173

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

the name Lawrence lives so long will that of his
biographer.

Sir Robert, who knew the pleasure he would
give, wrote again to say that a friend of his own
had presented a copy of the book to each of his
six sons !

It was of no small interest to the writer to learn
that the "Life of Lord Lawrence" was the book
given, as a fitting token of sympathy, by Miss
Florence Nightingale, " with a touching inscription,"
to a sister philanthropist, Miss Irby, whose work in
Servian lands will long be remembered there.

Dr. Farquhar, whose devoted service at Agra
and in the Punjaub had won him the esteem of all
the officials with whom he had been thrown, and
who, as his body surgeon, had been closely asso-
ciated with Lord Lawrence, wrote that he and his
wife had been "living upon the 'Life.' You have
handled him bravely and well, and any reflecting
Indian will wonder at the way you have treated
Indian subjects, catching the Punjaub spirit and
sketching many men to the life. Your book will
be helpful to many a man struggling to live a busy
life in India, but fainting or halting from heat and
want of sympathy. The natives of India may read
every word of it — many writers forget there is a
vast public there who scan the lives of public men."

Dr. Hathaway, who had been closely connected
with the Lawrences in the Punjaub, and had been
174

LIFE OF LORD LAWRENCE

Lord Lawrence's secretary during the Viceroyalty,
wrote as follows : —

BATH, Feb. 14.

I got the " Life " last evening, and sat up till half-
past two this morning — my sixty-sixth birthday —
in going through the twenty years that connected
me so closely with the Lawrence brothers. You
have done your work well, and its greatest value in
my eyes is the truthfulness with which the character
is drawn : a character not perfect — not without more
than one flaw in it — not understood even yet by
many who only saw the outside and at a distance,
but which, like the " Koh-i-noor," came out after
the long grinding and wearing, very beautiful at
the finish. How much influence such men as
Henry and John Lawrence had in moulding the
characters of those who came in contact with them
will never be known, but one of the most interest-
ing points (in my estimation) that you have thrown
light upon is how the two brothers acted and reacted
on each other, until on several occasions the one
seems to have changed places with the other, and
the reader shuts his eyes and says, " Of whom is the
author speaking ? "

Captain Eastwick bought each edition of the book
as it came out, and he never tired of discussing it
with his friends.

From CAPTAIN EASTWICK.

15. 2. '83.

I cannot tell you how interested and delighted I
have been with the perusal. . . . You seem to me
175

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

to have brought out marvellously the human tender-
ness and strength of Lord Lawrence's character.
Your anecdotes are happily selected. You have
treated the difference between the two noble brothers
with tact, judgment, and fidelity. The book is never
dull ; there is light and shade, and the tone is worthy
of the subject. Every one connected with you will
feel proud of it, and your children after you. Dis-
raeli says in one of his novels that, after finishing a
book, the intellectual effort always gave him a lift
upwards, though the strain while working was often
great.

From the same,

24. 2. '83.

In my humble judgment the conception and execu-
tion are alike admirable. I can truly say that I have
never read any biography which has more deeply
interested me or afforded me more real delight.
The skill which you have displayed in educing
order and perspicuity out of the chaos of documents
is remarkable ; the thread of continuity is preserved.
The separate periods stand out clearly, and the
filling in of the details is marked by a freshness, a
vigour, and ability which must add greatly to your
literary reputation. What especially commands my
admiration and respect is the high moral, and, I
may add, religious tone, which pervades the book.
. . . What can be finer than your sketch of Nichol-
son, with his strong, ungovernable temper, and your
description of the way John Lawrence recognised
his military genius and handled him with a wise for-
bearance. You have a keen eye for the picturesque.
Think of Nicholson sitting bolt upright upon his
horse in the full glare of the sun, perfectly motion-
176

LIFE OF LORD LAWRENCE

less, and his weary soldiers snatching a hasty sleep
on the ground around him !

From the $>th DUKE OF ARGYLL.

CANNES, May 9, '83.

I have read your biography of Lord Lawrence
under conditions which are in themselves a test of
at least some of the best of its characteristics.
During a long and tedious illness I have read it
aloud to the Duchess, and I can sincerely say that
we have both been delighted with it. If it is the
great aim of biography to bring out vividly the
personality of the man whose life is given, you
have succeeded in this great aim completely. The
grandeur and simplicity of his character leave an
indelible impression on the reader, and the tender-
ness of his domestic character and affections, which
are much less generally known, you have touched
delicately, yet with effect. The Duchess was
enchanted by the book. Her first husband was
Colonel Anson, who served with great distinction
throughout the Mutiny, was at the Relief of Luck-
now and Siege of Delhi, and was personally
attached to Lord Clyde. She tells me that he had
an intense admiration of Lawrence — thus represent-
ing the very best feeling and opinion of the army in
all those operations. She was therefore delighted
to come to know who and what the man was of
whom she had heard so much. I have really no
criticism to make — except the usual one, that here
and there there is some redundancy, and passages
are repeated to the same effect in almost the same
words. One feels such cases more in reading aloud,

177 M

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

especially when one is not strong. But they are no
serious blemish in the book.

Nothing, perhaps, gave Bosworth Smith greater
pleasure than the two following letters from Lord
Dufferin, who was then on his way out to India to
take up the Viceroyalty : —

From the MARQUESS OF DUFFERIN to
LADY LAWRENCE.

SUEZ, November 27 ', 1884.

DEAR LADY LAWRENCE, — I have just finished
reading the biography of your husband ; and though
this is not the purport of my letter, I cannot refrain
from letting you know what a profound impression
the story of his life has made upon me. Of course,
like the rest of his countrymen, I admired him ex-
tremely on those grounds which were known to all
who were acquainted with the leading features of
his career ; and I had always a grateful recollection
of his personal kindness and goodness towards
myself, on the few occasions I had the pleasure of
coming into contact with him ; but it is not until
now that I had been able to comprehend the
majesty of his nature, in all the nobleness of its
full outlines, and the strength, power, and bene-
ficence of his mind and character.

It is, indeed, a wonderful record of a career of
unfailing duty, patriotism, and self-sacrifice ; and I
am appalled to think I should have been called upon
to fill a seat so strongly occupied.

Indeed, after closing the book, I told my wife I
thought the best thing we could do would be to take
178

LIFE OF LORD LAWRENCE

the return steamer back from Suez to England, as
it would be hopeless to approach such a prede-
cessor.

From the MARQUESS OF DUFFERIN to R.
BOSWORTH SMITH.

SUEZ, S.S. Tasmania, November 27, 1884.

I cannot refrain from writing you a line of thanks
for the extraordinary pleasure and profit I have
derived from your ' Life of Lord Lawrence.' It is one
of the best biographies I have ever read in my life,
giving such a clear picture of your hero in such
strong and bold outlines, and accompanied by so
many details, which enhance the charm and indi-
viduality of the character without either confusing
the narrative or the image you have presented
to us.

But what a subject it is with which you have to
deal ! What simplicity, strength, and majesty were
in the man ! And how unfailing, unswerving, and
unresting was his sense of duty ! And, again, how
dramatic his gradual ascension to the place ap-
pointed for him, and the unfolding of the scenes in
the Punjaub as they led to the crisis at Delhi ! It
has quite appalled me to think that I should have
been called upon to sit on that throne which was
once filled by so imperial a figure.

However, I will do my best to follow in his foot-
steps, and to profit by the landmarks he has erected
for all time to guide his less experienced successors.
I hope you will forgive me for troubling you with
these lines, but I could not help liberating my soul
on shutting up your beautiful volumes.
179

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

From the MARQUESS OF RIPON.

SIMLA, jth November 1884.

I read the book as soon as it reached me with
the greatest interest and pleasure ; and if I did not
at once express my appreciation of it, it was because
the public verdict in its favour was so marked and
general as to make any expression of individual
opinion unnecessary and almost unbecoming. I
can only say now that I find in your book the man
portrayed as I knew him, and that the story of his
noble life appears to me to be told in a manner
worthy of its theme. If I am to criticise at all, I
should be inclined to say that the account of the
Viceroyalty is less interesting than the earlier por-
tions of the narrative. But the reasons for this are
obvious. A due regard to personal considerations
doubtless rendered it impossible to speak unre-
servedly. . . .

But if Lord Lawrence's immediate circle of
friends were pleased with the delineation of his
character, beyond that circle were the many who
had spent their lives in India, or who were recog-
nised authorities on Indian affairs. A writer who
had never been in India had much to fear from such
men ; but here again it appeared that he had been
able to gain a correct appreciation of Indian life, and
a sense of Indian atmosphere, which disarmed criti-
cism. Sir Courtenay Ilbert, writing from Simla,
told him that he had managed to steer clear of
little technical slips with surprising success; Sir
180

LIFE OF LORD LAWRENCE

Alexander Taylor, President of Cooper's Hill Col-
lege, of whom John Nicholson had said, " If I
survive to-morrow, I shall let every one know
that Alec Taylor took Delhi" — one of the "old
Indians" for whose simple-mindedness and charm
Bos worth Smith felt a special appreciation — wrote
that it was marvellous how, without having been in
India, he had been able to realise and describe so
exactly the characters and scenes of the country.
"I congratulate you," he adds, "on having pro-
duced a book that will live for ever." Sir William
Hunter, whose thirty years' experience of India
entitled him to speak with authority, said his assimi-
lation of Indian things was "almost incredible."

From MR. F. A. H. ELLIOT, C.I.E., at that time

Tutor and Governor to H.R.H. the Gaekwar

of Baroda.

BARODA, October 19, '83.

How did you manage it? What is the secret?
There is not the slightest error or shade of uncer-
tainty in any of your descriptions of climate, daily
life, official life, at least as far as I know. I am
glad you have given so much space to the early
part of the great man's career. Few of us out here
will have the chance of knowing what we should do
as a Chief Commissioner or Lieutenant-Governor,
&c. The matter does not touch us. But many
of us are district officers, and it's pleasant enough
to read what the best men can do in that line, un-
approachable though the example is.
181

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

From his own friends, some of whom had no
direct connection with India, there was much the
same chorus of cordial appreciation.

From DR. G. G. BRADLEY, Dean of Westminster.

March 18, 1883.

DEAR FLORA, — Excuse both the familiarity and
the delay. I am glad you like the lectures — but
oh, the " Lord Lawrence" ! I am quite mad about
it, and having no time but the evening, am furious
at every evening engagement that keeps me from
it. No book has interested me so much for years.
It is admirably done. A blessed day in bed gave
me a start with it.

Another friend wrote that he read it with greedy
interest akin to that which used to be kindled in
his young mind by " Ivanhoe " and " Guy Manner-
ing." General Becher thanked him for the charmed
hours it had given him, and told him that its con-
tinued dramatic interest had led him captive from
page to page ; and the venerable Lord Portman,
writing to Lady Smith, said : —

" I have been re veiling in the ' Life of Lord Law-
rence ' by your nephew, and I want you, if you see
him, to tell him I think it is the best-written history
of a real hero that I have read for many a day.
His description of the great events are equal to the
best parts of the Greek historian Thucydides. He
has a good man to portray, and he has done it ad-
mirably. Your nephew does credit to his mother
indeed."

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LIFE OF LORD LAWRENCE

Sir George Trevelyan quoted a friend who
had called it the most readable book about
India he had read, and said for himself, he would
not, on historical grounds, have it at all shorter.

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH to COLONEL YULE.

February 4, 1883.

One thing I can say conscientiously, that not
one word in the book has been dictated by party
motives. I hate party. The first Afghan War
was made by a Liberal Government, and have I
not used quite as strong language about a Governor-
General and a Secretary of State as I have in the
second war, which happened to be the work of a
Conservative Government ? Party feelings do not
come near the matter.

Those who were closely connected with Bos-
worth Smith may perhaps be pardoned ^ if they
dwell a little on these kindly letters, which he
treasured all his days, and on the recollection that
the chief literary effort of his life was crowned with
success. It is a recollection that is tempered with
sadness, for one book crowds another out, and it
is given to very few biographies to live on even
into a second generation of readers.

Bosworth Smith carefully preserved with, we
may be sure, a humorous appreciation of its very
real value, a sheet of suggestions made by his wife
on his style and general treatment of his subject.
They were noted down in his own handwriting,
183

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

and they show that he had the help of an acute
critic at his side, whose advice other biographers
would do well to follow, if they could !

"Avoid superlatives; don't be too insistent on
your admiration ; don't give introductions to letters ;
lessen their number ; sometimes abstract them only ;
don't be blind to his faults ; bring out his responsi-
bility in the Orissa famine, for he was to blame ;
don't think how any particular person will regard
any particular bit, but write independently of them
all ; don't be too sentimental ; I don't object to
pathos when the thing is really pathetic, e.g. Henry
Lawrence's death, but remember you have much
more sentiment and imagination than Lord Law-
rence had, so tone down what you have said ; as
a whole, nothing could be better ; but as to parts !
it is my duty to pick holes ; you spoil your sen-
tences by putting in a ' perhaps ' or 'in some
measure ' ; if it is necessary to say a thing, say
it ; never use the word ' touching.' "

He had not expected, or indeed wished, to
escape criticism from without, for the subject
necessarily involved the treatment of many points
of contention. As regards one controversy, which
was carried on for a time with great bitterness,
I prefer to quote only General Becher's com-
ment, which I believe to represent truthfully my
father's motive in the matter. " I know well,"
he writes, "that what you have said proceeded
from a fine sense of honour, and a hatred of
184

LIFE OF LORD LAWRENCE

evil, which you deemed a part of the duty of a
historian."

His treatment of the frontier question naturally
excited much hostile criticism, and some of his
friends tried to make him modify certain strong
expressions which he had used in denouncing Lord
Lytton's policy. In 1883 opinion still ran high
on the Afghan question, and it was difficult for
the biographer of Lord Lawrence — remembering
his lifelong policy, not less than the obloquy to
which his views had exposed him in his last days
— to treat the matter dispassionately. Some critics
objected that, in dealing with open questions, Bos-
worth Smith assumed too controversial a tone, and
that he obtruded his own views too largely ; while
others, again, complained that there was too much
"undigested matter" in the book. Here, then,
were two pitfalls in opposite directions, into both
of which, according to his critics, he had fallen.
The views which he put forward, however, were
in many cases not his, but rather what, after
a careful study of material which few but himself
had seen, he believed to be Lord Lawrence's own ;
and if he had not attempted to put each situation
in John Lawrence's life, as it occurred, concisely
before his readers, they might well have blamed
him for shirking one of the most difficult parts of
his task. The " undigested matter," which dis-
pleased the other class of critics, referred probably
to the letters and reports which he believed would
185

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

speak for themselves better than abstracts or com-
ments could do, and from which he thought readers
would be able to form for themselves the figure
of the man.

Then there were those who thought that they
themselves, or those whom they specially admired,
had not been given due prominence in the story :
and others — a rarer and smaller class — who thought
that they themselves or their friends had been too
much mentioned.

That there was a certain tendency to diffuseness
may, perhaps, be admitted ; for the book did not
lose by compression, when it was eventually re-
published in a shorter form. It was the first
time that Bosworth Smith had written without
a strict limit of space, and he allowed some of his
sentences and descriptions, perhaps, to overgrow
themselves. He himself saw John Lawrence's life
as a great dramatic whole, and his anxiety that
his readers should see it all as he did, led him
to repeat retrospects and forecasts of his career
at too frequent intervals and possibly with over-
emphasis.

From the charge of hero-worship he was not
concerned to defend himself; for it seemed to
him that any man, who had spent three years
in close study of such a personality and such a
record, must of necessity come to look on John
Lawrence as a hero indeed, and that to rise from
such a study cold and unmoved, would have been a
186

LIFE OF LORD LAWRENCE

source of shame, rather than of self -congratu-
lation.

He claimed, with all justice, that no man living
knew more of the mind of Lord Lawrence than
he did ; and he felt it his duty, whenever questions
of Afghan frontier policy recurred, to put forward
what he believed would have been Lord Lawrence's
views on the subject. In 1880, after the second
Afghan War, he strongly advocated the abandon-
ment of Candahar. A letter written to his cousin,
Kenelm Wingfield Digby, who had recently been
elected member of Parliament, gives a simple and
forcible statement of his views rather later : —

May 8, 1885.

MY DEAR KELLY, — I don't know whether you
saw the enclosed letter to the Times, written when
the Government seemed to be quite determined
to say to Russia, " Thus far, and no further." It
will show you what I think, and what I believe
Lord Lawrence would have thought, under these
altered circumstances. The real difference between
his and Lord Lytton's policy, where I thought
and still think he was absolutely right, was that
he was always against invading or annexing Af-
ghanistan or any part of it as a necessary warding
off of Russia. " Keep within your own frontier,"
he said, " till the Afghans apply to you for aid
against Russia, and then help them by all means,
when they will regard you with confidence as their
natural allies." Lord Lytton tried to force an
envoy upon them at Cabul, an act which re-
peated Viceroys had promised to abstain from,
187

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

and which was certain to involve the Afghans
in both civil and foreign war. His policy and
the retention of Candahar after the war would, I
am sure, have made the Afghans regard us as
their worst enemies, and have thrown them at once
into the arms of Russia, and then we should have
been in a far worse plight than we are, bad as
that is.

I regard the present policy of the Government
as a decided retreat before Russia, likely to injure
us in the opinion of Asiatics everywhere, and
calculated to shake the confidence of the Afghans
in our power to withstand Russia. In particular,
the withdrawal of Sir Peter Lumsden is a great
mistake, done to please the Czar and the military
party in Russia ; the rupture is only postponed,
and it would have been far better for us for the
struggle to come now, before the Russian railway
to Merv and Sarakhs is finished, and while our
troops are half-way to India at Suakim, and the
allegiance of the native princes of India is un-
questioned, and the colonies are eager to help us.
I agree with you that from the military point of
view we ought not to go further than Candahar.
To go such a terrible distance from our base as
Herat would be too great a risk. We can go
to Candahar now with the full assent of the Ameer,
should there be war, whereas if we had retained
it at the end of the last war, we should have
been his deadly enemies. The railway to Canda-
har then would have been an equal mistake ; but
we certainly ought to have completed the railway
to Quettah, as that was our own, and we intended
to hold it permanently. It was most short-sighted
to pull up the rails.

188

LIFE OF LORD LAWRENCE

If I were going to speak in the debate I should
dwell on two or three points in particular : —

1. The utter untruthfulness of the Russians, as
shown by their history and their broken promises.

2. The desirability, if we are really going to
leave them at Penjdeh, of binding them in the most
formal manner by treaty not to go beyond that
frontier.

3. A solemn declaration by us that any advance
would be regarded as a casus belli.

... I met Vambery the other night at the Salis-
bury Club : Colonel Malleson, Sir Owen Burne,
Demetrius Boulger, Sir Edward Hamley, Edwin
Arnold, all very anti-Russian and Tory, were there.
I am rapidly becoming one of them, tell your
father.

In January 1895, m a letter to the Times,
apropos of the Chitral campaign, he suggested that
the time had now come when the supporters of
the rival schools of frontier policy might at last
join hands, and that the policy of the moment
was the legitimate corollary and outcome of Lord
Lawrence's policy, given the nearer approach of
Russia and greater friendliness of the Afghans.
The retrocession of Candahar had convinced Af-
ghanistan of our good intentions, and had saved
her from bankruptcy. And in February 1898, he
contrasted the policy of " influence," which had
been paramount from 1842 till 1846, with that
of " advance," which had for a time succeeded
it. He contended that when we had just been
189

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

through a disastrous war, such as the Tirah cam-
paign had been, it was no time to add to our
responsibilities ; and he quoted a story which he had
often told before, to illustrate his meaning.

" An old widow woman once came to the great con-
queror of Central Asia, Mahmud of Ghazni, to ask for
imperial redress, because a caravan had been cut off
and her son killed by robbers in one of the Persian
deserts. Mahmud, in his reply, dwelt upon the
impossibility of keeping control over so remote a
portion of his dominions. ' Why, then, do you take
countries,' she bitterly retorted, ' which you cannot
govern, and for which you shall have to answer in
the Day of Judgment ? ' '

In April 1903, the town of Clifton placed a com-
memorative tablet on the house which from 1819
had been for many years onwards the home of the
Lawrence family, and in which some of the boyhood
of Henry and John, as well as that of Sir George
Lawrence and General Richard Lawrence, had been
spent. Field-Marshal Sir Henry Norman, who had
borne such noble testimony to John Lawrence's
services in his official report after the taking of
Delhi, unveiled the tablet, and his presence and
that of Lieutenant-General Sir James Hills-Johnes,
as well as that of Sir Henry Lawrence's two sur-
viving children, and some eighty Crimean and Indian
veterans, lent additional interest to the occasion. It
was here that Bosworth Smith paid his last tribute
to the two great brothers, whom he knew, perhaps,
190

LIFE OF LORD LAWRENCE

better, and certainly reverenced no less, than did
their old comrades of the time of the Mutiny.

" It was my lot," he said on this occasion, " to
live, as it were, for three years after his death, day
by day and hour by hour, in the company of Lord
Lawrence — that is to say, in the study of his life.
I read every word of importance which had been
written by him, every word of importance which
had ever been written to him and had been pre-
served ; I conversed with his nearest and dearest
relations, with his friends and companions, with
those who supported and with those who opposed
his general policy. I did the same, though of course
in a lesser degree, with Sir Henry Lawrence ; for
I soon found that the lives of the two brothers were
so intermixed and so inseparable, though so diffe-
rent, that you could hardly understand the one with-
out understanding the other. The brothers differed
toto ccelo from one another in temperament, in apti-
tudes, and in policy. But there was still a likeness
in the difference — they had the same high and noble
objects, the same disinterestedness, the same passion
for hard work, the same love for the people of India,
the same aversion to all unnecessary or aggressive
frontier wars, the same absolute devotion to duty.
Which of the two rendered the noblest service to
the State, it is difficult to say, the life of the one
being cut short so soon ; but it is not difficult to
say that the chivalry, the generosity, the sympathy
of the one, the strength, the judgment, the magna-
nimity of the other, present to the people of India
the noblest impersonation of British rule."

A few words written by Maharajah Singh, son of
191

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

Sir Purtab Singh, and first cousin of the Maharajah
of Kapurthala, connect in a vivid way Bosworth
Smith's work at Harrow and in the great world
beyond : —

" I was his pupil for two terms in 1893," he says,
" and I had the greatest respect and affection for
him. I cannot forget his kindness to me, and the
freshness and charm of his teaching. But he
was much more than a master of Harrow. The
Indians owe much to him, and Indian Mussulmans
should remember that he was one of the first Eng-
lishmen to take a truer, juster, and more sympa-
thetic view of the great Arabian. Only a few
months ago I received a long letter from him, in
reply to one from me expressing my humble appre-
ciation of his great works on Mohammedanism and
Lord Lawrence. It was a letter full of sympathy
for this country and its people, and will be a
treasured possession. May he rest in peace."

192

REGINALD BosWORTH SMITH IN 1899

CHAPTER VII
THE NATIONAL CHURCH

THERE was no episode in Bosworth Smith's life, on
which he looked back with more thankfulness, than
the part which he was enabled to take, in 1885, in
the movement against the Disestablishment of the
Church of England. That this part was a very
important one, there was at the time a general con-
sensus of opinion ; and his eloquent letters in the
Times, which roused public opinion, and finally
induced Mr. Gladstone to break his long silence on
the question, won the admiration and gratitude, not
only of Churchmen, but of men of many different
shades of thought.

It may be as well to say something here as to his
attitude to the Church of England and to religious
matters generally. He strongly disliked what he
used to call " religious labels," and he would never
identify himself with any party in the Church. His
Evangelical upbringing no doubt influenced his
manner of thinking, and there were certain practices
of the High Church party which he regarded as
" un-English," and with which, therefore, he had
no sympathy. From the days of the Jowett con-
193 N

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

troversy onwards, he was opposed to anything like
persecution for conscientiously held opinions, al-
though he maintained that in Church matters the
law must be strictly observed, and the authority of
the bishops upheld. But he rejoiced in the latitude
and elasticity of the Church of England, and he
never tired of pointing out that within her bounds
there was room for men of widely differing opinions.
He thought that the Church would only be strength-
ened by the removal of all possible disabilities and
stumbling-blocks.

His description of the late Lord Ebury's attitude
to the Church of England defines his own with
equal precision and brevity. "He was opposed
to Disestablishment, not because he thought the
Established Church was free from faults, but be-
cause he thought the National Church to be the
greatest organisation for doing good which the
nation possesses, and because he was convinced
that national greatness was in no slight measure
bound up with national acknowledgment of God."

This conviction, that the National Church was
the most powerful agency for good in England,
came to him, he says himself, " from the remem-
brance of what I had seen done, from my earliest
years onwards, by my father and mother in the little
village of Stafford. I argued outwards from our
own parish, which I knew intimately, to the scores
of neighbouring parishes, which I knew less ; and
thence to the thousands of other parishes which I
194

THE NATIONAL CHURCH

knew resembled them, in all essential particulars ;
and I tried to estimate what would be the effect on
them, and so on the country at large, if all that was
being done, and could be done, by a good country
clergyman and his wife and family were to be swept
away by a rude and ostentatiously unjust method of
Disendowment and Disestablishment, such as had
been outlined in the Radical programme and was
then being distinctly threatened by Mr. Chamber-
lain. My indignation was stirred within me by the
insinuations, the covert sneers, and the scarcely
veiled appeals to the greed of his hearers indulged
in by Mr. Chamberlain, in the presence of vast
numbers of newly enfranchised and ignorant rustics,
and still more by the apparent apathy or indolent
acquiescence of the accredited leaders of the Liberal
party, not least of Mr. Gladstone. No one of them
opened his lips to condemn what was being done.
Many of the rank and file, thinking that the conclu-
sion was foregone, were blindly following in Mr.
Chamberlain's wake, and it seemed only too likely
that, without a word of protest from any of the
Liberal leaders, Disestablishment and Disendow-
ment would be enrolled as an article in the Liberal
programme, and that judgment would be registered
against the National Church, as it were by default."

It will be remembered that in August 1885, Parlia-
ment had been dissolved ; that Mr. Chamberlain
was an avowed supporter of the principle of Dis-
establishment, and that Mr. Gladstone, in his address
to the electors of Midlothian, had stated that two
great home questions were impending — the question
of Disestablishment and that of the government of
195

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

Ireland. He had gone on to say, however, that
the vast question of Disestablishment could not
" become practical until it shall have grown familiar
to the public mind by thorough discussion, with the
further condition that the proposal, when thoroughly
discussed, shall be approved."

The " thorough discussion " Mr. Gladstone fore-
shadowed was not long in coming, for Churchmen
felt that, while Mr. Chamberlain and the Liberal
caucus were in earnest, Mr. Gladstone's own attitude
was, to say the least, ambiguous. The newspapers
were filled with letters and articles on the subject,
and if the elections were not actually fought on the
point, Disestablishment was, at all events, an impor-
tant factor in the contest, which no candidate could
afford to ignore.

Bosworth Smith's first letter to the Times, on
October i3th, struck a new note, which found a
quick response all over the country. In forcible
but temperate language he pointed out that Mr.
Gladstone, although he declined to head the attack
on an institution which he had so often defended,
had merely noted with regret that the current of
the age was setting towards Disestablishment, and
had contented himself with the fond hope that the
work of destruction, when it came, would be marked
by a "large observance of the principles of equity
and liberality." He contrasted the attitude of the
leader of the Liberal party with the clear and definite
utterances of Lord Salisbury, and — in a different
196

THE NATIONAL CHURCH

sense — of Mr. Chamberlain. The Liberals had just
largely added to their responsibilities by admitting
two million rural voters to the franchise, and he
urged that the birth-throes of the English democracy
was not the time statesmen should choose for so
sweeping a change as the abolition of the English
Church.

N/

"The Church of England is a great historicaLr\
nstitution. It has grown with the growth of Eng^
land and developed with her development, and no
serious person can pretend to doubt what this really
means. If it is not doing a good work now — if it is,
from its constitution, incapable of doing still greater
good hereafter — by all means take measures for its
ultimate abolition ; only be quite sure that you have
something better to put in its place. But will any-
body maintain that the Church of England is an
effete or useless institution ? It has thrown off the
lethargy and the worldliness which, in the last cen-
tury, seemed to spread like a very leprosy over
everything that was good in England. The country
clergyman is no longer content if he can hit it off
well with the country squire, and can drone through
two sleepy services on the Sunday. The bishop is
no longer like that Bishop of Gloucester who, as
one who heard him has assured me, in his episcopal
charge begged his reverend brethren * not to waste
their time in visiting the poor, but to stick to their
studies ; if they did so, they would probably get
preferment here, and, at least, they would be re-
warded hereafter.' The Church of England has
long been pre-eminently the Church of the poor.
It opens its doors and its ministrations to all who
197

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

care to avail themselves of them. During the last
fifty years it has covered the land with hundreds
of new churches, and has rebuilt or enlarged many
hundreds more, and all from the voluntary contribu-
tions of its devoted members. It is no longer a
political institution in any low sense of the word ;
still less is it, as popular orators have recently been
describing it, 'a hotbed of Toryism.' It took up
the cause of popular education when no political
party would have cared to do anything to educate
the poor, and it supplied the vast majority of country
parishes with excellent schools, which it supported
for years and is supporting still. It is the most
liberal and tolerant and national of all existing
National Churches. It gives the clergy indepen-
dence and a large and ever-widening field for free
religious thought, while it protects the laity from
the vagaries of ritualism and the tyranny of sacer-
dotalism. Its cathedrals are the delight and the
despair of Churches that are less ancient and less
historical. Its chief dignitaries have been, many of
them, among the men of whom England is most
proud and who have made England what it is. It
has been the nursing mother and the mainstay of
hundreds of charitable organisations and institutions.
1 The parsonage of the country clergyman has, in
the vast majority of cases, long been the centre of
nearly all the good that has been done in the country
parish — the day school, the night school, the coal
club, the clothing club, the lending library, the
penny savings bank, the allotment ground, the
coffee tavern, the temperance movement ; and the
parson himself, in a like majority of cases, has been
the friend, the helper, and the adviser, in things
temporal as well as things spiritual, of every inhabi-
198

THE NATIONAL CHURCH

tant of his parish — most of all, of the poor, the widow,
the orphan, the infirm, and the afflicted. Never, in
a word, in the whole course of history, has the
Church of England shown more exuberant evidence
of energy and vitality than it is doing at this day.

"This is the institution, with its roots deep down
in the history of the past, its branches intertwining
with every part and fibre of the higher national life,
and able, as I believe, to receive within its ample and
ever-widening embrace more and more of all that
is religious in England, which is to be swept away
by the fiat of Mr. Chamberlain and his followers,
if not in the next, at least in the ensuing Parlia-
ment. And yet the most venerable and venerated
of our Liberal statesmen have not yet made up their
minds whether the thing is to be or not to be. In
the turmoil of party strife they have hardly a word
or a thought to spare for the subject. Their fol-
lowers look to them for guidance, and, hitherto, they
have looked for it in vain. Quousque tandem ? "

In a second letter, a fortnight later, Bosworth
Smith dwelt on the historical aspect of the case, and
developed his argument that

s£ " The Church of England deserves to be the
/ * National Church, because it is the outcome of
circumstances and centuries, of national peculiari-
ties and national needs. It was neither concocted
by a constitution-monger, nor was it imposed upon
England, ready-made, by any king or priest, or re-
presentative assembly. It has not advanced by
sudden leaps, but it has grown with our growth,
and, like our liberties themselves, and like every-
thing else in our national history which is of per-
199

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

manent value, it has ' broadened slowly down from
precedent to precedent.' We may, very possibly,
succeed in destroying an institution whose germs
may be traced back almost to apostolic times, and
are certainly coeval with the earliest germs of our
national life ; an institution which has enshrined
itself in such inimitable buildings, has found expres-
sion in such a noble literature, and has been conse-
crated by so many philanthropic and so many saintly
lives ; an institution which is regarded with such
passionate devotion by so large a part of the nation ;
which has, in the last half-century, done so much to
keep pace with the extraordinary development and
the multifarious needs of modern life, and has, as
we believe, a still more rapid development and a
still wider field of activity in the immediate future.
But, if we do succeed in destroying all this, we shall
destroy that for which we can find no substitute, and
we shall wake up, when it is too late, to find that we
have irrevocably broken with the past, and that we
have bartered away a priceless inheritance on the
strength of hopes and promises which, in the nature
of things, never can be realised.

" No truly religious man will fear that religion is
about to perish because the framework of a parti-
cular Church is threatened. Man's spiritual wants,
whatever their origin, are his truest wants, and the
something which satisfies those wants is the most
real of all realities to him. Sweep, if you can, reli-
gion clean away from the world to-day ; you will
have to look for it again to-morrow. Still less will
any one who believes that in Christianity, in its
simplest form, there is a promise and a potency, a
self-expansive and a self-adjusting force, which may
enable it, under various shapes, and in unlooked-for
200

THE NATIONAL CHURCH

developments, to embrace all that is best and noblest
in modern life, feel any fear that the majestic fabric
of Christianity will itself come toppling to the
ground, because, here in England, we are rudely
knocking away what hitherto we have been tempted
to regard as its stateliest buttresses and supports."

The victory, if victory there was to be, would be
regarded by Christendom as a victory of irreligion
over religion ; and would be won, not so much by
those Nonconformists and Liberals whose convic-
tions were sincere and honourable, as by men who
were hostile to all forms of religion. The gain,
even to the Nonconformists themselves, would not
compare with the loss caused by the general dis-
integration, the wounded feelings, the fight for the
spoils which must ensue on Disestablishment. Mr.
Chamberlain, seeing the way public opinion was
tending, seemed inclined to postpone the crisis ;
but Mr. Gladstone, to whom Bosworth Smith again
appealed with the admiring reverence he then felt
for him, still had not spoken.

Mr. Gladstone did not leave this appeal un-
answered ; and his reply to Bosworth Smith,
which was, by his consent, published in the Times
and other newspapers, broke the long silence which
had perplexed and pained so many of his own
supporters : —

HAWARDEN, October 31, 1885.

MY DEAR SIR, — I thank you for several more than
courteous references to myself in your letters to the
201

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

Times, which I have read with interest. You state,
in the first of them, that this is the crisis of the
question whether the Church of England shall be
disestablished, and you call upon me to declare my
views upon that crisis. I entirely differ from your
opinion that the crisis has arrived, and I consider
that in discussing this crisis, which has not arrived,
and which is not likely to arrive, I should commit a
gross error, by drawing off public attention from
those matters, which are likely to employ the ensuing
Parliament, to other matters, not less important in
themselves, but for which the public mind is in no
way prepared. We have before us a group of
great political and social questions, on which the
Liberal party are agreed and prepared to act ; there
are other questions lying wholly beyond these —
lying in what you observe I have called the dim
and distant future — on which the members of the
party are not only not prepared to act, but are not
agreed as to the side which they should take respec-
tively. It is at least an intelligible manoeuvre for
the Tories, fearful of the approaching verdict of the
country, to aim at thrusting aside the matured sub-
jects on which they have now to confront a united
party, and forcing forward other subjects on which
differences prevail, so that judgment may be given,
not on what is before the country, but on what is
not, and so that the Liberal force may not be united
but divided. Accordingly, it is not by the Liberals,
or even by the Radical portion of the Liberals, that
the great subject of English Disestablishment is at
this moment forced forward. It is forced forward
by the Tories, to whose obvious motive I have re-
ferred, and I regret to find from your letters that
you think their manoeuvre may, in certain cases,
202

THE NATIONAL CHURCH

have some promise of success. I trust these cases
will be few, because I am certain they will be un-
fortunate. The more our opponents succeed in
raising a premature alarm, in attracting the votes of
the Churchmen, in withdrawing from the Liberal
councils all moderating influences, and in forcing, so
far as they can, the article of Disestablishment into
the Liberal creed, the earlier in its time and the
worse in its form will be the crisis you desire to
avert. Whether the Tories will greatly lament the
acceleration of that crisis, provided the fear of it
shall have strengthened them as a party in the
meantime, I do not feel sure. But I cannot consent
to put a bandage on my eyes and to take part in
playing their game. For my own part, I have
embraced no new opinion, and I have neither
shared in nor assented to any attack upon the
Church ; but I have never been in the habit of
blowing the trumpet for battles in which I could
take no part ; and I cannot now agree to darken
the controversy in which we are engaged, and
hazard its issue, by perplexing the public mind with
topics which are perfectly unreal with respect to the
true political and social crisis of this election, and
with which I have an entire assurance that, if here-
after they become practical, it will be for others,
and not for me, to deal. — I remain, my dear Sir,
faithfully yours, W. E. GLADSTONE.

R. BOSWORTH SMITH, Esq.

In his reply to Mr. Gladstone, Bosworth Smith

submitted that a question that was agitating the

country as it had not been agitated for a quarter of

a century, and in which four hundred and eighty

203

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

Liberal candidates had pledged themselves to act,
could not be said to be beyond the range of prac-
tical politics.1 He noticed with satisfaction that
Mr. Gladstone admitted that the question ought
not to have been started by leading Liberals, that
it would, when raised, seriously shatter the old
Liberal party, and that he himself had " neither
shared in nor assented to any attack upon the
Church." Once more he appealed to Mr. Gladstone,
not indeed to " blow the trumpet," as he had put it,
" for a battle in which he could take no part," but at
least to sound a retreat when a false and reckless
move had been made.

Mr. Gladstone's Midlothian speeches only empha-
sised and expanded what he had said in his letter to
Bosworth Smith, and, in a final letter to the Times,
the latter referred with sorrowful disillusionment to
Mr. Gladstone's maxim that " the most important
duty " of a leader was not to lead, to guide, to inspire,
but simply to " ascertain the average convictions
of his party, and largely to give effect to them."
" Why, sir," he wrote, " the average of people,
whether they call themselves Liberal or Conserva-
tive, have no enthusiasms or convictions of their own
at all. . . . The man who is content to express the
average convictions of his party is not their leader,

1 Lord Milner, then Mr. Alfred Milner, was at the moment Liberal
candidate for the Harrow division, and it is interesting to note that
he was one of those who risked his election by his conscientious and
open opposition to Disestablishment.
204

THE NATIONAL CHURCH

he is their servant — I would rather say, their slave."
A reprieve, however, had been granted to the
Church ; let her use it, by sweeping away abuses,
as to which all were agreed, and let the introduction
of timely reforms show that she did not identify
herself with Conservatism alone.

The three letters to the Times and the cor-
respondence with Mr. Gladstone were at once
printed by the Church Defence Institution as a
pamphlet, with the title, " Reasons of a Layman
and a Liberal for Opposing Disestablishment," and
obtained a very wide circulation. In some con-
stituencies a copy was sent to every householder,
and the letters were reproduced in various forms
throughout the country.

Space forbids the quotation of more than a few of
the hundreds of letters which reached Bosworth
Smith. Nearly all the bishops and deans, and very
many clergy and Churchmen of differing views,
wrote to thank him for his unexpected and timely
championship ; and many who were themselves out-
side the Church expressed their sympathy with the
tone of his letters. The whole correspondence is
interesting, because the subject is approached from
many different standpoints, and the discussion of
a question, which is still awaiting final settlement,
by some of the ablest statesmen of twenty-five
years ago, has a definite value even at the pre-
sent day.

205

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH
From DR. BENSON, Archbishop of Canterbury.

November 4, 1885.

I had read your letters with admiration for their
solid reasoning, and for their knowledge of facts,
historical and mental. And now we have to thank
you again for your analysis of the oracles. One
may deceive oneself, but I have all my life tried to
look at the English Church from an unecclesiastical
point of view, as well as to live to her ; and I feel
as sure as I can be of anything that, if I were no
cleric, my mind could equally go with what you have
written and be ready to act on it. I trust your
advice may be taken ; but in any case, you have
done what will go far to counteract the mischief of
its not being taken.

From DR. G. G. BRADLEY, Dean of Westminster.

Your letters have touched a higher plane of
thought than anything else I had read. Nothing
could possibly be better.

From CANON B. F. WESTCOTT, afterwards
Bishop of Durham.

We seem to have been learning in late years the
nobility of corporate life, and that statesmen should
be eager and willing to sacrifice the organ, through
which the highest aspirations and most unselfish
energies of a nation find natural expression, is to me
amazing. I would that Mr Gladstone even now
would listen to your most touching appeal. He
206

THE NATIONAL CHURCH

certainly cast away the greatest opportunity he
ever had, even if, in doing it, he has roused men
to see there is in life something stronger than a
current of tendency. My anxiety comes from the
fear that we may be unable to bear much longer *
the denial of liberty for spiritual growth. I am *
sure that I am not impatient, but unless reasonable
powers of self-government are given to the Church, :
I hardly see how we can support our burden.

From DR. JAMES MARTINEAU.

December 23, '85.

Your letter of November i6th on Disestablish-
ment I had read in the Times with delighted
admiration and sympathy ; and I thank you most
sincerely for completing my knowledge of the
series. For nearly fifty years I have been a most
unwilling Nonconformist ; compelled to be so by
inability to accept the theology of the Anglican
formularies ; but believing in a fundamental unity
of religious sentiment in the English people, attach-
ing great importance to its national expression — and
longing for the time when the ban of exile may be
removed, which excludes so large a multitude at
present shut out from Church communion. Mere
personal banishment, however, has no effect in
diminishing my historical reverence and social
affection for the most venerable and beneficent of
all English institutions, the gates of which I would
still defend from assault, although her fellowship
were to be denied for ever to such as I am. At
the same time, the more profound my homage to
the Church, the more eager is my desire to see her
207

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

wake up to the full range and grandeur of her
mission to this nation of ours. And I am painfully
struck by what I cannot help calling the pettiness
and poverty of such schemes of reform as are set
forth from time to time by her own members. It is
well and needful, no doubt, to amend her internal
ecclesiastical constitution in many ways : and her
own work, within its present bounds, will be more
effective when this is done. But it is not from this
side that her chief danger threatens. There is an
irreconcilable variance between her assumed theory
of Christianity and the living inward Christian
pieties which stir the hearts of religious people in
our time, and which alone will stir them in the
future. Among Nonconformists, who have no
stereotyped forms of worship, obsolete elements
can drop silently away : and the whole tone and
character of their services have accordingly changed
and are in harmony with their preaching : while in
the Church the contrast is often painful between
the sincere and earnest breadth of the pulpit and
the unreal phrases which can no longer be appro-
priated in the creeds and prayers. One of the best
of the London clergymen, lamenting to me the
consequence of this, said : "The only man I have
ever known who really prayed the Prayers was
F. D. Maurice." So long as this is even tending
to become true, surely a fatal canker is at the root
of the Church, whose clergy it concerns. Mr. Glad-
stone's attitude does not surprise me. 'I well
remember a conversation with him in either 1863
or 1867, which led me to say to a friend next day
that, if in his time the Liberationist agitation came
to a head, he would be the man to disestablish the
Church. He laid down two positions: (i) The
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THE NATIONAL CHURCH

Anglican Church is divine and (except in ecclesias-
tical machinery) unalterable ; and (2) the State must
bear itself impartially towards all the religions of its
subjects. The inference is inevitable : the Church
is unsusceptible of enlargement ; the State must
choose between the establishment of all religions and
the establishment of none. The responsibility in
this great matter rests primarily, it seems to me,
with the serious-minded laity of the Church, espe-
cially the members of Parliament. They have
bound the clergy by subscription, and it is shameful
to throw the burden upon men thus placed. Pardon
an old man's garrulity, and believe me, yours most
truly, JAMES MARTINEAU.

From A. J. WATERLOW, Esq.

igth October.

I am a Dissenter in religious matters, but I should
regard it as a national calamity that the splendid
inheritance we have belonging to our National
Church should be dissipated and destroyed.
Some day this large property and organisation
may be even more usefully employed.

From the %th DUKE OF ARGYLL.

November 5, 1885.

Mr. Gladstone's reply is, of course, quite valueless
for the future. He speaks only for himself, and
for the day after to-morrow. He is now a mere
" opportunist," as every man must be who seeks no
more than to lead for a short time so very motley
a crew. The friends of the Established Church
209 o

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

should relax no exertion, although, of course, I fully
admit that if her position is really so strong as to be
unassailable, it would be best to sit absolutely still,
saying, " Let them rave." But I do not think it
quite her position — an adverse vote in the dis-
organised House of Commons might easily be got,
or a " Resolution," and this would have a bad effect
on the future of the question. The two Established
Churches rest on different bases, and are open to
different kinds of attack. But pure " Voluntaryism "
as a principle, and almost as a dogma, is equally
fatal to both ; and this is the strongest enemy in
Scotland. In my Glasgow speech I have indicated
my own objection to the principle of Voluntaryism,
as such ; in England simple jealousy is the motive
force, and this can't be met by an argument.

From the same.

November 30, 1885.

The controversy in the two countries does not
turn wholly on the same arguments. That is to
say, we in Scotland have long discussed it upon
grounds in regard to spiritual independence which
few, as yet, stand upon in England. But the main
attack now — the demand for what is called "reli-
gious equality " — is equally applicable, and may be
met by the same arguments. Gladstone's " peewit "
illustration is hardly honest. If the Liberal party
had got a triumphant majority, Chamberlain and
Co. would have set aside Gladstone's mot dordre
without scruple.

210

THE NATIONAL CHURCH

From the MARQUESS OF SALISBURY.

2gth November.

They [the letters] were a very valuable contribu-
tion to the defence of the Church, and probably did
more than any other statement of the case to rouse
the attention and feelings of those whom it was of
the greatest importance at that time to influence —
namely, the large body of Liberal Churchmen.

From LORD HALIFAX.

November 18, 1885.

I thought your reply to Mr. Gladstone conclusive,
and I cannot help saying how much he has disap-
pointed me throughout the whole controversy. One
in his position is bound to try and lead his country-
men in what he believes to be the right way ; and
though I might have disagreed with him, I should
not have complained if he had declared himself in
favour of a separation of Church and State, and
told us why he was so. I might even have been
convinced by his reasons ; but what I cannot under-
stand is his ignoring the whole merits of the ques-
tion itself, and contenting himself with telling us it
would be difficult to disestablish the Church. We
require no leader to tell us that. It will be a great
misfortune if Churchmen are led to identify them-
selves exclusively with any one political party, but
if it is so, it will be largely Mr. Gladstone's fault,
not for what he has said, but for what he has
studiously refrained from saying.

2U

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH
From the EARL OF IDDESLEIGH.

loth November.

It is easy to understand Mr. Gladstone's diffi-
culty, but it is quite impossible to admit his excuses
for not speaking out. The Church question is one
which he has made so peculiarly his own that he
cannot but have some opinion, and he is morally
bound not to conceal it. It is unfair to the country
at large, to the supporters of the Church Establish-
ment, and to the moderate Liberals themselves,
that he should withhold his counsel ; but, as he
declines to speak out, it becomes doubly incumbent
on the friends of the Church to make their own
declaration of policy, and this is, I hope, one good
result that may come out of the unsatisfactory
language held by the spokesman of the Liberals.

From EARL SPENCER.

6th November.

I cannot add anything to strengthen what Mr.
Gladstone has said, but I confess that as a Church-
man I view with great alarm the line that has been
taken by Churchmen and politicians on this subject.
If the Liberation Society has made this election
the occasion of pressing forward their views, this is
no new policy on their part. They have long and
consistently pushed their attacks. I do not there-
fore see why their action makes it incumbent on
Liberals to answer categorically the question as to
whether they will support Disestablishment or not.
Many Liberals who are warmly attached to the

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Church, and wish to maintain it, will very properly,
in my opinion, decline to pledge themselves. The
result of this action will be that the Church will be
using its strength in favour of the Conservatives,
and will be running the serious danger of alienating
Liberals from its support. This seems to me very
serious, for the strength of the Church rests in
having men of all sides and views in its ranks.
Any movement which has the tendency of leaving
the support of the Church exclusively to Conser-
vatives is, to my mind, wrong. I myself adhere
strongly to the principles which were adopted by
Mr. Gladstone in regard to the Irish Church, but
the position of the English Church is very different
at the present time.

From the HON. WALTER JAMES, M.P., now
Lord Northbourne.

When the Church is separated from the State
I cannot say who might be the residuary legatees
of the property ; but, in the main, I am confident
it is never likely to pass to objects and purposes
very different from those it is employed on now.

From LORD TENNYSON.

I2//& December.

The letters, as they have reached me separately,
I have read with the greatest interest. With you
I believe that the Disestablishment and Disendow-
ment would prelude the downfall of much that is
greatest in England. Abuses there are, no doubt,
in Church as well as elsewhere, but these are not
213

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

past remedy. As to any "vital changes in our
constitution," I could wish that some of our promi-
nent politicians, who look to America as their ideal,
might borrow from her an equivalent to that con-
servatively restrictive provision under the fifth
article of her constitution. I believe it would be
a great safeguard to our own in these days of
ignorant and reckless theorists.

Lord Morley, in his " Life of Gladstone," is,
not unnaturally, not expansive on the subject of
Disestablishment, as it presented itself in 1885 ;
but it is interesting to note that, in an account of
some conversations with Mr. Chamberlain, written
to Lord Granville by Mr. Gladstone on October 8,
he says : " The question of the House of Lords
and Disestablishment, he (Mr. Chamberlain) re-
gards as still lying in the remoter distance ; " that
is, at an early date in the agitation Mr. Chamber-
lain had already, unknown to the Liberal party at
large, relegated the attack on the Church to an
indefinitely later period. Speaking of Mr. Glad-
stone's speeches in Midlothian just before the elec-
tions, Lord Morley says : " Disestablishment was
his thorniest topic, for the scare of ' the Church in
danger' was working considerable havoc in Eng-
land, and every word on Scottish Disestablishment
was sure to be translated to Establishment else-
where. On the day on which he was to handle
it, his entry is : ' Much rumination . . . spoke
seventy minutes in Free Kirk Hall : a difficult
214

THE NATIONAL CHURCH

subject. The present agitation does not strengthen
in my mind the principle of Establishment.' His
leading text was a favourite and a salutary maxim
of his, that ' it is a very serious responsibility to
take political questions out of their proper time
and their proper order,' and the summary of his
speech was, that the party was agreed upon cer-
tain large and complicated questions, such as were
enough for one Parliament to settle, and that it
would be an error to attempt to thrust those ques-
tions aside, to cast them into shade and darkness,
' for the sake of a subject of which I will not under-
value the importance, but of which I utterly deny
the maturity at the present moment.' "

Lord Morley implies that "the scare of 'the
Church in danger ' " was at this time little more
than a party cry ; if, as is of course likely, there
were some who made use of it in this way, Bos-
worth Smith was not among them. It is not too
much to say that he never advocated a cause in
which he did not fervently believe. He had never
been what is known as a party man, but the line
which he had now taken had brought him into
direct opposition with the leader, whom he had
before regarded with almost idolising enthusiasm,
and with the ideals of whose party he had hitherto
sympathised. Two letters of his own show his
attitude of mind : —

215

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

To CAPTAIN EASTWICK.

I have read your letter aloud to my wife, and
I can truly say that the effect of either a letter or
a talk with you is, upon both of us, exactly what you
describe as having been the effect upon you of a
visit to Lord Shaftesbury. These letters have
indeed come straight from my heart and conscience,
and it is to this fact mainly that I attribute their
astonishing effect. I did not dream when I wrote
that first letter what it would lead to, or what
enthusiasm they would cause. The correspondence
that they have led to has been of quite extraordi-
nary and unique interest, and includes nearly every
one of mark in the Church and State who is not
officially or by nature a partisan. ... I believe
and hope that I am in no way elated, but only
deeply thankful for having thus been the instru-
ment— I hope it is not presumptuous to say, in
God's hand — of having helped forward a noble
cause and roused people to a most real danger.
Sometimes I feel humiliated at my having been
in some sort pitched upon for this great work.
I am not an ecclesiastic in any sense of the word.
Church history and Church dogmas do not par-
ticularly interest me, but I have a firm belief in
the vitality of Christianity, and think it would be
sheer wickedness and folly to overthrow such a
wonderful instrument for good as the English
Church has been, and still more, may be in time
to come. I only hope that the reprieve that has
been gained may be utilised to the utmost to make
the Church more useful still, and therefore more
impregnable. . . . You will see Lord Tennyson's
216

THE NATIONAL CHURCH

letter to me on the Disestablishment letters, which
his son and secretary, Hallam Tennyson, doubtless
by his father's wish, asked me to publish. So I
sent it to all the papers, and it will doubtless be
quoted Jwith effect hereafter when the next serious
and reckless attack is made upon the Church.

To PROFESSOR TYNDALL.

Allow me to give you a revised and collected
copy, in a rather less ephemeral shape, of the letters
you were good enough to say you had enjoyed
reading. I well remember the keen pleasure I felt
when, on meeting you on the stairs at the Royal
Institution some years ago, you told me you had
enjoyed reading my first lecture on Mohamme-
danism. That was my first effort of a public nature,
and the kind sympathy expressed by a man of your
eminence, who, I knew, did not like my standpoint,
was a great encouragement to me, and I have never
forgotten it. In the same way now, I know that
you could not regard the Church as a civilising and
humanising institution quite in the same light in
which I do, but I could have felt certain before-
hand that you could sympathise with the tone and
spirit, and the appeal to a higher morality than is
common among public men, which has animated
them throughout. . . . They have had an extra-
ordinary influence on the public mind. Nothing I
have ever written has produced anything like the
effect.

There is no need to conceal the fact, that Bos-
worth Smith felt a vivid pleasure in the apprecia-
217

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

tion of those whose opinion he valued ; a. pleasure
which is probably common to all but the most
cynical and the most self-sufficing. A certain
reticence usually prevents the open expression of
this pleasure, but his nature was too impulsive,
and, perhaps, too childlike to hide it, even had he
wished to do so, and the desire for sympathy, not
less than an ingenuous surprise at himself, some-
times impelled him to put in words what many
keep to themselves. What gave pleasure to him,
he was always anxious to extend to others. When
any one spoke warmly of another to him, he made a
point of transmitting the appreciation to him whom
it concerned, for he believed that praise seldom
harms, but rather that it warms the atmosphere
of what sometimes seems a cold and self-centred
world.

Nearly a quarter of a century has passed, and
the attack on the Established Church of England
has not been seriously renewed. Men's minds have
grown familiar with the idea of Disestablishment,
but until the question comes definitely forward, it
is impossible to say whether the people of England
consider that the Church has, since 1885, justified
the efforts which were then made on her behalf,
and whether men will once more be found to defend
her with equal enthusiasm.1 The idea of Disestab-
lishment does not now, as it did formerly, strike all

1 At the Pan-Anglican Congress of 1908, mention was made of the
great revival in the Church dating from the attack on her in 1885.
218

THE NATIONAL CHURCH

earnest Churchmen alike with fear. In 1885, a .
working man, who wrote to Bosworth Smith on
the subject, pointed out the wide distinction, which
was patent to him, between the Church and the
Establishment ; and to many Churchmen it seems,
as it seemed to him, that to do away with the
Establishment, might yet leave the Church un-
harmed. On the question of Disendowment, which,
unfortunately, must be bound up with that of Dis-
establishment, and which seemed to him to entail
retrospective dishonesty, his views remained un-
altered all his life.

He was asked to take part in the work of the
Society for National Church Reform by the Hon.
Albert Grey and Dr. Abbott, but this he declined,
as details were never congenial to him, nor had he
any aptitude for work on a committee. In Decem-
ber 1885, Mr. Longman asked him to edit a book
in a popular form, which was to be entitled, " Why
I should not Disestablish," and which was to con-
tain the opinions of leading men on the subject.
The idea was not specially attractive to him. On
January 5, 1886, he wrote to Mr. Longman as
follows : —

" I have not been idle since I saw you ; I saw
Dean Church after I left you. I went to Addington
on Monday, and met there both archbishops, and
the Bishops of London, Peterborough, and Durham.
I went on Tuesday to Lord Egerton of Tatton,
where I met the Bishop of Chester, and on Satur-
219

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

day to Davidson at Windsor, and with each of them
I discussed the subject of the proposed book. The
Archbishop of York thought there had been enough
elaborate writing on the subject, and that the plan
proposed would be the best, and to this the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury quite came round. All were
anxious on the whole that I should undertake it,
though some took the view that I might be doing
more original and therefore more worthy work. All
agreed, however, that it would be a matter of great
difficulty to induce the right and the most important
people to write for it, and that a poor book, con-
taining second-rate opinions of second-rate men,
would be worse than useless. They urged upon
me, however, that if any one could get the right
people to write I could, for the general sympathy
which my letters to the Times has called forth. I
am prepared, therefore, to write as soon as possible
some twenty letters to the very best and ablest men
whose utterances could be of most weight, and if
I get a fair proportion of favourable answers to
undertake the book ; otherwise not, for I should
not be helping the cause, but the reverse, and
nothing would induce me, holding the views that I
do hold, to help to steer the vessel on the rocks."

Very few of the people to whom Bosworth Smith
wrote saw their way to contributing to the proposed
book, although Mr. J. H. Shorthouse, author of
"John Inglesant," promised to attempt to write
an essay on lines which seemed to him of peculiar
interest.

220

THE NATIONAL CHURCH

From MR. J. H. SHORTHOUSE, Author of

"John Inglesant"

January 10, 1886.

I regard the Church of England as a perfectly
unique and priceless institution, at once the agent
and the result of the highest pitch of cultured
thought and existence, provided that culture speaks
with authority, and is listened to with humility.
This is the principle — you may call it an aristo-
cratic principle if you like — which has ever been
at the basis of the Church system, but in the
case of our Church it has been so modified by State
government, by lay patronage, by social ties, by
sympathy with popular pleasures and pursuits, an
inestimable legacy by the Catholic period, that the
result has become the unique and priceless one
which we see. But I do not look forward with
hope to this state of things, and being able to
resist the wild tempest of uneducated and ignorant
democracy ; and any tampering with the Church
system to propitiate the democracy, to reconcile
it with the principle of government from below
instead of from above, would seem to me worse
than a fairly compromised scheme of Disestablish-
ment, which would, one might hope, still preserve
a Church in the van of cultured thought and cul-
tured and reasonable religion, which unites in an
astonishing perfection such opposing elements as
reason and sacramentalism, feudalism and democ-
racy, the noble and the peasant, the man of the
world and the saint, the agnostic and the fanatic
for verbal inspiration. Should you find that a short
article on these lines would be of any value, or

221

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

not clash with the general tone of your book, I
shall be glad to see what I can do, but I never
promise anything until I see whether I can in
any degree satisfy myself.

From DR. JAMES MARTINEAU.

January 8, 1886.

Greatly interested as I am in your projected
volume, I yet am obliged to decline the privilege
of being a contributor to it. I have reached the
age when work is slow and the time for it is short ;
yet when the incomplete designs of life press their
claims with a rebuking importunity of appeal, the
duty of concentration is plainly imperative on me,
though rendered difficult by an unabated fresh-
ness of interest in the new movements of thought
and social action. But I have too many arrears
to discharge to permit my entrance on further
engagements. The very large and complicated
nature of this Church question oppresses me with
a serious fear of the effect of flinging it, in a per-
fectly unshaped condition, into the chance medley
of public discussion. If it were possible to refer
the whole subject of Ecclesiastical Reform to a well-
chosen council of the wise — perhaps in the shape
of a Royal Commission — and reserve the first exhi-
bition of it in all its relations till the presentation
of their Report, subsequent discussion would fall
within rational limits and proceed upon trustworthy
data. But if the problem is pre-occupied by
the competitions of incompetent disputants and
dreamers, there is no knowing what nonsense
may come uppermost, and what dissensions may
222

THE NATIONAL CHURCH

repel from each other people who have become
committed to the absurd or the impossible. The
difficulty of religious union in England lies, I am
persuaded, much less in the essence of men's con-
victions and affections than in the mutual ignorance
of Churchmen and Dissenters. They know little
or nothing of each other's lives and literature ;
and though alike animated by intense national
feeling, direct it chiefly upon opposite parties in
the historical struggles which have made us
what we are. It is time that this narrowness of
admiration and sympathy should cease, and one
sanctuary of reverence and piety should embrace
both. — Believe me, yours very sincerely,

JAMES MARTINEAU.

From the EARL OF IDDESLEIGH.

10 DOWNING STREET,
January 13, 1886.

I have kept your letter for some days, feeling
very uncertain as to the answer I should give.
Your volume would, no doubt, be interesting and
suggestive ; and I would expect it to be valuable.
But the scheme seems to me to be open to some
objections. In the first place, I doubt whether
it is for the friends of the Establishment principle
to take the initiative in the struggle which their
opponents may be presumed to be preparing for ;
I think it should rather be our line to defend
when we are attacked, and not till then. I should
say, that I do not mean by this that we should
delay to amend what should be amended for the
sake of defence ; but that we should not begin
223

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

to discuss the grounds on which the principle or
principles of Establishment rest prematurely. I
doubt whether writers are likely to do themselves
justice in a compilation of opinions written ad hoc:
and if they put forward anything short of their
best, their challengers will take advantage of any
weak points and fasten upon those. Shades
of difference of opinion between one writer and
another, such as may be due to the different
methods of approaching the question, will also be
made much of, and may lead to explanation, and
explanations are very awkward in a controversy.
I do not pretend to have fully thought out the
question, but, not liking to keep your letter
unanswered any longer, I have put down some
thoughts which have occurred to me. I shall be
glad to hear whether you decide to go on. I
am sure that if such a book is to be produced,
you will bring it out better than any one I could
name.

On the grounds which Lord Iddesleigh so clearly
put forward, Bosworth Smith abandoned the task,
and the project fell through.

On August 3, 1886, he made, at the annual
meeting of the Church Defence Institution, what
Lord Beauchamp characterised as a "nervous and
eloquent speech." It was a warning not to be
caught napping, an exhortation to fresh efforts, and
incidentally he dwelt on one of the features of the
Established Church, which, next to its historical
aspect, appealed to him most nearly, the parochial
system — " that system, which provides that in every
224

THE NATIONAL CHURCH

of course well known, it was brought to a successful
conclusion.

In 1893, during Mr. Gladstone's fourth adminis-
tration, an attack was made on the Welsh Church,
and the injustice of the proposed Suspensory Bills
roused his utmost indignation. In a letter to the
Times, dated February 2, he drew a vivid picture
of the Church, "on a sudden maimed, but not
killed ; manacled from without, but not enfeebled
from within ; forbidden even to die with dignity ; "
and, three weeks later, he called attention, in the
same way, to three special points in the matter.
First, " it is not the Welsh Church, or the ' English
Church in Wales,' as it is sometimes absurdly
called, it is the English and Welsh Churches to-
gether, which are the object of the attack ; for it
would be true to say that it is the old Welsh Church
which has grown into and taken possession of her
younger English sister." For seventy years past,
the Welsh Church had shown all the signs of a
reviving Church, and in Wales greed for land was
at the root of the matter. The English Church
should put forward her whole strength to defend
her oldest and, for the moment only, her weakest
member, and with her should be prepared to stand
or fall. Secondly, it seemed to him both foolish
and cruel that the Welsh Church should be con-
demned unheard in a single-night debate, and that
the English Church should be thus torn to pieces
practically by the Irish vote. Thirdly, once more
227

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

he recalled Mr. Gladstone's well-known love for the
English Church, he quoted his past utterances, and
contrasted them bitterly with his present actions.

The Scotch Church, no less than the Welsh, was
also to be " suspended," and, as it seemed to him,
from the same motives — jealousy and the necessity
for votes in favour of the Home Rule Bill. In a
letter to the Times on March 16, he attacked Mr.
Gladstone with an impetuosity and growing bitter-
ness, which were due in part, no doubt, to the views
he entertained on the subject of Home Rule.

Here, as was often the case with the most im-
pressive of Bosworth Smith's writings and speeches,
a strong sense of abstract justice, and the equally
strong emotion roused by any outrage on this
abstract justice, took the place of a close knowledge
of detail. Members of the Established Church of
Scotland or of the Free Kirk would, for instance,
probably have been able to name many reasons why
the two Churches should not and could not unite
once more, but both might well have recognised the
warm generosity of his tribute to both Churches and
to the "greatest of Scotch Secessionists," and both
might well have been moved by the vigour and
earnestness of his appeal from lower motives to the
highest. In the same way, people who had studied
minutely the question of religious bodies in Wales
could, no doubt, have quoted facts and statistics
which might have put the case in a different light.
But a sense of abstract justice is a rarer, and, per-
228

THE NATIONAL CHURCH

haps, a not less valuable quality than the power of
ascertaining and arranging facts and figures.

On May 16, 1893, Bosworth Smith was one of
the speakers at a great meeting of protest against
the Welsh Suspensory Bill in the Albert Hall. The
speakers included, it would seem, the most repre-
sentative Churchmen then living ; amongst others,
the two archbishops, the Bishops of London and
Durham, the Duke of Argyll, Lord Selborne, Sir
John Mowbray, and Professor Jebb.

The fall of Lord Rosebery's administration in
1895 carried with it Mr. Asquith's Welsh Disestab-
lishment Bill, and the Welsh Church has had a
further respite until the present year.

In March 1899, Bosworth Smith took part in the
controversy that was raging in the Church with
regard to the attitude of the English Church Union
and certain ritualistic clergy. He himself was the
first to admit that rubrics, vestments, and details of
Church history appealed to him but little, and that
he had no special knowledge on such matters, on
which, however, in a controversy of this nature,
exact knowledge is of the first importance. He
was equally opposed in principle to the " Holborn
recusants " and the violent methods of Mr. Kensit,
and his letters in the Times and his article in the
Nineteenth Century were calculated to please the
extremists of neither party. But here again, it was
not the details of the controversy that moved him ;
it was the wider point of view — the fear that the
229

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

Church should be weakened, possibly even disin-
tegrated, not by attacks from without, but schism
from within. That this should happen seemed to
him the worst of all calamities, and on this ground
he appealed earnestly to the advanced High Church
party not to steer the vessel on the rocks.

A more peaceful and congenial occasion was his
chairmanship of the Bible Society at Harrow, in
March 1900. Few people knew their Bible better
than he did ; as a child he had read it through from
beginning to end many times, rising in the early
morning and sitting close to the dormer window of
his little attic in the thatched Rectory. The illustra-
tions which abound in his writings, when they do
not come from Milton, are nearly always scriptural.
He never willingly declined an invitation to help by
his presence or his words any organisation which
seerhed to him to be for the general good, but the
preparation of even a brief speech cost him con-
siderable pains, for every word was weighed and
carefully written out, and practically committed to
memory before he would venture to address an
audience. This speech, which was reprinted as "a
model speech from the chair," ran as follows : —

" The Bible Society, it seems to me, has two
recommendations beyond almost every other chari-
table or religious organisation in this country.

" First, it represents the unity of Christendom
rather than its unfortunate divisions. It unites all
. Christians who are worthy of the name on a basis
230

THE NATIONAL CHURCH

firmer, deeper, more comprehensive, more truly
Catholic, than those which involve any questions of
Church government, or any formularies of belief,
drawn up by professed theologians. It is behind
and above and beyond them all. It is able to assist
all other Christian agencies, many of which indeed,
| like the great Missionary Societies, could hardly
exist without it, and that, too, without compro-
t mising either its own universality or their special
| aims.

" Secondly, it is the only Society of which it can

x be confidently affirmed that it does, and can do,

I nothing but good. Nobody can have too much of

} the Bible. In other societies, the agent, however

little he himself may wish it, must be almost as

: prominent as the work he does. In the Bible

/ Society the work is everything, the agent nothing.

> The agent is lost, as he would wish to be, in his

work.

" And what a work it is to have issued, in 350
different languages, 160 millions of copies of the
most venerable, the most universal, the most ele-
vating, the most inspiring book in the world ; the
book which is a whole literature in itself, the work
; of statesman and legislator, historian and philo-
sopher, poet and prophet, and apostle ; the book
which starts, in its first chapter, with the dim and
distant origin of the human race, and which throws,
in its later portions, gleams of celestial light on its
remotest future ; the book which has brought God
down to man, and raised man towards God; the
book which, above all the other religious books of
j the world, proclaims the true Fatherhood of God
• and the true brotherhood of humanity ; finally,
' the book which, in its highest revelations of all,
231

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

exhibits the one divine example and the one
perfect life."

A speech which he made as chairman of a large
meeting for Church Defence at Dorchester in 1902
could not be called a " model speech from the
chair," for it far exceeded the limits to which such
a speech should be confined ; but the Bishop of
Bristol, Dr. Browne, aptly described it as "a most
noble apologia pro ecclesid sud" He resumed here,
in weighty and eloquent words, the reasons that
were in him for his support of the National Church ;
reasons that had increased in cogency and number
since the day when, twenty years earlier, he had
first appeared as her champion. While he upheld
the use of the word " Protestant," and pointed out
that through the Evangelical movement of the early
part of last century the Church had come into a
more personal relation with God, he did full justice
to the Anglican revival, which "put new meaning
into formularies and ceremonies, which had seemed
only half alive before, and has shown that art and
order and beauty and music, as they come from
God, so they may be made in their measure the
handmaids of religion." Of the Liturgy he spoke
with the reverent enthusiasm he always felt for it.
"It possesses a Liturgy of incomparable beauty,
which, without one jarring note, gives utterance at
once to the deepest and simplest feelings of each
human soul, and to the yearnings and aspirations of
232

THE NATIONAL CHURCH

the universal Church, and, mellowed by the spirit
of the ages which is embalmed within it, seems, in
the majestic harmonies of its language, to have
already caught on earth a far-off echo of the music
I of the spheres, of the harmonies of heaven."

When Bosworth Smith had finally settled in
Dorset, he was elected a member of the Salisbury
Diocesan Synod, and later on as a representative
member of the House of Laymen, and thus of the
newly formed " Church Representative Council."

His increasing deafness precluded his usefulness
in debate, but he spoke at times on matters about
which he felt strongly, and always with effect. A
speech on the restrictions imposed on the services
of laymen in Church matters in 1906 is full of re-
freshing life and humour and good sense. " What
claim have I," he said, " to be heard on the question
of lay readerships ? None whatever, on the ground
of special experience in Church work. I have no
natural turn for direct Church work, and if I were set
down before you, my Lord Bishop, for examination
in the functions of reading, speaking, catechising,
and preaching, I am afraid I should cut a sorry
figure. I should go away with a painful sense of
my own emptiness, and without, I fear, your episcopal
license." He complained that there was too much
" cold water " about the scheme under which laymen
were to be admitted to Church work. " We surely
do not need to have it rubbed into us in every other
line of the regulations that we are nothing but lay-
233

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

men and not priests. We may be Levites, or
hardly even Levites, Nethinims, Gibeonites, hewers
of wood and drawers of water in the service of the
sanctuary, but we are not like Korah, Dathan, and
Abiram. We do not wish, like them, to claim the
priesthood, any more than we wish to share their
fate." He protested against the definite assent to
the whole Book of Common Prayer and the whole
Thirty-nine Articles, which was to be exacted from
laymen before a license could be obtained — the
time of such severe tests had long gone by ; and
he drew a humorous contrast between the zeal of
a supposed layman, burning to utter his message,
and the chill regulation which debarred him from
the pulpit, and directed him to enter the reading-
desk and there to read a "homily or somebody
else's sermon." " Read a homily ! Why, the very
sound of it makes me feel drowsy and lifeless.
What are the homilies ? They were written by
some of the Reformers, three or four hundred years
ago, under royal command, and Queen Elizabeth
herself directed, by one of her right royal orders,
that they should be read Sunday after Sunday
without a break, and as soon as the somewhat
sombre series was finished, they were to begin over
again. I myself have never heard one read, and
the very phrase, ' I read him a homily/ or, worse
still, ' He read me a homily,' has passed into a
proverb for something which is severe and long
and dull. As regards reading another person's
234

THE NATIONAL CHURCH

sermon, it was commonly believed in Dorset, in
former times, that the chief object of the Arch-
deacon's triennial visitation was to give the clergy
an opportunity for a friendly interchange of sermons.
' I do not know how it be,' said the gardener-
coachman of one of these old-fashioned rectors,
' but our maister do seem to always get hold of a
stock of uncommon dull ones.' "

In 1907 he spoke far more seriously on the
position of the laity at the Representative Church
Council at Westminster. By the terms of the draft
constitution the Lay House was either " to accept
or reject a measure in the terms in which it is sub-
mitted to them, and shall have no power to propose
any amendment thereof." This clause seemed to
Bosworth Smith to impose an indignity on the Lay
House, who were thus to reject or accept what was
submitted to them in silence. His protest was
marked by all his old vigour and his unfailing
indignation against what seemed to him injustice ;
but it was hotly opposed by the High Church party
in the Council. The Bishop of Salisbury, after
consultation with the archbishops, saved the situa-
tion, which seemed likely to end in a deadlock, by
an ingenious amendment which met the views of
the contending parties.

This chapter is an attempt to give an outline of

what was one of the main works and interests of

my father's life, to record the bare facts of his

activity on behalf of the National Church, and the

235

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

effect of his efforts, both on the minds of thinking
men and on the actual events of the time. His
views on more salient points, when they have
seemed specially characteristic, have been given,
as far as possible, in the eloquent, if sometimes
highly elaborated, language with which his thought
naturally clothed itself. His many-sided mind was
rich in ideas and illustrations, and his difficulty,
especially in later years, lay in compression, although
5 he would often, at the suggestion of a humble critic,
sacrifice an epithet, or curtail an over-long sentence
with a half-amused sigh of resignation. Occa-
sionally, perhaps, he unconsciously exercised the
faculty — common to all people of vivid imagination
and quick emotions — of persuading himself into
convictions which grew in strength by the force of
his own eloquence. But his convictions were none
the less sincere if they were arrived at through the
emotions rather than through the cold processes of
reason, and there was nearly always a freshness,
sincerity, and a loftiness about his point of view on
no matter what subject, which compelled interest
and commanded respect, even if they did not always
carry conviction with them.

His chief practical work for the Church was done
in 1885, when the force and eloquence of his utter-
ances— as the letters of one great Churchman after
another, now in my possession, not less than those
of many a leading layman, abundantly testify —
were largely, perhaps mainly, instrumental in re-
236

THE NATIONAL CHURCH

pelling the threatened attack on the Establishment.
But his whole life — with his personal kindness and
sympathy and love, his untiring labour on behalf
of all that he thought worthy, his ever-widening
charity of outlook — was a daily witness to the living
power of his simple faith.

237

CHAPTER VIII

THE NEAR EAST— UGANDA— HOME RULE-
LAY HEADMASTERSHIP

ALTHOUGH Bosworth Smith's literary life falls natu-
rally into certain divisions, such as, for instance, the
times when his main energies were concentrated on
his book on Mohammed, or on his " Life of Lord
Lawrence," or, again, on his writings which relate to
the National^ Church, the record of his interests and
his activity would be by no means complete, unless
mention were made of other subjects which, on
various occasions, roused his enthusiasm or his
indignation.

This chapter, which endeavours to deal, super-
ficially enough, with some of the main subjects on
which he wrote and spoke, must necessarily be
disjointed in form ; but without some such attempt
to bring together his miscellaneous writings, no
picture of his many-sidedness could be obtained.

His earliest writings on foreign politics were
naturally suggested by his study of Mohammed-
anism, and the attitude he took up was determined
by his sympathetic interest in all that touched
Mohammedan nations.

238

THE NEAR EAST

In 1876 Mr. Gladstone's burning words had
raised everywhere a storm of resentment against
the Turks ; Canon Liddon and Canon McColl had
returned with their tales of Bulgarian atrocities, and
the country had been flooded with literature and
speeches, in which the Turk was branded as a
scarcely human monster, who must be chased from
Europe — to vent his rage on Asiatics instead of
Europeans. It needed some courage, on the part
of a man so little known as Bosworth Smith then
was, to point out, at this moment, that there was a
good side to the Turkish character, however im-
potent, corrupt, and cruel the Turkish Government
might be ; to remind people that Christian nations
themselves had learnt religious tolerance only in
the nineteenth century, and that every act of cruelty |
or injustice committed in the Turkish Empire "was
as emphatically and repeatedly condemned by the
Koran as by the Bible itself." His dread of Russia ^
— always one of the keynotes of all that he wrote [
on Eastern questions — of her bad faith and her-
aggressive tendencies, no less than his horror at
the cruelties of General Kaufmann's recent Turco- }
man campaign, made the idea that she should i
succeed to the inheritance of the Turks in Europe j
intolerable to him.

In a week's hard work he put together his views
in an article which, with its just and vivid appre-
ciations of the Turks and Bulgarians themselves,
and its now partly realised suggestions, is as valuable
239

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

a contribution to Balkan literature to-day as it was
thirty-three years ago.

He took the article to Mr. Knowles, afterwards
Sir James Knowles, editor of the Contemporary
Review. Mr. Knowles had published Mr. Glad-
stone's and Canon McColl's articles on the other
side ; he had other articles on hand in the opposite
sense ; but he was persuaded by a note from Mr.
Kegan Paul to read what Bosworth Smith had
written. He was delighted with it, and gave it a
^ ^., place of honour in the next number of his Review,
*«**""*>where it appeared in December 1876, as a pendant
to Mr. Gladstone's " Hellenic Factor in the Eastern
Question."

That Bosworth Smith overrated the possibility of
reforms in Turkey under the control of the Great
Powers, subsequent events have proved ; but had
England been able to take then what he called her
grand chance, had she become the protector of the
Christian populations of the Turkish Empire, much
of their sufferings during the past decades might
have been averted. He looked forward confidently
to the time, which now at last seems a stage nearer,
when the Turk should " be ready to take his place
peaceably on terms of social and religious equality
among the nations which make up his empire."

Early in 1877 he wrote an energetic letter to the
Times headed " Inaction or Coercion " — the alter-
native policies, that is, between which his friend
Mr. Bryce had declared that England must now
240

THE NEAR EAST

take her choice in the Near East. It was a further
appeal " not to stir the fire with the sword," to give
the Turks another chance to set their own house in
order. With all his enthusiasm for the grand
qualities of Islam, he hardly realised that, unlike
other religions, its strength is to " sit still," changing
nothing, conceding nothing to the unbeliever. The
conservatism of Islam seems almost to preclude the
possibility of fundamental reform.

In two letters to the Times, in 1878, on the
subject of the Russian advance on Khiva, he re-
peated the lessons to be learnt from Russian tactics
in Asia in the past, and urged that Christian
civilisation can only be established in semi-barbarous
countries by convincing the natives that "European
supremacy means supremacy of justice, moderation,
and of unswerving good faith."

Two characteristics mark all his utterances on
subjects where weaker races are concerned : an
eager championship of their rights, and an appeal,
from the mere exigencies of the moment, to what
he confidently believed was the English national
sense of justice and uprightness. His quickness to
perceive where these things were involved is illus-
trated by a brief and powerful letter to the Times
in 1884, when he was among the first Englishmen
to protest against a price being put on the head of
Osman Digna. " No considerations of political
expediency can justify us in seeking to get rid of
a brave foe by treachery and assassination."
241 Q

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

In February 1885, he raised his voice against
undue haste in deciding to advance on Khartoum.
If we went there only to avenge General Gordon's
death and then to return, we should leave confusion
worse confounded ; but if we were prepared to remain
and to bring order out of anarchy, no sacrifice would
be too great.

A subject on which his utmost indignation was
aroused was the painful one of Stanley's rear column.
There is no need now to dwell on the details of that
bitter controversy ; but the gist of his argument, as
it appeared in an article in the Contemporary Review
for January 1891, was that to hush up discreditable
truths, to assume that actions, which would be con-
demned in Europe, were justifiable when they were
done among savage tribes, would be to involve the
•deterioration of those qualities on which English-
men had hitherto prided themselves in their dealings
with weaker races. The "divine right" of Lord
Salisbury, or of any one else, to partition out what
did not belong to them was a perplexing matter,
but more important still was the question, Is Africa
to be exploited for selfish ends, or "to be helped
forward — Africa for Africans — to a natural develop-
ment of her own?" The question has an even
wider application and importance at the present
day than it had some twenty years ago.

In the autumn of 1892, Bosworth Smith joined
in the brief and successful campaign which had for
its object the retention of Uganda. The Liberal
242

UGANDA

Government had threatened to evacuate the country
within three months, and had in advance " dis-
claimed all responsibility for the consequences of
evacuation." Here, again, he was one of the first
(probably, outside the small circle of those who were
immediately interested in Uganda, the first of all) to
realise that the good faith and honour of England
were involved in the question. On October 18,
1892, he wrote a letter to the Times headed " The
Cry of Uganda," and, as he rarely failed to do
when he wrote or spoke on any subject on which
he was deeply moved, his words at once raised the
matter to a higher level and into purer air. It was
no longer a question of commercial gain or loss,
but of the good name of England in uncivilised
Africa. To him it seemed that to abandon to their
fate natives with whom we had entered into en-
gagements was treachery of the worst kind; for
evacuation would mean for them anarchy, massacre,
and slavery. Uganda, which had been first ex-
plored by British travellers, and which was conse-
crated by the memories of heroic missionaries and
native converts, seemed, of all places in Africa, the
one spot marked out as belonging naturally to Eng-
land. And, most important of all, it was in Uganda,
from its geographical position, that a blow could best
be struck at the internal slave trade of Africa.

There was no time to be lost if public opinion
were to be stirred up ; and two days later a depu-
tation from the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery
243

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

Society waited on Lord Rosebery at the Foreign
Office. Bosworth Smith, in a short speech in which
he urged the views contained in his Times letter,
used the phrase " the continuity of the moral policy
of England." Lord Rosebery " fastened on the
phrase, and made it the text of some of the most
soul-stirring of his brilliant sentences " in his reply
to the deputation. A few days later Bosworth Smith,
in a further letter to the Times, developed the idea
of this " moral continuity," which, together with the
instincts of freedom, of empire, and of philanthropy,
he considered one of the chief characteristics of
the history and the people of England. "It is
upon our moral force, upon our determination to
govern for the good of the governed, that our
empire rests. If an act of cold-blooded cruelty is
reported — from India or from the depths of Africa
— as committed by an Englishman, a nerve is
touched, and the sensation vibrates to the heart and
the extremities of the empire. And it is to their
conviction that such are our objects that we owe it
that the natives, who rarely love us — for we are
too cold and unimaginative for that — yet everywhere
respect and trust us." There has never, he claimed,
been a break in our moral policy, for here there
can be no question of party, and nowhere has the
continuity of our policy been more marked than in
our attitude towards slavery and the slave trade.
To abandon a territory where we should have the
best possible chance of stopping the "open sore"
244

UGANDA

of the internal slave traffic would be to lose our
place in the forefront of the battle against evil.

The two Times letters were reprinted by those
who were interested in the question, and they had
a large circulation. Meetings of protest were
organised all over the country, and he was asked
to speak in many directions.

On November loth he spoke at a meeting or-
ganised by the present Bishop of Peterborough,
at Kensington Town Hall, at which the Marquis
of Lome (now the Duke of Argyll) and Captain
Lugard (now Sir Frederick Lugard)1 were the
other chief speakers. On November I4th he
spoke at Leeds, on November 25th at Cam-
bridge, on December 2nd at Birmingham, and,
once again, on December 1 2th, at Rugby ; and
on December i3th he followed up the matter by
a third letter to the Times, headed "Is Uganda
safe ? " The appointment of Sir Gerald Portal as
Commissioner, " to report and not to rule," seemed
to him no guarantee for the future, and he con-
demned the attitude of the Government towards
the East African Company, which had borne the
burden of the day in Uganda. He reiterated his
belief that the railway should be made at once, and
that a firm policy should be announced.

1 It gives a touch of human interest to record that, all through his
splendid and almost single-handed work in Uganda, Captain Lugard
had been suffering tortures from toothache, without the possibility of
relief; and, when he came back to England, his time was so entirely
taken up by his efforts on behalf of the country that weeks again
elapsed before he could spare time to think of his own health.
245

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

But the day had already been won, and won by
the strenuous efforts of a few men, who, by their
eloquence and conviction, had been able to rouse
public opinion and to influence the decisions of
the Government.

From all sides Bosworth Smith received enthu-
siastic appreciation of his share in the work.

Lord Ebury, then in his ninety-second year,
wrote on October 26 : —

" My dear old friend, — that is, the friendship is
old, but the man is not. I feel that he will be dis-
appointed if amongst the many early congratulations
he will be receiving to-day he does not see my
handwriting. I never read a more able or eloquent
letter than that which appeared under your signa-
ture in yesterday's Times, or one which spoke more
directly and judiciously to the people of England at
such a moment as this."

"We shall not go back now," wrote Sir Colin
Scott- Moncricff,1 " but we should have done so, had
it not been for the vigorous protests." Canon
Tristram, of Durham, told him that his much-
quoted phrase, " the continuity of moral policy,"
had become a household word already, and Pro-
fessor Buckle said that he was charmed with the
expression. " Your sentences ring like a trumpet
call, and make one's blood run quick and with
some of the fire of youth," wrote the Rev. A. Aglen,

1 No British official "employed in the Egyptian service during
the early days of the occupation," says Lord Cromer, " did more to
make the name of England respected than Sir Colin Scott-Moncrieff."
246

UGANDA

his old Marlborough friend. The Rev. F. Hayward
Joyce wrote : " You are one of the men who are
teaching your fellow-countrymen to think noble
thoughts of England and to take a pride in her
name and fame."

Dr. Martineau said he was one of those " whose
gratitude and admiration were deeply stirred by the
letters. They were too weighty and impressive to
spend themselves on the flying sheet of a day."

Lord Salisbury wrote on November 6, 1892 : "The
proposal to evacuate Uganda is a very unwise one.
We have never before had such a chance of crushing
the slave trade in its home — and we never shall have
it again. If we keep the line of the hills and make
the railway, the slave trade must die out."

The episode was a brief one, but in its complete-
ness and success it might well form a source of
thankfulness to one whose disinterested efforts had
done so much for the cause. It is strange to reflect,
that not one of the inhabitants of Uganda, who are
now living peacefully under settled British rule, has
ever heard the name or known of the existence of
the white man, to whose burning sense of what was
due to a weaker race they owe in no small degree
their present safety and prosperity.

A few notes on his own career, which were found
among Bosworth's Smith's papers, conclude with a
brief statement of his views on Home Rule. The
notes were written in 1886.
247

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

"I am strongly against giving an independent
or separate Parliament to Ireland, above all, under
existing conditions, and in the way and at the time
in which Mr. Gladstone has proposed it. Early in
December 1885 (before, that is, the 'balloon' had
been sent up from Hawarden) I wrote to the Times
urging that the leaders of both sides should hold a
conference and come to an agreement, before Parlia-
ment met, as to what it was safe and what it was
not safe to yield to the Irish demands ; and early in
February this year (1886) (before, that is, Lord
Hartington and other leading Liberals had an-
nounced their determination to oppose Mr. Glad-
stone's disintegrating proposals) I wrote an article,
which was published in the March number of the
National Review, headed ' The Liberal Party and
Home Rule,' in which, in the strongest terms that
I could command, I called upon the Liberals, who
had again and again declared against Home Rule,
to have the courage of their convictions, and to
refuse to swallow their most sacred pledges at the
bidding of a leader, however eminent."

The National Review article was reprinted by
the Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union. It was a
forcible statement of the views which led to the
severance of the Liberal party in 1886 ; it admitted
to the full the misdeeds and mistakes that had been
committed by the English in Ireland, but deprecated
the idea that undue concessions should be made now,
in order to secure the Parnellite vote. Bosworth
Smith had little sympathy with the type of mind
of either Sir William Vernon Harcourt or of
248

HOME RULE

Mr. Chamberlain, and the recent attack on the
Church had greatly embittered him against the
latter, and there is a good deal of strong language
about both of these politicians in his writings. It
was, of course, a parting of the ways for many, and
Home Rule meant in some cases the breach, not
only of political, but of personal friendships. Al-
though Bos worth Smith claimed that he could
honour those who were avowed and convinced
believers in Mr. Gladstone's scheme, he found it
difficult to realise that some of his own friends were
among this number, and for him, as for many others,
it was a time of some heart-burning and bitterness,
although, in his case, there was, happily, no kind of
permanent breach with any of his friends.

A letter to him from the late Duke of Argyll
shows the feeling among those who had been of
Mr. Gladstone's own friends and party : —

March 4, 1886.

The position of affairs is unprecedented and
incredible. I hear that Cabinet Ministers have no
conception what their leader is to propose. But
they will swallow anything ! at least, I fear so ; and
what is much worse, a large part of the new consti-
tuencies will also swallow anything that Gladstone
proposes.

This is a most unsafe condition of things. We
are tied to the tail of a sky-rocket — as violent in
its rush, as uncertain in its goal.

It was the same silence of those who ought to
249

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

have the courage to speak out, the same consequent
uncertainty of the rank and file of Mr. Gladstone's
party as to the nature of the measures they would
be called on to support, which led, in August 1892,
to one of the most notable of all Bosworth Smith's
many letters to the Times. He called his letter " The
Conspiracy of Silence " ; it was written in a remote
village on Exmoor, and its composition shows the
influence of leisure and meditation, more than is the
case with some of the letters which he dashed off at
white heat in the midst of his toils at Harrow.

The passage descriptive of the first meeting of
Parliament after the recent elections — whether the
interpretation put on the scene be accepted or
not — is simple and dramatic : —

"The great consult began. Mr. Asquith was
put up to move the amendment to the address,
and to apologise for his impertinent curiosity at
an earlier stage of the proceedings. He said his
1 peccavi' with a good grace and a good heart,
and sat down gagged henceforward ; and, doubt-
less, he will have his reward. Mr. Redmond, on
behalf of the Parnellites, formulated his demands
with a clearness which left nothing, Mr. M'Carthy,
on behalf of the Anti-Parnellites, with a clearness
that left little, to be desired ; both of them going
in the direction of total separation, far beyond
what any English Gladstonian had hitherto hinted
was possible. Now was Mr. Gladstone's chance,
if words of his and of others were to have any
meaning, and if pledges were to have any binding
250

HOME RULE

force, to declare the Irish demands to be wholly
inadmissible. He practically ignored Mr. Red-
mond altogether, and met Mr. M'Carthy's de-
mands with a cloud of words which might mean
everything or nothing, according to the preposses-
sions of the hearer and the shifting contingencies
of the future.

"There was one chance more. Mr. Chamber-
lain, in a memorable speech, quoted trenchant
sentences from the speeches or letters of two late
Chief Secretaries for Ireland, and challenged them
each and all to say then and there whether they
stood by their words or recanted them. Like
Milton's fallen archangels —

' They heard and were abashed,'

and would that I could add, what Milton adds,
even of his fallen archangels —

' And up they sprung.'

Posterity will hardly believe that not one of them
stirred or uttered a word. There is a silence of
stolidity, there is a silence of perplexity, there is
a silence of exasperation, there is a silence of ex-
pectation, there is a silence of moral cowardice.
On one side of the House there was the silence
of expectation. Which was it on the other? . . .
We have heard of ' One man, one vote.' Has it
already come to this with the great Liberal party —
the party of free thought and free speech — to ' One
man, one voice ' ? . . . They knew that the inherent
impossibilities of Mr. Gladstone's Irish policy are
impossibilities still. There is still the nearness Ik
to England, which makes political separation — the !»
251

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

only policy which thorough - going Irish Home
Rulers think worth fighting for — impracticable ;
there are still in Ireland the irreconcilable dif-
ferences of manner, race, and creed ; there are
still in it, not one nation, but two nations."
.

Although there was not now an article in
Mr. Gladstone's programme with which Bosworth
Smith was in sympathy, he still felt his personal
fascination. "From our childhood upwards," Dr.
Butler has said of Mr. Gladstone, "we have all
talked of him, read of him, wondered at him, praised
or blamed, loved or dreaded, supported or opposed ;
but never has he been to us either nothing or but
little." What Mr. Gladstone thought or said or
did, still mattered intensely to those who, like
Bosworth Smith, had given him their earliest
and most fervent admiration. " The spectacle of
a man of Mr. Gladstone's years and of his sur-
passing ability struggling in an all but hopeless
case, in the full belief that the policy, whatever
means he may use towards it, is for the good of
the State, is a spectacle in itself, which all can, in
a measure, marvel at and admire." The reverse
side of the picture "is a spectacle which makes
his warmest admirers mourn, and over which
angels themselves might weep."

A year later, when the Home Rule Bill, by

means, as he thought, of the gag and the guillotine,

had passed the House of Commons, in a second

letter, entitled " The Outcome of the Conspiracy

252

HOME RULE

of Silence," he compared Mr. Gladstone's attitude
with that of the Arabian prophet who, "when the
messages revealed to him from day to day by the
Angel Gabriel were found to differ too glaringly
from one another, was, it is said, compelled to
invent the essentially opportunist doctrine that
a subsequent revelation cancelled a previous one. (J
Mr. Gladstone has improved upon his prototype.
The prior revelation is not annulled ; it is only \
temporarily suspended, and may be called to life j-
at any moment."

He had not yet said his last word on Mr.
Gladstone's fourth Administration, or rather what
remained of it, after Mr. Gladstone's retirement
and Lord Rosebery's accession to power. A
Government whose raison d'etre had been Home
Rule ought, so he wrote in the Times in May
1894, to disappear with the retirement of the one
man in it who was pledged to the measure. He
feared that Lord Rosebery, for whose abilities and
statesmanship he expressed warm admiration, might
compromise his future career by the prolongation of
the state of things which now seemed intolerable.

With the exception of a single occasion,
Bosworth Smith wrote nothing on educational
subjects. This one exception (which, though
it affected his own profession primarily, had
an importance considerably beyond it) was the
question of lay headmastership. Until recent
253

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

years a lay schoolmaster was absolutely debarred
from rising to the highest position in his pro-
fession, with the result that, as clerical candidates
alone were eligible for headmasterships, and as
they numbered about one-eighth of the whole
profession, the field of choice was greatly limited,
and did not necessarily include the men best
suited for the posts. Again, an unfair inducement
to take Holy Orders was thus virtually held out
to men who felt no special call to the service of
the Church, and who yet wished to rise in their
profession.

In a private letter, written in 1863, with refer-
ence to the testimonials which candidature for
such posts involved, Bosworth Smith says : —

" I think religious views ought not to be
paraded in a testimonial. They ought rather to
be inferred from what is said about one's general
character and likelihood of doing as one ought,
by persons who are known not to undervalue
religious truth themselves. In common language,
religious views mean religious war-cries and
shibboleths, with none of which I am prepared
to identify myself. A man's deepest feelings
need not always be hung up to view in the most
conspicuous place."

The idea of obtaining a headmastership came

to him more than once in the course of his

career; and once, in 1876, in view of the definite

possibility of the headmastership of Marlborough,

254

LAY HEADMASTERSHIP

when there would have been no chance for a
layman, he had earnestly debated the question
of ordination for himself. Such a step would
have seemed natural enough to those who after-
wards came to know him as a champion of the
National Church, or to those who knew any-
thing of the beauty of his character and the
firmness of his belief. But he hesitated ; he dis-
approved more, perhaps, at that time of the
principle of subscription, even for the clergy,
than he did in later life, and however well fitted
he might be for the work of a clergyman, it
would, nevertheless, have been impossible to deny
that he had sought ordination not primarily for
its own sake, but for other motives. His best
advisers were all against the step.

"I agree with every word says," wrote

one whose affection for him and whose know-
ledge of his character were unsurpassed, " as to
your real fitness for the Church, and think he
was very right in his judgment of your ' pastoral
gifts,' and yet I have a dread that your diver-
gency from the Church of England may be too
great for you to bind yourself to all her doctrines
and formularies, when you go thoroughly into
the question. And, further, even if you found
yourself honestly able to do so now, a mind
constituted like yours — so full of growth and
development, and so open to new convictions
— may, by-and-by, find itself hampered by the
ordination vows, and a painful conflict might
255

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

arise between your conscience in the matter of
personal belief and your conscience as a clergy-
man of the Church of England, and master
of Marl borough. Also, what you said in your
former note about your dislike of the sacerdotal
parts of your duty, was just what I had supposed
in you, and seems a point to dwell upon seriously.

It was such a pleasure to hear from that

you were greatly beloved at Harrow."

There can be no doubt that his decision not
to be ordained and not to stand for this post
was a wise one. His influence in later years,
especially in his support of the National Church,
was due largely to the fact that he was an in-
dependent layman, and not a clergyman. Eccle-
siastical control (though on principle he always
upheld it) would, unless very judiciously exercised,
have been liable to irritate him, while details of
organisation and administration, such as must
fall within a headmaster's duties, were not his
strongest points, and were not especially congenial
to him.

In March 1895, there was a correspondence in
the Times on this subject, in relation to the election
of a headmaster for Rugby. It was pointed out
that Dr. Arnold had insisted that "nearly every
one of his assistants should be ordained, because
he regarded a mastership as a cure of souls."
" May we not now," Bosworth Smith wrote, "take
rather the converse view, and say that nearly every
256

LAY HEADMASTERSHIP

assistant master regards his mastership as so funda-
mentally a ' cure of souls ' — he discharges, unchal-
lenged and without rebuke, so many pastoral
functions — that he regards ordination as in no
degree essential to his religious work. Parents, it
is said, require ordination as the best guarantee
for a religious education. But does ordination in
itself give any guarantee which cannot be obtained
in other ways by due inquiry ? If a man does not
feel an inward impulse towards ordination, he will not
be more, but less, fitted for religious work, should he
have been induced to take Holy Orders, either by
personal ambition or by the pressure of a head-
master, even such a headmaster as Dr. Arnold."

Bosworth Smith felt that the Bishop of London
had moved the whole question forward greatly
when he stated, though he would prefer a clergy-
man, cceteris paribus, to a layman for Rugby, yet
" if I found evidence to satisfy me that a layman
was distinctly superior to all the other candidates,
I should certainly vote for him." Mr. Charles
Roundell, who had always advocated the principle
that laymen should be eligible for headmasterships,
quoted in the Times a letter from Mr. Henry Hart
of Sedbergh. " Lay headmastership," wrote Mr.
Hart, "seems to me urgently needed, now that so
many good schoolmasters do not take orders. At
Harrow we always felt that we should prefer a
sermon from Bowen or Bosworth Smith himself to
many that we heard."

257 R

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

He felt so strongly that to debar laymen, as
such, from these posts was as unwise as it was
unjust, that he rejoiced when his friend Henry
Hart was among the first to break the spell, and
to become Headmaster of Sedbergh School. In
1903, he had the satisfaction, as Governor of
Marlborough College, of being instrumental in the
election of a layman to that headmastership, not
by any means simply because Mr. F. Fletcher was
a layman, but because he regarded him, on his
own merits, as the best candidate, and because the
election seemed to establish a principle for which
he had always contended.

From first to last, some thirty letters by Bosworth
Smith on various subjects appeared in the Times,
" that unique instrument for speaking et urbi et
orbi" as he called it ; and it seems fitting here to
acknowledge once more, as he so often did himself,
the kindness of the editor of the Times, who thus
enabled him to speak to thinking men and women
all over the world.

" What a power is gone from us," wrote the
Bishop of Salisbury when he had passed away.
It is impossible not to wonder whether, had his
lines been cast in other places, that power could
not have been more widely felt and still usefully
employed. And yet, if he himself did not regret
the way in which his life was spent, why should
others regret it for him ? Neither the Church, the
Bar, nor the University could have offered him an
258

LAY HEADMASTERSHIP

entirely congenial career, though he might well
have gained distinction there. For actual adminis-
trative work he had no special aptitude, although
few could grasp a subject both in its broad lines
and in its details better than he. Party politics
were never to his liking, and his deliberate, highly
finished manner of speech would have been out of
place in the modern House of Commons. More
leisure in which to enjoy life, more leisure for
literary work, this one could have wished for him,
but perhaps in no other profession could he have
preserved more completely his freedom of thought
and speech, and in no other could his personal
influence have reached so directly so large a
number of lives.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Randall
Davidson, writing of " him who was to so many of
us a stimulating and inspiring friend," says : —

" It must now be some forty-five years since I
began to learn all sorts of helpful things from him
at Harrow, and from those days onwards I have
scarcely ever met him — and happily the occasions
were always presenting themselves — without going
away the better for something that he said. His
life has been one of genuinely high service to a
very wide circle. Some of us owe to him our first
thoughts about the greatness of India and about
the story of Islam, and about Uganda, and many
other abiding things."

From his daughter, no critical estimate of his
place in literature or of his work in life will be ex-
259

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

pected, but this at least she may say confidently,
that in public life he never spoke or wrote except
with earnest conviction of the truth of what he said,
and of the need for saying it, and that he used his
great gifts for no small or selfish or party ends.
He could see the larger issues, the moral principles
involved in each question that moved him to speech,
and, over and over again, he was able to say the
words which made others see things as he did.
His books owe their interest and their charm to
the same sincerity of purpose, clearness of vision,
and human sympathy, which made his influence
over all who came within its sphere so strong, so
abiding, and so beautiful. Of him it could be said
with truth that the more one knew him the more
one loved him, the more one realised the deep
tenderness, the simplicity, and the richness of his
nature.

260

W. Pouncy, Dorchester

BINGHAM'S MELCOMBE

CHAPTER IX

BINGHAM'S MELCOMBE— " BIRD LIFE"—
CONCLUSION

IN August 1901, my father took up his abode
permanently at Bingham's Melcombe in Dorset-
shire, an old manor-house eleven miles from
Dorchester on one side, and ten from Blandford
on the other. The all too short seven years that
followed were perhaps the happiest and not the
least characteristic of his happy life. Now that
the pressure of work, which had often almost over-
whelmed him at Harrow, was removed, he could
at last divide his time as he himself wished ; he
could devote long hours to books, to talk, to weed-
ing, to wandering about his well-loved garden,
where each point of view brought him its own
special pleasure. It is as he was at Melcombe,
genial, kindly, never unoccupied, always contented,
in surroundings that were in harmony with him as
he with them, that those who loved him like best to
recall him.

His power of enjoyment and his freshness of
mind were unimpaired, and his keen interest in life
in all its aspects was in no way dulled. Time had
261

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

only mellowed his whole character and his way of
looking at things. The impetuosity of early days,
which had sometimes led him into hasty contro-
versy or extreme views, had disappeared. Life
had taught him a wide tolerance, and his sympathy
and charity overflowed alike on the just and the
unjust. It seemed to pain him physically if a hasty
or uncharitable judgment were uttered in his pre-
sence. He himself looked for kindness and friendli-
ness everywhere, and he found them, and his whole
nature expanded in the atmosphere of peace and
leisure which seemed to belong to his beautiful
home.

In his "Bird Life" Bosworth Smith has drawn
a picture of Bingham's Melcombe to which no word
need be added ; he has described its massive gate-
house, its inner courtyard, where in summer-time
the faint pink of massed hydrangeas blends deli-
cately with the mellow Ham Hill stone of its carved
and gabled oriel, its bowling-green, its walled ladies'
garden, venerable yew hedge, long green walks, fish-
ponds and shrubberies, its peaceful and lonely sur-
roundings. " I love it all," he said to his eldest
daughter, in the last week that he was to spend
there, " more every time I come back to it, even
after I have been away from it for an hour."

The rock garden, which he made himself on a

sunny slope with the aid of broken pieces of old

carved stone, was perhaps his chief pleasure of all.

Every year, or twice a year, he would surreptitiously

262

BINGHAM'S MELCOMBE

deprive the kitchen garden on either side of yet
another strip of ground, which would be joined on
to the former rock garden so ingeniously, that his
wife would fail to detect the change, until it was
too late to correct the boundary. A new plant for
his rock garden was almost as great a pleasure as a
new curiosity for his collection.

The house dates, in its earliest part, back to the
time of King Stephen, in the latest addition to that
of Queen Anne ; the beautiful oriel was built in the
time of Queen Mary. Within, the great "Armada
Table," some fine oak furniture, and several pictures
preserve the continuity of the eight hundred years
of the Binghams' occupation. Bosworth Smith's
own possessions, inherited or collected by himself:
old furniture, old china, pictures, and above all, his
curiosities — West African canoes and arrows, Der-
vish spears, devil-dancers' masks, Albanian guns,
Buddhas, knives from Central Asia, carvings from
India and Armenia, Thibetan banners, Mexican
and Cyprus pottery, Basutoland ornaments, his
unique " moons " from Suffolk, strange gods and
bones and figures and weapons — found an admir-
able setting in the hall and panelled rooms of
Bingham's Melcombe. And what a variety of
donors had contributed to this great collection :
Colonial Bishops and Governors, former pupils,
native Africans, men who had travelled for sport
or for duty in some of the wildest places of the
earth, his own children, who were scattered far
263

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

over the world ! His enjoyment of his curiosities
never waned : one of the pleasures of his last
summer was the making out of a catalogue of his
collection, aided by his son Reginald ; and in his
last week at Melcombe, the expression of a face
on a Dervish wand from Damascus, which had just
been brought to him, caused him amusement, even
in all his pain and anxiety.

A few weeks only had passed since they had
/ settled at Bingham's Melcombe, when a great sorrow
w\ fell on Bosworth Smith and his family. The second
son, Alan Wyldbore, a lieutenant in the Royal
Navy, a typical sailor, a keen lover of sport,1
cheery, open-handed, warm-hearted, met a sailor's
death as a sailor should meet it. He had been
commissioned to bring a new turbine destroyer,
the Cobra, round from Newcastle to Portsmouth.
It was the first time such a task had been en-
trusted to him, and he was proud of the honour.
They put to sea on September 17, in a gale
which became a storm, and in the early morn-
ing of the 1 8th the ill-fated destroyer — owing to

1 His father greatly appreciated this story of Alan. Once, when
he was out shooting in the desert near Suakim, he took off his boots
in order to get near a dig-dig (a kind of antelope), and after securing
the animal he found his boots had vanished, and had to limp back as
best he might to the ship, where the ship's surgeon extracted no less
than 343 thorns from his feet and legs. Three Arabs claimed rewards
for three boots which they had found. As a little boy of seven, Alan
greatly amused his father by announcing that he thought " scenery
was made for girls " ; and when as a midshipman he visited the Pan-
theon at Rome, his only comment in his letter was, " Dogs are not
admitted."

264

BINGHAM'S MELCOMBE

some structural defect, as the court-martial sub-
sequently found — broke her back in the waves,
sixty-two of the seventy-seven men on board perish-
ing with her. " Lieutenant Bos worth Smith died at
his post, like the gallant officer and gentleman that
he was. It is stated by one of the survivors that,
having given the last few instructions that were
necessary, the unfortunate lieutenant stood on the
bridge with folded arms and watched with calmness
and fortitude the departure of the only link between
himself and the world from which he was being cut
off for ever."1

Writing to his lifelong friend, Mr. Charles
Moule, Fellow and Librarian of Corpus Christi
College, Cambridge, Bosworth Smith says, on
October 2 : —

"It is the first break in our family, and his poor
mother is terribly crushed by it, but even now she
is able to feel a glow of pride sometimes at the way
the poor boy met his end. We cannot call him ill-
fated, for how could he or any one have died better ?
We had hoped at our time of life that we might pass
away without the agony of losing a child — but it
was not to be. His example, however, will do
good, and stimulate and elevate long after we have
gone."

The brass tablets to Alan's memory in the little
church at Melcombe and in Salisbury Cathedral,
inscribed with his father's words, may well, for those

1 The Sketch, October 2, 1901.
265

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

whose eyes light on them, call up a picture of a
brave death, where simple duty became unconscious
heroism. The text, "I will fear no evil," which
follows the brief inscription, was found underlined
years before by his childish hand in his old Bible,
and his parents added a promise of consolation :
" Mine own will I bring again from the depths of
the sea."

Another loss came in April 1902, in the sud-
den death of Sir Harry Langhorne Thompson,
K.C.M.G., who had married Bosworth Smith's
eldest daughter. Sir Harry was then Administrator
of St. Lucia, in the West Indies.

"He was a man of remarkable simplicity of
mind and character," Bosworth Smith said of him ;
"straightforward and unselfish, genial and conside-
rate, even-tempered and sympathetic. In his reports
and despatches, which were models of clearness and
insight, he did full justice to every one — but to him-
self. His highest ambition was to do the work
he had in hand, and right well he did it. While
Administrator of St. Vincent, in a most depressing
period of West Indian history, he had to deal with
the widespread devastation and misery caused by
the terrible hurricane of 1898. He won the hearts
of all, and his energy, his endurance, his ability, his
success, received the unstinting praise of his chief,
Sir Alfred Moloney. He was loved by the people
of the dependencies which he helped to govern, in
Cyprus as in the West Indies, as very few English-
men are loved"

266

BINGHAM'S MELCOMBE

These great sorrows, which Bosworth Smith felt
almost as much for what they meant to others as
for what they meant to himself, darkened the
beginning of the Melcombe life. Before this, when
trouble had come — and his grief at the death of his
parents and those dear to him had been intense —
there had always been the solace of work that must
be done — a solace, it is true, which numbs rather
than consoles. His was a disposition, however,
which turned naturally to sources of consolation,
and though he was at all times liable to moods of
depression, it was generally possible for those who
knew him to help him, and he would quickly re-
spond to their efforts to cheer and interest him. To
those who realised this side of his character, he
seemed one of those "happy souls" spoken of in
the old hymn, which, with its allusion to the "birds
that sing and fly" in Paradise, always specially
appealed to him.

"I do not like the idea of all work being
over," he wrote to Mr. Charles Moule, just
before he actually left Harrow, " even though I
feel I have done the work of an ordinary life-
time."

But work of different kinds came naturally to
him at Bingham's Melcombe also. He took part,
as far as his growing deafness would allow, in
the public life of the county. He became a Vice-
president of the Dorset Field Club, and often
read papers before the Society, and greatly enjoyed
267

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

their expeditions. He was elected a member of the
Salisbury Diocesan Synod, and later, of the House
of Laymen at Westminster. He was frequently
asked to speak on various occasions, and — no matter
how small the gathering might be — he would spare
no oains, whether he were well or ill, in the pre-
paration of a little address, which often had much
of the charm and distinction of his more elaborate
writings. " Any cause," said the editor of the Dorset
County Chronicle, who always took a patriotic
pride in his career as a distinguished son of
Dorset, " which succeeded in obtaining his support
by word or pen was fortunate. He touched nothing
that he did not adorn." Whether it was a political
speech — and it was often the personal character
of the candidate whom he was supporting that
seemed to him as important as his opinions — or
a presentation to the Bishop, or an address to a
Labourers' Improvement Society, or even an attack
on the Education Bill, there was always the same
happy humour, the same love of the country, and
especially of the county of Dorset, which would
appeal strongly to his hearers. He had the gift
of putting things in what seemed to his audience
exactly the right words, and they would recognise
their own sentiments and opinions expressed with
a literary finish, which gave them a pleasant feeling
of surprise.

Bosworth Smith understood and sympathised
with every phase of country life ; he delighted in
268

BINGHAM'S MELCOMBE

a talk with a labourer or farmer, whom he might
meet in the fields and lanes about Melcombe ;
people in Dorset are seldom in a hurry, and these
talks would sometimes be of surprising length.
One who had listened to some of these casual
conversations, said that he marvelled at the way
in which, in a few minutes' sympathetic questioning,
he seemed to bring out of the man all the special
knowledge and original characteristics that were
in him. Another recalls his kindly interest in a
strange old Dorset wanderer, who for years had
had a grievance against his kind, and for years
had never slept under a roof. Years before at
Harrow, it had often been his custom on Bank
Holidays to invite all passers-by into his garden,
to rest or wander about as they liked — a privilege
which his unknown guests never abused — while he
would talk to them delightfully about his flowers
and birds. Personal sympathy and human interest
of this kind have a very real value of their own.

He fully realised what the life of a country
doctor must be, as he showed by a little picture
which he drew of its hardships, difficulties, and
possibilities, on the occasion of a presentation to the
doctor of his own widespread and lonely district ;
and to people who might say hard things of the
country clergy, he would say : " Think what it must
mean to be the only man of education, perhaps,
in a parish, and to preach, Sunday after Sunday,
to the same people without the help of any outside
269

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

'• stimulus, and always to be troubled by want of

? means."

When he first came to settle at Melcombe, my
father had looked forward with great pleasure
to the near neighbourhood of Mr. John Mansel-
Pleydell, " the beau iddal of a country gentleman,
a man of profound scientific attainments, but simple
as a child, with a keen sense of humour, with
benevolence written on every line of his coun-
tenance, and with a charm of presence and manner
which won all hearts."

Mr. Mansel-Pleydell's long letters to him, be-
ginning always, " My very dear Bos worth,"
deal chiefly, perhaps, with Church matters, in
which he was a doughty champion of the Evan-
gelical party. They were in completer sympathy
still where natural history and Dorset lore were
concerned. When Bosworth Smith first came back
to Dorset he could easily ride, or even walk,
accompanied by his younger daughters, the eight
or nine miles of down and wood which separated
Melcombe from Whatcombe and the Down House,
the homes of his two great friends, Mr. Mansel-
Pleydell and Sir William Smith-Marriott, and visits
to and from them were among the chief joys of
his Melcombe life. Mr. Mansel-Pleydell's death
in 1902 left a blank for him which never could
be filled. His picture, with those of a few men
whom he especially loved and honoured — Bishop
Cotton, Dean Bradley, Dr. Martineau, Sir Henry
270

"BIRD LIFE"

Yule, and his own father — hung always above his
study table.

Another country gentleman of the same high-
minded, unself-seeking nature, was Mr. Kindersley-
Porcher, no less than six of whose sons had been in
Bosworth Smith's house at Harrow. Almost the
last published words that he was to write sketched
Mr. Kindersley-Porcher's life of tireless energy on
behalf of his tenants and his county, and com-
memorated in him the things which he himself
prized most in life — simplicity of character and
whole-hearted service of God and man.

But in spite of the pleasure of such friendships
and of a return to his beloved Dorset, there was at
first the inevitable feeling that life would be less
interesting and less full than it had been in the past.
" You will have plenty of time to write now,"
people used often to say to him, when he first came
to Melcombe. " But I have nothing to say," he
would answer; "I am quite played out." "Why
don't you write something about birds," it was sug-
gested to him ; " it would be no trouble to you — it
would only mean writing down what you know
already, and what you are always thinking about,
as you sit on the bowling-green or walk by the fish-
ponds— you would enjoy doing it." And it was in
this way that he came to write a series of charming
essays on the birds which he knew best — his " Bird
Life and Bird Lore" — the book which, with its
close and loving observation of nature, its wealth of
271

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

stories and quotation, its passages of delightful
word painting, its freshness, and, above all, its
unconscious revelation of himself, won him more
friends than anything else he had ever written.

Much of the book is autobiographical. "The
Thatched Rectory and its Birds" reveals, inci-
dentally, what his old home was and always meant
to him ; the chapters on bird life at Melcombe show
glimpses of his own daily life there, not less than
that of the owls, the wagtails, and the kingfishers.
All that he recounts is real and interesting and
vivid, just because it is the result of his own watch-
ings and waitings, which gave him his insight into
the lives of birds — an insight which, surely, was
scarcely less than an instinct.

Something of the charm of the book is due to the
fact that he often appeals directly to the reader in
the second person, so that there is throughout the
feeling of a conversation with a delightful com-
panion. " You must be prepared," he says, for
example, " when you put your arm into what you
fancy to be an owl's hole, sometimes for a disap-
pointment, sometimes for a smart rebuff." " Look
out of the window upon the bowling-green, at the
very first dawn of day, and listen to 'the earliest
pipe of half-awaken'd birds ' in the shrubs close by.
You may catch sight, if you are lucky, of the hedge-
hog scuttling off when, like the ghost in ' Hamlet,'
he scents the ' morning air,' from the soft, sweet
grass, which he has been searching all night for
272

"BIRD LIFE"

insects, towards the friendly shelter of the old yew
hedge."

Here is a sample of the pictures, which the passer-
by— though he may perhaps lack the inclination to
rise at dawn, or to venture his hand into the hole of
an owl — may yet see for himself in many a land-
scape : —

" See how the swallow sips the nectar as he flies; ..
and, taking his morning bath, will all but dip him- N
self beneath it, ruffling the surface into little ever-
expanding circles, till at last — not, I think, because
he is tired, he does not seem to know what fatigue
is — he will perch on the dead branch of some over-
hanging tree, and there, for the space of several
minutes together, he will first shake off the dew-
drops, and then, puffing out his little frame, will
delicately preen his bright plumage, lifting first one
wing and then another high above his body, and
burying, for a moment or two, his chestnut head in
the cosiest corner beneath it ; and then, after pour-
ing forth the ecstasy of his heart in twittering
song — one of the most jubilant sounds in nature —
will launch off again into his native air."

An account of Bosworth Smith's life is not the
place for anything like a review of his books, even
though his "Bird Life" is, in the truest sense, a record
of what may be called the golden thread that ran
through all his days — his love of nature ; but one or
two other passages must be quoted to show some-
thing of the quality both of his writing and of his
observation. Here is a little vignette, which recalls
273 S

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

a Bewick tail-piece or a figure from a novel by his
friend Thomas Hardy : —

"The fame of 'the thatcher,' generally an here-
ditary occupation handed down, in long and jealous
succession, from father to son, spreads, if only he
be an adept in his art, far beyond his own to all the
surrounding villages. A cluster of ricks, his handi-
work, marvels of symmetry and neatness, and often
set off with fantastically twisted ornaments of straw
at the top, are the admiration of every passer-by.
... He is often skilled in folk-lore. He knows
the inner character of each house and household
better, perhaps, than any one else ; for he has ad-
vantages of his own ; he can look down upon the
inhabitants, observing but unobserved, from his
lofty perch, and can hardly help catching glimpses
of them through the windows, as he ascends or
descends his inseparable companion, the ladder."

The delicate accuracy of perception and ex-
pression in his account of flight shooting recalls
TurgeniefFs wonderful " Sketches of a Sports-
man " : —

" The moor-hen, the coot, and the water-rail
creep forth from their lurking-places in the withy
bed, and, with a cheery note of confidence, call
to their fellows to follow their example. The
dabchick dives and disports herself, in careless
security, on the moonlit water at your very feet.
The water-rat scuttles along in the stiff herbage,
or, sitting up on his hind legs, cleans his face at
274

"BIRD LIFE"

his leisure. The wild cries of the snipe and the
heron, the peewit and the curlew, the golden
plover and the sandpiper — birds heard but not
seen — startle and charm the silence. It is not
for them that you are watching and waiting. A
little later, and you catch in the distance the
loud whirring of unnumbered wings ; you hear
the shrill cry of the leading duck or widgeon,
anxious, in the gloom, to keep his followers to-
gether— and I would remark that all the birds
that fly by night have, with this end in view, a
loud, shrill cry — you just catch sight of them, and
they are gone ; gone, as they fly, three gunshots
aloft, towards some more favoured feeding-ground
far up the river."

Or take the description of one of the heredi-
tary roosting - places of the starling — " one of
the most interesting sights that birds can give
us within the limits of the British Isles " : —

" It is a hazel plantation in the middle of
open upland fields. Go there an hour before
sunset, and the place is as sombre and silent as
the grave ; but first one and then another com-
pany come dropping in from all points of the
compass, increasing in size and frequency as the
minutes pass on, some of them of ' numbers
numberless,' and very high in air, as though
coming from a great distance, and gathering
others to them, like a rolling snowball, as they
make their way onward. They first pitch in the
grass fields around, ' making the green one '
black. When they rise in a body, it is 'as with
275

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

the sound of thunder heard remote.' As they
pass over your head they literally darken the air,
and they go through a series of most intricate
evolutions without so much as one sound from
their throats. But, at a signal, given we know
not how, they swoop down in a moment into
their roosting-bushes ; and then, for a quarter of
an hour or more, each of the myriad throats
exerts itself to its utmost in one continuous
' charm ' or twitter — their vesper hymn, which
can be heard at the distance of half a mile, and
which I can only compare to the sound of multi-
tudinous waterfalls. At another signal there is
a sudden and absolute hush, and then perfect
silence ensues till an hour before sunrise next
morning, when matins are sung with the same
overpowering force, and for the same duration.
Then they rise in one vast body, circle round a
little, and finally move off, each in his proper
flock, to their happy and widely scattered
hunting-grounds."

Bosworth Smith has himself clearly defined the
scope of his book : —

" I pretend to no scientific knowledge of the
subject, but the observations and the studies —
even if they should be somewhat ' random and
desultory' — of any one who has loved birds with
a passionate love all his life may have some
little value of their own. They may rouse a
general interest in the subject which purely
scientific details may fail to do. They may add
to the enjoyment of country life, and they may
276

"BIRD LIFE"

tend towards the preservation of birds which,
even if they are guilty of an occasional depre-
dation on game or on the flock, surely do much
more than atone for it by the oddities of their
habits, by the beauty of their movements, and
by their sonorous cries."

The book "aims at penetrating, as far as may
be," he says again, " behind the graceful shapes, the
lissom movements, the beautiful mask of feathers,
to the eager little life, vivid, attractive, mys-
terious, almost, but not, I think, quite impene-
trable, which underlies them all. By so doing
it aims at creating an interest in birds, which
. . . will give a kind of sixth sense to its
possessor, lending a fresh charm to every walk,
to every copse, to every hedgerow, peopling
them with ever appearing, ever disappearing,
friends — friends hitherto unnoticed and unknown
— and enabling the eye to see what it has never
properly seen, the ear to hear what it has never
fully heard, and the imagination to picture to
itself what it has never consciously imagined
before."

Here and there he dwells on what he calls the
" human background " to his birds, and his illustra-
tions from literature and amusing stories from real
life make the book a treasure-house of "things old
and new." The choice of a title was a matter of
difficulty ; there was so much about human beings,
so much about the country in general, that his
youngest daughter, Joan, suggested " Birds and
277

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH
Digressions from Them" as a more appropriate
title than the one he finally chose.

The papers appeared first in a series of articles
in the Nineteenth Century, spread over the time
between November 1902 and February 1904 ; each
paper as it appeared brought him a number of
cordially appreciative letters, not the least enthusi-
astic of which were from the editor of the Nineteenth
Century, Sir James Knowles, who wrote, in Decem-
ber 1902 : —

" I shall be charmed to have some more articles
of the same kind as the ' Owls,' whenever you will
send them to me, and feel sure that you will make
' Ravens ' equally fascinating. Everybody is de-
lighted with the ' Owls,' including, I feel sure,
themselves, although they may be too blind to
recognise their benefactor. Pray keep the series
for the Nineteenth alone, and do not be bribed
away elsewhere ! "

And again later, Sir James wrote : " I trust the
series will go on, and shall be excited to know who
will be the next candidate for your fascinating
aviary, for it will be very fascinating and refreshing."

Sir Archibald Geikie, with whom for many years
past a warm friendship had existed, wrote : —

11 Will you let me say with what delight I have
read your article on owls ? The closeness of obser-
vation and wide range of knowledge of the subject
would alone arrest attention ; but you have touched
278

"BIRD LIFE"

it all off with such literary deftness, that I am sure
every reader must wish that you may be induced to
continue such papers."

Some of his correspondents — no small proportion
of whom were personally unknown to him — such as
Dr. Jacob Cooper, for instance, of New Brunswick,
U.S.A., sent him stories and observations of their
own, many of which enriched his essays, when, in
1905, they were republished as a book by Mr. John
Murray.

To a great extent it would seem that his object
was attained ; the first edition of his book sold
out at once, the reviews were cordial, and if, as
Sir Archibald Geikie says, "the best reward a
writer can have is to find that he can give pleasure
to other people," Bosworth Smith received that
reward in full, for the many letters that came to
him spoke of " the unfeigned pleasure," " the
intense enjoyment," the book had given them, and
the words "charming," "delightful," and "fasci-
nating " seem to come naturally to the pens of all
his correspondents when they write of it. Each
chapter in turn was singled out by one or another
as the best in the book.

"That he who could write 'The Wild Duck'
will write no more," wrote one of his nearest friends,
4 'is doubtless like the farewell performances of
Mario and Grisi, which, if I don't mis-remember,
amounted to some five hundred ; and tho' I fear
yours will hardly amount to as many as that, I
279

REGINARD BOSWORTH SMITH

hope their number will be figuratively legion. Re-
member the fate of the poor gentleman who laid
up his talents in a napkin and got drowned or
burnt alive or died of thirst, which, according to
Captain Marryat, is the worst death of all, and
write off another as soon as mebbe."

Sir Archibald Geikie told him his volume should
"stand on the same shelf, shoulder to shoulder,
with old Gilbert White. As works of art, apart
altogether from their enthusiasm and knowledge of
bird life, your pages stand on a far higher level than
his. Could you not some day take up a definite bit
of Dorset — your own home, for instance — and do for
it, in your own way, what White did for Selborne ?
If ever you do that, let me come and write a letter
or two on the geology, which is scarcely less
interesting than the birds."

" I don't know much about birds," wrote his
brother-in-law, R. W. Wickham, "but I do about
Bos, and as the book is so very much the man as
well as the bird, it is very fascinating. His soul is
as simple as that of his feathered friends." " The
birds have been heroes more completely after your
own heart even than Mohammed or Hannibal or
Lord Lawrence," wrote his sister Eva ; and he was
especially touched by a few words from the great-
great-niece of Gilbert White.

He had by no means counted on winning
the approval of scientific naturalists, but he
had nevertheless the pleasure of appreciation,
280

"BIRD LIFE"

among others, from Professor Alfred Newton,
Mr. W. H. Hudson (for whose works, especi-
ally the "Naturalist in La Plata" and "British
Birds," he had the warmest admiration), his own
former pupil, Mr. G. E. H. Barrett- Hamilton, and
the late Professor Leverkiihn, a well-known con-
tinental authority on birds, who was at that time
secretary and librarian to H.R.H. the Prince of
Bulgaria.

Bosworth Smith repeated his paper on "Owls"
as a lecture at many of the public schools, and
wherever the lectures or the articles are known,
there has been the same appreciation of them,
though the hope expressed by more than one
reviewer, that the book would "find a place in
every bird-lover's library," has, so far, by no means
been realised.1

" I am persuaded from long personal experience,"
he writes in " Bird Life," " that an enthusiastic love
of nature and a genuine love of sport may often go
hand in hand. A naturalist need not necessarily
be a sportsman, but a man cannot be a true sports-
man who is not also a true naturalist, for the simple
reason that a true sportsman is never a butcher —
he hates killing merely as killing. He cares far
more for the freshness of the air, for the fragrance

1 Birds were for him, as he says himself, " the solace, the recrea-
tion, the passion of a lifetime," and there is a special fitness in the
fact that the last words of his that will see the light should be a
series of articles on birds, which he had written for " The British
Book of Birds" edited by F. B. Kirkman, which will be published
(by Messrs. Jack) about the same time as these pages.
28l

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

of the heather, for the myriad beauties of the moor,
the forest, or the stubble field ; for the ' working '
and evident enjoyment of his dogs ; for the engross-
ing interest, and therefore the complete rest from
work, which it gives to a busy man ; for the health,
the strength, the skill, the energy, the endurance
called for by his favourite pursuit, and increased by
it in turn, than for the mere brute weight of his bag.
In other words, with him the chase is worth more
than the game, the process itself and its accompani-
ments than the results."

To this declaration of faith, his further views on
sport are a natural corollary ; he detested the prin-
ciple of big battues, as much as he disliked the idea
of shooting syndicates, who value the land only
according to the number of the head of game ; and
he abhorred the wholesale destruction of birds of
prey, simply with a view of increasing " the number
of animals slaughtered at the annual battue." He
maintained that the kestrel, the buzzard, and the
whole tribe of owls rarely touched a bird, and

. denounced, in the strongest terms he could com-
mand, the pole-trap " with all its unspeakable
tortures," and an equally infernal invention which
at the time was much advertised, not only in his
book but in private letters, at the Bird Protection

" Society, and in the Times.

That his book had a direct influence of a prac-
tical kind was shown by letters which he received
from land-owners in several parts of the country,
telling him — and how it rejoiced his heart ! — that
282

"BIRD LIFE"

they had given orders to their keepers to spare owls
and ravens and magpies, and other birds of prey,
as far as possible or altogether, and from others,
here and there, telling him of the " sanctuaries "
for wild life on their estates. It was a personal and
intense relief to him when, thanks to the exertions
of the Buxton family and others of the same
opinions, himself included, the "accursed" pole-
trap was made illegal.

Bosworth Smith's own love of sport remained
keen as ever, as long as, and even longer than, his
physical strength held out. He enjoyed a day's
hunting — although his family never felt sure that
he would not be thinking more of the scenery at a
critical moment than of his horse — and he would face
any fatigue for the pleasure of a day's duck-shooting
on the ground of his friend, Mr. Robert Hayne, or
elsewhere in Dorset. He always looked on duck-
shooting as the finest form of English shooting —
partly, no doubt, because it took him into the places
he loved best of all, the water meadows that fringe
and intersect the heath country. His annual visit
to the kindest of kind friends, Mr. Phelps and his
son at Overton, for partridge-shooting, was a great
enjoyment to him. His interest in his sons' sport,
whether in the Punjaub or in Basutoland — where
his fifth son, Mervyn, is known as a fearless and
untireable hunter — was as unfailing as his interest
in the details of their very different careers. But
he would, in the same way, travel any distance to
283

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

see a nest or a bird that might be unfamiliar to
him, not only to spots in Dorset, like Melcombe
Park — the least disturbed haunt for wild life in the
neighbourhood — or to his favourite clumps, where
the ravens used to build, but on one occasion he
went to Darnaway in the North of Scotland,
whither Lord Moray specially asked him to come
in order to see a peregrine falcon's nest, and to
Doune in Perthshire, where Lord Moray's keeper
was able to show him four nests that were new to
him — the capercailzie, the yellow wagtail, the water
ouzel or dipper, and the golden plover. In 1907,
he went with his wife to stay at Chillingham Castle,
in Northumberland, with Sir Andrew and Lady
Noble, whose son George was one of the keenest
naturalists Bosworth Smith had had in his house at
Harrow, in order to see the sea birds nesting in
the Fame Islands, an experience which fulfilled his
highest expectations.

"In the first ten minutes after we had landed
on the principal island," writes his wife, " we had
seen eighteen different birds on their nests. Every-
where we trod into puffin holes which literally per-
forated the ground. We gazed at an inaccessible
crag, which makes a peninsula off the island, and
which was so crammed with gulls on their eggs,
that when a mother bird wished to return after
going off to feed, it seemed impossible for her to
make room for herself at all again, and how she
knew which were her own eggs is a mystery. We
saw the eider-duck, the oyster-catcher, and the lesser
284

CONCLUSION

tern on their nests that day. Lindisfarne interested
him just as much in another way."

During the years at Melcombe, there is no doubt
that my father enjoyed general society more than
he had ever done before. He would drive any
distance for the pleasure of seeing an old house, a
beautiful garden, or a charming person, and it was
a delight to him to make his house, which was
equally near, or rather equally remote, from every
one, the meeting-place for friends and relations,
who inhabited the most distant corners of the
country. He never wearied of showing his house
and garden to visitors, many of whom were often
complete strangers, who had been attracted to the
place through the guide-books or through his own
writings. People who like old houses generally
know something about them, and if the visitors
were appreciative, as indeed they always were,
their host seemed to find fresh pleasure in
his own possessions every time that he showed
them.

The list of chance visitors who came to this
remote manor-house is a surprisingly long one,
and it contains not a few notable names. Twenty
or thirty at tea in the courtyard — most of them
unexpected or even unknown guests — was no
unusual thing for days together during the summer.
If any one repined at the number of people who
had "never seen Bingham's Melcombe," and who
285

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

therefore would like to see it, it was never the
master of the house. There were few, indeed, who
did not go away charmed and refreshed by his
courtesy and kindness. To the end he retained
the gift of making new friends, and, as Mr. James
Bryce has said, " no truer friend ever lived." The
nature of his work, its disinterestedness, its freedom
from all party considerations, not less than the
nature of his profession, precluded all possibility
of worldly distinction for himself; but he used his
not inconsiderable influence over and over again
on behalf of others. Where a few words from him
or some personal trouble could avail — for instance,
a preface to a book of verses by a child-poetess, or
an election at the Athenaeum — he would be un-
sparing of his efforts.

Bingham's Melcombe was a home to which his
children loved to return from the distant corners
of the earth to which their fate had led them.
Their mother's unfailing letters had kept them in
constant touch with home ; his own, if they were
not so frequent, were none the less delightful.
His children could always treat him as a friend,
and they could count on his entering into every
detail of their lives with interest. To discuss a
matter with him was to tell him everything, know-
ing that no complication was too complicated for
him, that he would understand and remember
everything, that his sympathy would abound, to
comfort, to counsel, or — scarcely less precious — to
286

CONCLUSION

dispel a difficulty or disagreement, by a sudden
appreciation of the humorous side of it. He was
quite unmusical himself, but he liked to hear every-
thing about his daughter Frida's musical career,
and he was equally interested in his younger
daughters' drawings, although his own taste in art
was rather a matter of association than of critical
knowledge. In later years, when he could not
hear general conversation, he liked to be told, by
the child who sat next him, any and everything that
was said ; and if the remarks retailed were in any
degree incisive or amusing, his face would light up
with intense enjoyment, and he would take up the
points with a quickness and intuition that made
one realise yet more fully the trial deafness was
to him.

It was a delight to him to feel that some repre-
sentatives, at least, of the friendships of each period
of his life came to see him at Melcombe — friends of
the old Stafford, Milton Abbas, Marlborough, and
Oxford days, no less than those of later years.
Visits to and from Lord Peel were a special pleasure
to him, and it would be difficult to name any one
whose conversation he enjoyed more. He and his
wife stayed with Lord and Lady Wimborne, where
on one interesting occasion they met Lord Hugh
Cecil and Dean Wace — a party which represented
opposite poles of Church opinion, no one of which
was perhaps very near his own ; with Lord Eustace
Cecil at Lytchett, whose varied interests and kind-
287

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

ness made such visits a real refreshment ; with Mr.
and Mrs. Wilton Allhusen in Skye, where he greatly
enjoyed the grouse-shooting, the scenery, the sight
of ravens, and the pleasure of being with congenial
hosts ; and at Lexden, with Sir Mountstuart Grant-
Duff, in whose company one was immediately
brought into touch with books and men and women
of the past, in a way which seems to have vanished
with him.

Bosworth Smith's interest in his Dorset neigh-
bours, rich and poor, and his liking for them, were
warm and genuine, and their appreciation of him
was evident. " Nothing was too small for his great
mind," was said of him by one who enjoyed his talk
and interest about people and current events, as well
as about more serious subjects. " Talking to him
was like going into a better country — he was like no
one else," another friend wrote ; and a third, one of
the younger generations, paid him a compliment
after his own heart when he said, " You would never
think that Mr. Bosworth Smith was a very clever
man from the way he talks to all of us ; he never
seems busy, and yet he is always working and
writing, and one would never guess it." To young
people he was specially kind and gentle ; only the
cynical, the supercilious, the selfish, or the entirely
frivolous found no place in his heart.

The letters which came from far and near after
he had passed away were a revelation, even to
those nearest to him, of the affection he had called
283

CONCLUSION

forth. Almost every letter added a personal touch,
a special trait or memory, from which, perhaps, a
better picture of what he was could be drawn than
by any more studied or elaborate means.

" I do not think," writes Mr. Alexander Foote,
who was for a time a near neighbour, whose talk
had been one of the pleasures of Bos worth Smith's
Melcombe life, and whose graphic, Whistler-like
sketch was written on the impulse of the moment,
when the news of his death reached him, "that I
ever met any one who attracted me so strongly after
a short acquaintance as he did. Such an interest-
ing personality! A Richard Jefferies with wider
sympathies, a David Thoreau with a saner judg-
ment. Happy, like the American philosopher in
his Walden, with the birds and flowers, he could
still at times scent the battle afar off in Church and
State, and hear 'the thunder of the captains and
the shouting.' Imperishable memories of the kindly
face with its strong lines and its changing lights ;
of the great unfailing urbanity and the old-world
courtesy! In our little world he was a radiating
focus of goodwill, and his entrance into a room
was as though another candle had been lighted.
We have lost him, but we have not lost all his
influence for good. He has left us all a very great
and excellent legacy of hallowed memories."

" Bosworth Smith belonged to the great world of
letters," wrote Canon Edward Bernard, Chancellor
of the Diocese of Salisbury; "it was there that
he made his mark, and there he will continue
to be honoured, but his remembrance will also
live among his own Dorset people in his own
289 T

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

diocese. . . . Born and bred in Dorset, of a
family long known and honoured, he was all his
life a true Dorset man, though for thirty-seven
years his work lay elsewhere. It was indeed a
gain to the county to have as a resident a man
of so much ability, so patriotic, courageous, and
independent, and not less was it a gain to the
diocese. ' He was lovable.' That was what
one said of him, who knew him well, and it was
most true. He had a warm heart, and every one
felt it. In his life there was no waste, or at least,
none that man could perceive. He used all his
gifts faithfully, for he was true to his favourite
motto, Labor omnia vincit. He was one who knew
the trials of the age, the doubts and difficulties that
beset our faith. But he cherished that blessing of
his early training, and it supported and held him
fast. His faith was supported by love and worked
by love. He loved his own, his friends and neigh-
bours, his dear county of Dorset ; he loved his
Church and his country. He loved nature in its
varying moods ; he loved all God's creatures, the
birds, the beasts, the flowers. So he has passed
from us with a life, not wasted, having fully learnt
the main lesson of life, the lesson of love."

"It is difficult to say what epithet one would
choose as most distinctive of him," wrote Mr. F.
Gore-Browne, K.C. " I should, I think, select
' great-hearted,' to include love of country, love of
home, love of others, kindliness, sympathy, and
generosity of heart."

"The county has suffered a heavy bereave-
ment," wrote the editor of the Dorset County
290

BINGHAM'S MKLCOMHE

CONCLUSION

Chronicle, " but no Dorset man has ever passed
away who enjoyed a higher degree of admiration
and esteem."

The two letters which follow were written by
Bosworth Smith to two friends of his boyhood ;
they show something of the quick, warm apprecia-
tion of the work of others, and that wonderful
sympathy in their sorrows, which enriched the
lives of those who came within the sphere of it.

The following letter is to Mr. Charles Moule.
It refers to a beautiful little poem which Mr. Moule
had written, in 1904, on the death of his brother,
Henry Moule, whose knowledge of Dorset was only
surpassed by his love of it : —

" That elegy is most touching, and quite, I think,
perfect. It is Barnes at his very best. How Henry
would have loved to have such an elegy written on
him, written by a brother, written in his own Dorset,
and each stanza giving a complete little etching of
himself, or of some scene in Dorset which he knew
and had sketched. Handley's poem, too, is de-
lightful. Needless to say, I have cut both out and
kept them, though it will be hardly necessary for
years, for I know the verses almost by heart."

The second letter, written in 1906 to the Bishop
of Durham, Dr. Handley Moule, relates to the
memoir of his daughter — a book which, in its sim-
plicity and beauty, had affected him profoundly.
Bishop Moule had told him that almost the last
thing that he had read to his daughter, not of a
291

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

directly spiritual nature, had been parts of " Bird
Life " :—

" I would not write to you till I had read the
little memoir which you have so kindly sent me ;
and now that I have read it, I hardly know how to
express in words the effect it has had upon me. I
have hardly ever read anything more touching or
more beautiful. It brought tears to my eyes often
as I read it, nor do I think I have ever read a book
which made me more realise the real power of
religion to give courage, patience, unselfishness,
beauty, happiness under the most distressing cir-
cumstances. What a sweet character, what a sweet
face and pose of the head, and what power and
courage she had! What a comfort it must have
been to you and to her mother to be able to record
so much of what she said and did and thought, and
what a delight, too, it must be to you to feel that,
through the wide circulation of the memoir — at
which I do not wonder now that I have read it —
what a power for good she is still and is destined
to be in this world as well as in that to which she
has been translated ! There are many passages in
the book which I should like read to me when my
own end is drawing near."

He never uttered the empty commonplaces of
consolation, which he knew sounded like mockery
to those whose light had gone out, but he seemed
to find the thing to say that would bring comfort,
and to say it in simple words which went straight
to the heart.

To one who was grieving to think that she might
292

CONCLUSION

perhaps have done more for one who was gone, he
wrote : —

"It is perhaps the beginning of the end of all
your misunderstandings, and the coming to the
surface of that under-current of love which, though
it is sometimes hidden by the froth and foam on
the surface, is still flowing on in full force all the
time."

One of Bosworth Smith's efforts during his Mel-
combe years was in keeping with the place and his
own life there, and it showed in a measure a return
to the old ideas and influence of his upbringing at
Stafford Rectory.

"Early in 1907," writes his wife, "a request
came from my brother Archie (Archdale Palmer
Wickham, Vicar of Martock, Prebendary of Wells,
and Rural Dean) to help him at a meeting at
Martock to promote the better observance of
' Sunday.' After the usual amount of persuasion
and smoothing away of the difficulties, that at first
would predominate in his mind, before he would
undertake any fresh writing or face any fresh
scheme I might suggest to him (he used to say
the very word ' scheme ' on my lips would make
him tremble), he yielded and set to work. He
liked to get a thing written out in my writing
after he had worked it well into shape himself, be-
cause he declared that put it all clearly before him.
After the speech at Martock, Bos became thoroughly
interested in the subject, and early in April, at the
Diocesan Synod at Salisbury, he proposed the
motion, ' That the rapidly increasing appetite for
293

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

amusement, and the corresponding neglect of reli-
gious ordinances, threaten to prove a national
calamity.' Colonel Robert Williams, Major Dug-
dale, and others supported it, and it was carried
unanimously. In July his views on Sunday observ-
ance appeared as an article in the National Review,
and the editor allowed it to be reprinted at the
request of the Society for Promoting Christian
Knowledge. The attractive little green book called
' Sunday ' has had a very wide circulation, and what
he said awoke a sympathetic response in very many
directions."

He himself took no ultra-Puritanical view of
Sunday. " The Puritans, if they laid to heart the
first part of the verse, ' This is the day that the
Lord hath made,' forgot or seemed to forget the
second part, which is the corollary to it, ' We will
rejoice and be glad in it.' Sunday was with them
a day of religious gloom, when long and dreary
services at church were followed up almost imme-
diately by equally long and dreary services at home.
It was a day of prohibitions and restrictions : even
Sunday toys — the irreproachable Noah's ark among
them — were discouraged ; and what was more ill-
judging still, heaven itself was represented as little
else than a prolongation, to all eternity, of such
gloomy days on earth ; a place

' Where congregations ne'er break up
And Sabbaths never end ' !

What wonder that a young boy, when asked in-
294

CONCLUSION

sinuatingly by a religious relative which day of
the week he preferred, replied without hesitation,
'Monday, much.' 'Why so?' asked the dis-
appointed inquirer. ' Because it is furthest from
Sunday.'"

The English people had hitherto steered happily
between this extreme and the continental extreme ;
but now it seemed to him that peace, " the central
feeling of all happiness," had well-nigh disappeared.
His picture of a country Sunday ("The very
birds — I have 'noticed it all my life — seem tamer,
blither, and are more easily approached, as though
they were half conscious that, during the Truce of
God, they were safe from the hand of man ") forms
a pendant to a description of the hustle and rush
to get out of London, the pleasure-seeking, the
total lack of consideration for the work entailed
on others, on what should be a day of rest
for all.

He realised how infinitely greater were the ex-
cuses for those who work all the week, and who
must crave for change and fresh air on Sundays ;
and he rejoiced to think that "the study and enjoy-
ment on Sunday afternoons of the beautiful and the
spiritual in works of art " was now possible, at all
events, for the inhabitants of large towns. He
thought that to secularise Sunday would be to lose j
an institution "intended to give man time to de-
velop his higher nature, to take stock of his position,
thinking of the past and future as well as of the j
295

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

ever-importunate present, to enable him to join with
others, during some set portion of the day, in prayer
and praise, and so to gain the strength which comes
from a common purpose and from the contagion of
numbers "; and he thought that the question affected
"the well-being in the highest sense of the word —
physical, moral, intellectual, spiritual — of every man,
woman, and child in the country." Rest, he held,
was a condition of all fruitful labour, but rest means
change of occupation — and this leisure for calm
thought and self-improvement was an essential for
all life, if it was worth living.

My father's own way of spending Sunday was
consistent with what he wrote about it. He liked
to spare the servants extra work ; he liked the day
to be different from others, quieter, more peace-
ful ; and he himself was faithful and regular in his
church-going. He generally miscalculated the two
minutes' walk to the little church ; and if he arrived
late, it would be because he had been in the garden
to find a flower to hold in his hand during the
service. He always read the lessons ; and it is said
that his enjoyment of the story of Jehu and Jezebel
was so great, that he repeated it on three consecu-
tive Sundays to a congregation which was only
dimly aware of an increasing familiarity with the
details of the history. " I thought I must get to
Harvest Festival, to hear Mr. Bosworth read the
lessons once more," a village woman said, when he
had gone away on that last journey to London —
296

CONCLUSION

that time when Mr. Thomas Hardy, speaking, as it
were, for all Dorset, said, " It is such a strain for us
all ; " and to many in that simple congregation, all of
whom he knew well, his clear voice, with its reve-
rent appreciation of what he was reading, and his
beautiful expression as he read, will remain as a
precious memory.

His last word on the politics of the day was
altogether characteristic of his manner of thought ;
for it was a protest, as eloquent and forcible as
any that had come from his pen, against what
seemed to him the injustice and hypocrisy of the \f
Licensing Bill. He left the discussion of details
to others, and dealt with the subject on broad
lines of principle. He spoke as "an Englishman
who is jealous — sensitively jealous — for the honour
and good faith of his country, and who is un-
willing, for the first time almost in English modern }
history, to see its Government embarking on a \
predatory policy, with which no one can feel safe, j
and of which no one can foresee the end. . . . There
is a cause which is greater, more fundamental, more
sacred even than that of temperance, and that is
the cause of justice." The Bill, he contended, was
unnecessary, for Mr. Balfour's Act was working
admirably; it was hypocritical, for it left Scotland
and Ireland, which needed it more, alone ; and it
did not touch grocers' licenses or clubs ; and the
evil it claimed to combat would, in practice, only
tend through its provisions to increase. Again,
297

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

"if temperance is really a national object, as it
certainly is, let the nation as a whole pay for it ; "
to speak of " compensation " at all, in the present
case, is an abuse of terms. It seemed to him
deplorable that the National Church should, in its
zeal for temperance, identify itself with a policy
of injustice, and help "to do a great wrong to do
a very little right. ... I would rather see Eng-
land just first, and sober and free afterwards."

"When Bos had read through the draft of the
Bill," writes his wife, "and had considered how it
would act, not only on those who sold, but on those
who bought intoxicating liquors, his heart burned
within him, and he felt he must write or speak
to protest against the injustice, in the first place,
of depriving the proprietors of property which
they might legitimately consider their own, and
that without adequate notice ; and also he saw
that the Bill would in reality facilitate the purchase
of drink in other ways. And so in the cause of
temperance and justice he spoke at a meeting at
Weymouth, and his speech, thanks to the energy
of the editor of the Dorset County Chronicle and
Mr. Alfred Pope, was at once reprinted and sent
to every member of both Houses of Parliament
before the discussion came on. Bos hesitated
very much as to his name being appended to each
pamphlet, as he thought it might look as if he
were taking too much upon himself to do so. The
Secretary of the Property Defence League in Lon-
don took the speech up warmly, and it was very
widely distributed, and as usual a flood of letters
came in from friends and from strangers, who were
298

CONCLUSION

delighted to find that the Bill would not go forward
without attack, at all events. One man wrote of
his satisfaction in finding ' a clergyman (as he
imagined Bos to be) had had the courage to point
out the mistaken views of some of the bishops
and clergy, whose zeal in the cause of temperance
has outrun their sense of justice.' ' Such a Bill
would never pass,' wrote another, ' had English
minds their ancient fibre and English hearts their
old stoutness and freedom from cant and senti-
ment.' Bos spoke boldly in the same way at
the Salisbury Synod, and again in London, in
the Church Representative Council. Just before
the proceedings, he told his friend, the Bishop of
London, of the line he was about to take, and the
bishop said, ' Go on, it will be well worth hearing.'
* Feeling ran high towards the close of the debate,'
says a Church newspaper ; ' the Bishop of London
and Bishop Gore, who almost passionately sup-
ported the Bill, betraying some anxiety as to the
result.' The Bishop of London's motion, ' That
the Licensing Bill, though requiring amendment
in many important details, deserves in its main
outline the support of the Church,' was lost by a
large majority, an amendment moved by Bos in
quite the opposite sense having previously been
carried. He did not write in the Times about it,
except a few words to say that his brother Edward,
the Marlborough Missioner at Tottenham — and
few were more competent than he, after his long
experience with the London poor, to judge — had
thought the Bill unjust. He said in his letter that
it was ' a Bill to be rejected or withdrawn, while
a better one, a scrupulously just one, is being
prepared in its place.' "

299

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

The later modifications made in the Bill would
have probably commended themselves to him, but
at the time when they were under discussion his
interest in human affairs had passed away.

Enough has perhaps been said already to show
that life at Melcombe was from first to last full of
happiness for Bosworth Smith. He had the rare
faculty of finding enjoyment in common things ; and
apart from the wider interests with which he was in
touch, the simple pleasures of his life, whatever
they might be, were still invested with something
of the same charm and excitement for him as they
might have been for a child.

He would enjoy a morning's study of the classics
with his youngest son, Nevil Digby, or his youngest
daughter's description of her day's hunting, or
reading aloud with his wife, or a long visit to his
sisters, or a day's shooting with his kindly neigh-
bour Mr. Woodhouse, or even a garden party, with
a freshness and zest that seemed to speak of per-
petual youth.

His taste in English literature never greatly
changed, and he remained faithful to the books he
had known longest. Gibbon, Shakespeare, Milton,
and Tennyson (in the music of whose verse he
delighted, "The Princess" and "Enoch Arden "
being, perhaps, his favourites) he read constantly ;
he could quote largely from George Eliot, and her
books, with those of Scott, Dickens, Jane Austen,
the Brontes, and the early novels of Thomas Hardy,
300

CONCLUSION

were the only works of fiction for which he really
cared. Latterly, he was greatly impressed by the
" Dynasts," and he read Tolstoi's " War and Peace "
with immense interest but very slowly. Memoirs
of all ages, if they were at all human and graphic,
delighted him. Of classical writers, Homer, Hero- /
dotus, Pliny, Tacitus, and Thucydides were most!
often in his hands, and they seemed to afford him
perpetual pleasure and refreshment.

In 1906, his third daughter, Lorna, was married
to Edwin Goldmann, Professor of Surgery at the
University of Freiburg, in Breisgau, and in the
following year he went with his wife to see her in
her home in Germany. In September 1907, his
eldest daughter was married to Sir Edward Ion
Grogan, Bart., of the Rifle Brigade ; and a fortnight
later his second daughter, Frida, was married to
Herr August Heisler of Mannheim.

In March 1908, Bosworth had to go through one
more of those partings which he felt so poignantly.
His brother Edward, a man of great force of char-
acter and warmth of heart, and with an almost
unique power of attracting and attaching his parish-
ioners to their church, who had devoted his whole
life and energy to the service of the Marlborough
College Mission at Tottenham, died after a short
illness. " I shall miss his sympathy and interest
at every turn," my father wrote ; and indeed, all
through his life, he had counted on the kindly,
humorous criticism and the enthusiastic apprecia-
301

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

tion of his younger brother, whom, though their
views often differed considerably, he had in turn
loved and admired with all his heart. " That long
line of graves in Stafford churchyard," he wrote,
some two months before his own place was to be
filled by the side of those beloved relatives, " is so
pathetic and so sacred."

There is very little more to tell. For some
years past there had been certain disquieting bodily
symptoms, and in the summer of 1908, in view of
his almost incessant discomfort, he decided to
undergo an operation, which it was confidently
hoped would restore him to a fair measure of health
for some years to come. He himself believed that
the operation was necessary, and he faced the
ordeal with a quiet courage and a brave heart. But
in the spring, as though some premonition had
come to him, he had set his house in order, and
had thought out many arrangements for the future.

" I saw him at Bingham's Melcombe in the last
month he spent there," writes Mr. F. Gore-Browne,
K.C., "when he knew the operation was hanging
over him and fully realised the danger. He showed
the greatest courage, and spoke of it openly and
simply, but dwelt very little upon himself. The
old keenness showed itself, and he took from his
bookshelves the classic authors to quote appropriate
sayings from the ancient philosophers. Had it not
been for his courage, it would have been impossible
to keep back tears."

302

CONCLUSION

The time of waiting was unexpectedly protracted,
but it was cheered by the presence of his son
Reginald, who was at home on leave from South
Africa with his wife and a baby, whose charms
were an unending joy and solace to her grandfather.
The two of his married daughters who could come,
came from abroad to be with him ; he was as full of
interest and enjoyment of the amusing side of life as
ever he had been, although there was a distressed
look of suffering on his face. " I dread the discom-
fort and pain of all this intensely," he said to his
wife, " but I do not fear death ; it is only a transla-
tion." The worst for him, perhaps, was over when
he had driven away from his much-loved Melcombe ;
he had seemed scarcely able that morning to tear
himself away from his rockery and his flowers. He
wrote to his sisters the night before the operation
that he " was in good heart."

The operation, which took place in a nursing
home in London, was technically successful, and
there seemed at first every reason to be hopeful ;
but he did not regain his strength, and symptoms of
a latent disease began to show themselves. After
five weeks of intense anxiety, during which his
wife's presence alone seemed to bring him a
moment's comfort, it was admitted that there was
no longer any hope of his recovery. On October
17, when the risk of a journey meant but little, the
doctors consented to his removal, and he was granted
the wish of his heart, and was brought back to his
303

REGINALD BOSWORTH SMITH

home. All through his illness his broken words
had been of Melcombe, and he had pined to be
there once more. It was his faithful friend,
Edward Graham, who arranged the details of the
long journey in such a way that he was hardly con-
scious of fatigue ; but it was only owing to the
devoted care of his wife, his youngest son, and of
the two nurses who accompanied him, that his
strength held out. He was able to realise that he
was once more in the country, and he fixed his
eyes on the sunset toward which he was travelling.
The carriage reached Melcombe about nine o'clock
in the evening, and he was carried through the
courtyard, which was still beautiful with hydrangeas,
and through the old hall, which had been lit up and
decorated with the tall autumn flowers which he
loved, to his own room ; and two hours later, in the
full consciousness of his surroundings, he passed
from his earthly to his heavenly home.

His body was laid to rest, as he himself had
wished, surrounded by flowers, in the little church-
yard at Stafford, by the side of his parents and his
brothers and sisters, in the presence of many, rich
and poor, who loved him, and who felt the world
without him a poorer place that day.

304

INDEX

AFGHAN Question, 158, 185,187-190
Africa, 141, 156

" Christianity and Mohammed-
anism in," 152

" Stanley's Rear Column," 242

Uganda, 242-247
Aglen, Anthony, 61, 246
Albany, Duchess of, 48
Albemarle, George, Duke of, 2
Ameer Ali, Syed, 77, 148
Argyll, 8th Duke of, on Lord

Lawrence, 177 ; on Mr. Gladstone

and Disestablishment, 209, 210;

on Mr. Gladstone and Home Rule,

249
Arnold, Sir Edwin, 93, 94

Matthew, 63, 73, 75; on the

reading public, 147

Dr. Thomas, 256, 257

Athenamm, The, 93

BADGER, Dr., 76 ; on " Mohammed,"
149; on Islam, 150

Barnes, William, 10, 17, 29

Becher, General John, 167, 168, 182,
184

Benson, Dr., Archbishop of Canter-
bury, 229 ; letters from, 206, 226

Bernard, Canon Edward, 89, 289

Bible, The, 230, 231

reading, 230, 296

— Society, speech for, 230
Bingham's Melcombe, I, 100, 261

et seq.

Biography, views on, 84, 160, 163
Biographies, suggested, 82, 83, 84
"Bird Life," 10, 37, 43, 271-282
Birds and bird-nesting, 10, 12, 19,

20, 35-43, 47-52, 62, 69, 88, 89,

105, 1 10, 116, 271-285
Blyden, Dr., 77, 150
Bowen, Edward, 65, 72, 90, 117, 118
Bradby, Rev. E. H.. 71, 117

Bradley, Dr. G. G., Dean of West-
minster, 46, 63 ; letters from, 182,
206

Brown, Harold, sketch of character,
123, 124

Bryce, Right Hon. James, reminis-
cences by, 60-62, 72, 73, 80, 90,
240, 286

Butler, Dr. Montagu, 63, 70, 75, 80 ;
reminiscences by, 68 ; preaching, 7 1

Mrs. Montagu, In Memoriam

sketch, 70

CARLYLE, Dr. Martineau on, 95

"Carthage and the Carthaginians,"
78-81 ; visit to Carthage, 79

Chamberlain, Mr., and Disestablish-
ment, 195, 197, 199, 210, 214

Character sketches by R. B. S.—
George Gill, 20 ; his mother,
23-25 ; his father, 25-27 ; John
Floyer, 28, 29; Bishop Cotton,
45, 4° 5 John Shearme Thomas,
47; Mrs. Wickham, 55; Mrs.
Montagu Butler, 70 ; Rev. E. H.
Bradby, 71 ; Edward Bowen, 72 ;
Miss Swanwick, 96 ; Lord Ebury,
98, 194 ; Harold Brown, 123,
124 ; Mr. Mansel-Pleydell, 270

Children, R. B. S.'s, 52, 69, 102,
263, 264-266, 283, 286, 301, 303

Church Congress, speeches at, 151,

IS3

defence, speeches for, 224, 232

House, the, letters and speeches

for, 225, 226

the National, 86, Chap. VII. See

Disestablishment, Scottish Church,
Welsh Church
— Representative Council, 233,

23S

Clarence, L. B., reminiscences by, 33,
34, 36, 40

305

U

INDEX

Clifton, Lawrence memorial tablet at,

190

Collins, Sir Robert H., 48
Confirmation addresses, 115
Contemporary Review, articles in —

" Turkey and Russia," 78, 240 ;

" Englishmen in Africa," 242
Corpus Christi College, Oxford, 52,

60, 6 1
Cotton, Dr., Bishop of Calcutta, 44,

45, 46, 270
Creeds, 153, 154
Cunningham, Sir Henry, x, 90
Curiosities, collection of, 112, 263

DAVIDSON, Dr. Randall, Archbishop
of Canterbury, 74, 220 ; on R. B. S-,

259

Disestablishment, 86, 193 ; letters to
Times on, and correspondence re-
lating to, 194-225
Dorset, 31, 88, 269, 297, 304
Douglas, Sir George, reminiscences

by, 119

Down House, the, 46, 88, 270
Duck-shooting, 88, 279, 283
Duckworth, Canon Robinson, reminis-
cences by, 47, 57

Dufferin, Marquess of, letters from,
on Lord Lawrence, 178, 179

EASTWICK, Captain William, 7, 98 ;

letters from, 77, 175, 176 ; letter

to, 216
Ebury, Lord, 97, 98, 194; letter

from, 246
Egerton, Mrs. Caledon, reminiscences

by, 11-23

Elliott, F. A. H., letter from, 181
England, 123, 128, 241, 242-247,

297, 299

English Church Union, 229
Evangelicalism, 8, 12-17, 26, 156,

193, 232, 293

FARRAR, Dean, 45, 47, 73 ; preach-
ing, 7i

Flight-shooting, 274
Flowers, 68, 105, 133, 261, 262, 303,

304

Flower-schools, 115, 116, 128

Floyer, John, 7, 9, 13, 27-29

Foote, Alexander, reminiscences by,

289

GARDENING, 68, 262 ; see Flowers

Geikie, Sir Archibald, 102, 278, 279,
280

Geography, teaching of, 113, 121,
127, 128

Gladstone, Mr., 80, 193 et sey. ;
letters from, on Mohammed, &c.,
143, 144; letter from, on Dis-
establishment, 201-203 5 Morley's
Life of, 196, 214, 215 ; Dr.
Martineau on, 208 ; Duke of
Argyll on, 249 ; Dr. Butler on,
252 ; and Home Rule, 248-253

Goodwin, Dr. Harvey, Bishop of
Carlisle, letter from, 226

Gore-Browne, Sir Thomas, 73

Frank, K.C., reminiscences by,

101, 1 20, 290, 302

Graham, Edward, 86, 87, 92, 105,
304; reminiscences by, 105-118

HALIFAX, Lord, letter from, 211
Hardy, Thomas, 10, 90, 274, 297, 301
Harrow, first visit to, 63 ; life at.

Chap. II. ; work at, Chap. III. ;

colleagues, 71, 72, 117, 118
Harrow Chapel, 132, 133
Hart, Henry, 158, 257, 258
Hewett, H. T., reminiscences by, 89,

127
History, teaching of, &c., 113, 114,

121, 127, 128, 133
Home Rule, writings on, 248-253
House-suppers, 101, in, 122, 126
Hudson, W. H., 41, 281

IDDESLEIGH, Earl of, letters from, on
Church questions, 212, 223

Ilbert, Sir Courtenay, 48, 61, 72,
80 ; reminiscences by, 48-52

Indian Frontier. See Afghan Question

Influence, personal — at Marlbbrough,
47, 52 ; at Harrow, 65, 102, 106,
112, 118-122, 127-132; of his
" Mohammed," 137, 156, 192 ; of
his "Lord Lawrence," 171, 174,
177, 178; on Church questions,

193, 196, 201, 205, 206, 211, 216,

217, 226; of his Uganda letters,
243, 246, 247 ; of his " Bird Life,"
282 ; general, 259, 260, 286, 289,
290

JOWETT controversy, 58, 59, 193
306

INDEX

KAGOSIMA, letter to Daily News on,

59

Khartoum, 242

Khiva, Russian advance on, 241
Kindersley-Porcher, £.,271
Knowles, Sir James, 78, 240 ; letters

from, 278
Koran, The, 114, 134, 138, 150, 239

LANE, Edward William, views on

" Mohammed," 142, 143
Lane-Poole, Stanley, 142, 143
Lawrence, Lord, 82, 83, Chap. VII.

Sir Henry, 191 ; Sir Henry's

daughter, Mrs. Hart, 158, 169

Lay headmastership, 253-258
Laymen, speech on position of, 233-

235

Lectures, various, 75, 80, 85, 170, 281
Letter, reading-party, 51, 62
Letters to Times. See Times

personal, from R. B. S. to his

wife, 58, 59, 63, 64, 65, 254 ; to
the Hon. Rollo Russell, 83; to
Countess Russell, 85 ; to Edward
Graham, 105; to pupils, 124; to
Mrs. Knipe, 139 ; to friends, 140,
*63, 293; to Professor Tyndall,
146, 217; to Dr. Badger, 149; to
Lady Lawrence, 160; to Mr.
George Murray Smith, 162; to
Colonel Randall, 164 ; to General
Becher, 167 ; to Colonel Yule, 168,
183 ; to Kenelm Wingfield Digby,
187; to Mr. Gladstone, 203; to
Captain East wick, 216; to Sir H.
Longman, 219; to Charles Moule,
265, 267, 291 ; to Bishop Handley
Moule, 292 ; to his children, 286,
301 , 302 ; to his sisters, 303

Licensing Bill, speech on, 297-300
Literature, teaching of, 113, 119, 120,

125, 133 ; favourite, 300, 302
Liturgy, Dr. Martineau on, 95 ; R.

B. S. on, 115, 232

Longman, Sir H., 163 ; letter to, 219
Luard, General, letter from, 129
Lugard, Sir Frederick, 90, 245

MADEIRA, voyage to, 32
Maharajah Singh, letter from, 192
Mallet, Charles, M.P., reminiscences

by, in, 132
Mansel-Pleydell, John, 270

Marlborough, 43-54, 254, 258
Martineau, Dr. James, 93, 94 ; talk
with, 95 ; letters from, 207-209,

222, 223, 247

Maurice, F. D., 75, 115; Dr. Mar-
tineau on, 208

Milner, Lord, 204

Milton, teaching of, 113, 121 ; quota-
tions from, 230

Abbas School, 33-43

Missions, views on, 138, 151-157

" Mohammed and Mohammedanism,"
75, 115, Chap. V. ; and Christianity
in Africa, 152 ; later views on, 155,
156

Montgomery, Bishop Henry, 74, 154

Sir Robert, 153, 169; letters

from, 172, 173

Moray, Earl of, 37, 284

Morley, Lord, " Life of Gladstone,"

196, 214, 215
Moule, Charles, letters to, 265, 267,

291

Dr. Handley, Bishop of Dur-
ham, n, 17, 23 ; letter to, 291

National Review, articles in —
" Liberal Party and Home Rule,"
248 ; " Sunday," 294
Near East, letters and articles on, 78,

239-241

Negro Race, 77, 141, 150, 152, 153
Nightingale, Miss Florence, 173
Nineteenth Century, articles in —
"Christianity and Mohammedan-
ism in Africa," 152; "Crisis in
the Church," 229 ; on " Bird Life,"
278

Norton, The Hon. Mrs., 73
Northbourne, Lord, letter from, 213

OSMAN Digna, letter on, 241
Oxford, 54-64
Oxhey Wood, 89, no

PAPILLON, Canon T. L., 51, 61 ;

reminiscences by, 43
Parish clergy, 224, 269
Penny, Rev. James, 33, 34, 38;

reminiscences by, 42, 43
Pole-trap, the, 282, 283
Portman, Lord, 36 ; letters from, 85,

182
Praise, thoughts on, 217, 218

307

INDEX

READE, R., letter from, 129
Ripon, Marquess of, letter from, 180
Riviere, Hugh, portrait of R. B. S.,

101
Rosebery, Earl of, on Uganda, 244 ;

his administration, 253
Russell, Earl, life of, suggested, 83-85
Russia, views on policy of, 239. See

Afghan Frontier, Khiva

SALISBURY, Bishop of, Dr. Words-
worth, 235, 258

Diocesan Synod, 233, 268, 293,

299

Marquess of, letters from, 211,

247

Savernake Forest, 47, 48, 49

Scottish Church, Disestablishment of,
288

Scott-Moncrieff, Sir Colin, 86, 246

Scripture, teaching of, 114

"Selborne," White's, 42, 89, 280

Shaftesbury, Earl of, suggested bio-
graphy of, 82

Shorthouse, J. H., letter from, 221

Sierra Leone, letter from Moslem
community of, 156

Simpson family, 8

Smith, Alan Wyldbore Bos worth,
264, 265

Alice and Eva, 30, 280 ; re-
miniscences by, 3-23

Mrs. Bosworth, 56. 65, 66, 73,

87, 101, 147, 162, 169, 171, 172,
184, 265, 304

family, 1-6, 29, 30

Edward Floyer Noel, 30, 87,

299, 301

Ellinor Theophila, 29. 56, 57

Emily Genevieve, 8, 9, 23-25

George Murray, 76 ; letter

from, 162 ; letter to, 163

Reginald Southwell, I, 6, 7,

9, 25, 26, 27, 32, 100

Spencer, Earl, letter from, 212
Sport, 87, 88, 281-283
Stanley, Dean, of Westminster, 59,
75,80, 115, 146

Stanley, H. M., 242

Strangford, Lady, 77, 149

Stratford de RedclyrTe, Lord, sug-
gested biography, 82

Sunday, observance of, 12-15; article
on, 293-297

Swanwick, Miss, 95-97

TAYLOR, Sir Alexander, 181

Canon Isaac, 151

Teaching. See History, Geography,

Literature, Scripture
Tennyson, Lord, letter from, 213;

favourite poems by, 300
Thomas, John Shearme, 29, 47
Thompson, Sir Harry Langhorne, 266
Times, letters to, 78, 80, 86, 98, 1 58,
187, 189, 193, 201, 203-205, 225,
227, 228, 229, 240, 241, 242-247,
248, 250-253, 256, 270, 282, 299
Travels, 79, 87 ; interest in, 123-125
Tunis, visit to, 79 ; letter on, 80
Tyndall, Professor John, correspon-
dence with, 145, 146 ; letter to, 217

UGANDA, retention of, 87, 242-246
Union, Oxford, President of, 59;
speeches at, 62

WATERLOW, A. J., letter from, 209
Welsh Church, Disestablishment of,

227 ; Albert Hall meetings on,

229
Westcott, Bishop, preaching, 71 ;

letter from, 206
White, Gilbert, 42, 89, 280
Wickham, Edmund Dawe, 54; Mrs.,

54, 55; daughters, 55, 56; R.

W., 280; A. P., 293
Winchester, a hundred years ago, 67
Wingfield Digby, Kenelm, 75 ; letter

to, 187-189

YERBURGH, Robert, 74, 88, 101
Yule, Sir Henry, 99, 170; letters to,
168, 183, 271

ZANZIBAR, 76, 149 ; Sultan of, 107

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