[^GREEN, JOHN RICHARD. LETTERS OF JOHN RICHARD GREEN. MACMILLAN AND COMPANY, LIMITED. ED. STEPHEN, LESLIE. LONDON, 1901. PP. 72 - 98 PP. 100 - 123^]

[} [\To W. Boyd Dawkins\] }] March 14, 1861. MY DEAR DAX - If I were not your debtor already I should owe you a letter now to thank you for your kind invitation to my brother. On arrival at Lewes I was welcomed by my two cousins, young girls, full of fun and talk, with whom I talked fun until eleven. I fancy they got a little tired at last of the outrageous rubbish I poured out, though they could not help laughing on; but I had resolved not to end till I felt tired enough to be sure of falling asleep the moment I jumped into bed. In the service next morning I omitted the Psalms bodily, and preached extempore - both of which proceedings electrified my cousins' congregation. The former, however, introduced me to a Mr. Lower, the genius and antiquarian of the place, who has a penchant for liturgical reform, and fancied my omission to have been intentional. Though disappointed on this point by my candid confession of forgetfulness, he conveyed me the next morning over the old castle, and from the top of the keep pointed out the battlefield on the downs. A gleam of sunlight lit up the edge of the Wealden, and brought back the thought of you. Lower had known Mantell, who resided at Lewes, and had a little smattering of geology himself. Our conversation turned on the "Celt" question, and as he was sceptical

I promised him your notes on the discovery in Wookey, a promise which I hope you will perform for your sponsor's credit. A kind note from Stanley offering me a curacy, welcomed me home. I was glad to find Mrs. Ward returned; her womanly tact discovered that all was not well, and without inquiry she petted me into good spirits. I spent the bulk of yesterday pounding at Dunstan in the British Museum. I shall begin my Hist. Somerset there to-day. I have routed up Cuthbert, and am throwing him into a paper for some magazine. My Oxford papers I intend now completing, the work will amuse me, and will pay its expenses. What a grand friend Work is! By-the-bye can you tell me of a good map of Somerset, of less size than our unwieldy Ordnance Gentleman, yet minute enough for my purposes? The country below Lewes, once a seamarsh, now flat meadow-land intersected with dykes, brought back Glastonbury, and to complete the resemblance there are the same rounded hillocks with endings in "eye" which point to a time when they stood like Godneye, isolated spots amid the waters. I saw Rolleston and Daubeny nominated as your examiners for the Scholarship. I am glad you will thus be brought across the latter. His wide acquaintance with Scientific "Swells" would enable him to be of most essential service to you, if he chose. Although there is little doubt of the matter, it will be a "white day" for me when I see you gazetted as Scholar. It will be the "beginning of the end." I can fancy no happier lot than a quiet little parsonage, with income to let me scribble as I please, and offer a breath of rural air to you or Dobbs when you could spare a moment from the rush of science or politics. If you will promise this I will remain Bachelor to the end of my days. You will not, I am sure, forget how pleasant an arrival the postman's is now. Good-bye, my dear Dawkins. - Believe me ever, your sincere friend, J. R. GREEN.

[} [\To W. Boyd Dawkins\] }] 1861. MY DEAR DAX - A note from my brother this morning reminds me of my delay in forwarding you the "mem. de Colle Mendipsiense." A glance at your paper of instructions makes me despair. However I will do my best at the British Museum to-day - as soon as a refractory infant, who insists on being christened at 12.30, will give me leave of absence. I wish you a very pleasant excursion through next week. If the weather in Somerset at all approaches "(\Jovem Middlesaxonicum\)," you will exhibit very strong traces of Diluvial action on your return. I can't of course guess at your plan of operations, whether you will merely make a rush along the range (in which case I don't care a rush for your proceedings, and desire to hear nothing more of them), or whether you will examine the cave - open a Barrow, etc., etc. Barrows, I for myself think solemn humbugs - pretending to an antiquity which really reaches no farther back than the later Roman Empire. But the Cave, and its Celts, if rightly worked, might really throw a flood of light on the field which science will have to delve in for the next half century, the period of Man's origines. A cool semi-sceptical head like Howard's would be invaluable in such an investigation. Accuracy in noting all the circumstances beyond reach of cavil would be of course indispensable. I don't suppose that word of mine would influence your arranged plans, but interesting as "the anticlinal axis of Old Red," "the flexures and dips" of the Mendip range may be, Man and Man's History to my mind is worth them all. (\Nihil geologicum a me alienuum puto\), but still (\Trilobites\) and (\Echini\) are only Kingcrabs and Starfishes, while Man is Man.

I spent yestreen at the Crystal Palace with the Lady (have I told you of her?) who denied the existence of the various Hawkins-cum-Owens animals which adorn its grounds, and assured me that Dr. Buckland, on whom she charged the paternity of such naughty delusions, died of Insanity in consequence. I thanked her for the information, as it corrected the general impression that his death was caused by a decayed bone at the base of his head, but ventured to inquire her grounds for denying the existence of these creatures, and even the possibility of their existence. "My dear Mr. Green, think how ugly they were." I bowed, and owned that this convincing argument had not struck me. "Dunstan" is finished. "Fine, plucky little chap," shall be his epitaph. His diminutive size makes me sympathetic with him. I don't care a straw for heroes of six feet. This is the great blot in Columba's character - whose hagiology I am exploring now. He is a magnificent fellow - but too tall by a foot - but then he could get into a sublime rage! That's what I like in these older S.S. The devotees of the later hagiology could fast and weep and whimper, but they could not get into one of S. Columba's grand wrath-explosions. Puir deils! T. Owen writes most happily. He has fought for the Truth, and the Truth has made him free from the petty cares and troubles of lives like ours. Nevertheless we have our work to do, - Truth in History - Truth in Geology. Each is but a part of that great circle of the Truth of God. May He bless and keep you ever. - Yours in all friendship, J. R. GREEN.

[} [\To M.M.\] }] April 1861. In the country there is no excuse for remissness (\in re literaria\), - it is the only charm against the devil. Excuse there might be for me, - breakfasting at 8 and snatching half an hour of Stanley's book over my bread

and butter, - then hurrying from morning prayer at St. Matthew's to open the school and confer with my vicar; letter and lecture-writing, visiting and the etceteras of the day till 12; then, after luncheon, a walk to the British Museum and grind there till 4.30; dinner and a trot home; tea at the parsonage; a chat with Mrs. W.; a romp with the children till the parish again claims me from 7 to 9 for lectures, Bible classes, music do., confirmation do., committee meetings, and the like. A good two hours' reading or sermon-writing sends me to bed at 12. But you idle bucolic, what are you doing? Frittering yourself away, I fear, on little things, little social successes, little parsonic victories, little industries, little idlenesses. This is worse than our waste of those precious years at Oxford. Brace yourself, my dear M., to better things, worthier things than these. Look at that little fellow Dawkins, God bless him! warmer heart and cooler head never balanced one another than in him, - but look at what he has done by sheer steady work, and blush! You used to laugh at my (\opus magnum\), - but it was just what we both needed, an end to which to work and a big end. It is looking up now. Materials are coming together. The saints are huddling in the pages of my notebook, expecting a resurrection (\in octavo\). Only my Somerset stops the way, and that will be launched in a year, putting, I hope, a cool hundred or two in D.'s pocket and mine. D. declares I first woke him to the consciousness of what was in him. I should like to wake you too. One thing you could do and well. Select and translate some of that immense music of Welsh songs which you are so fond of. People are beginning to wake to the value of national poetry. Your country has stores of sacred hymns. Select and translate as Miss Winkworth has translated Luther, and in her Lyra Germanica. Publish your Lyra Celtica. Don't die down without a struggle into a rustic celebrity, - a Welsh parson. You are one of my set, and my set must be more than that.

[} [\To W. Boyd Dawkins\] }] LONDON, April 16, 1861. MY DEAR DAX - The mistake about Ferguson is - I still persist in thinking your own. Ferguson has published, I believe, a big book and a little book. However, your choice is right, and I expect to learn much on Byzantine architecture when I see you next. Your letter came at the very nick of time; for your quitting me induced my first fit of depression since my curate life commenced, - and of course troubles were not slow to flock in. I lent, in my unsuspicious fashion, the Quarterly to Mrs. Ward, and when I came to chat over it found them frantically exultant in its smash of Essays and Reviews. I said truly enough that the only article I cared about was one on "Dogs," - but I was dragged into the discussion, and then there was nothing for it but to speak frankly and declare the article "unfair," and the bosh by no means so black as it was painted. The Vicar preached last Sunday on "Modern Infidelity." At supper I was asked if I knew anything of that atheist Pattison, whose election to Lincoln was the theme of conversation. "No, - I knew nothing of such a person." "Well, that infidel Pattison," - so I had to look straight at Ward and reply that from what I had read of Pattison's I believed the charge of infidelity to be wholly without foundation. I think it very creditable to Ward that he made no remark, and is as cordial as ever, or even more so. Don't think I am growing controversial. If you knew my horror at controversy, you would appreciate the pain I feel at such an approach to it as I have already made. But I can see the storm gathering against Neologians as it gathered of old against Puseyism, and I know well if it breaks out as it did then I must submit to be misunderstood and rejected by both sides. "Oh, pray for the peace of Jerusalem." Don't think me superstitious for the intense joy with which I read the words yesterday,

"They shall prosper that love Thee." Or those glorious words in the Psalms of to-day. "Behold, how good and joyful a thing it is, brethren, to dwell together in unity." This is most on my mind, - so pardon my bothering you with it. To turn to other matters. All the "choral" opposition has vanished. The young men have behaved well and honestly, so I am on the point of establishing, with great hope of success, a "Young Men's Association," with a room open every night for reading papers and periodicals, magazines and books; playing chess, draughts, backgammon; a nucleus on which we can group lectures and classes for various kinds of instruction, choral and otherwise. You must not forget to send me your Athen‘um, I will see that it is not injured, and to ask Dobbs and others who may chance to "take in" periodicals etc., to give us a temporary reversion of them. In a short time, when our bark is fully launched, I hope to get on without these swaddling clothes. I shall not be able to call on the Boyds or on any one else for the whole of this week, as my whole morning and afternoon are occupied in the vestry and parish, dispensing relief to the poor, so that I think I will wait till you visit London again. I won't enter on Jesus topics, as they are totally without interest to either of us; but I note in your letter an ominous silence (\in re\) X. Don't let his morbid ill-humour prevent your intercourse, if he is up this term. He is the most difficult fellow to get on with I have ever come across, - but much even of this difficulty sprung from his intense love of truth and fairness, and this is so rare amongst the "Jesus fry" that one is bound not to let a ridiculous irritability, arising not from character, but from ill-health, stand in the way of one's appreciation of it. If he is up, will you put down to my bill at Parker's Maurice on the Gospel of S. John, and give it to him from me. He promised to read it, and I feel it will do him good if he reads it with a sneer. I should like, above all things, to run down to Oxford, but how to

manage it I see not. However, I don't yet despair. - Believe me, my dear Dax, yours most sincerely, J. R. GREEN. [} [\To W. Boyd Dawkins\] }] KING'S SQUARE, April 1861. DEAR, DEAR OLD DAX - I hope so soon to be with you that were it not for the selfish pleasure I take in a chat with you, I need hardly be writing now. I intend coming down on Monday morning for a week's stay in Oxford. Don't pray call me idle for so long a holiday. It all comes of that tempter the British Museum Library. Close work there, and no exercise have - with a few cares and troubles which you need not be reminded of - entirely bowled me over. A cold has completed my discomfiture. I feel that it is taxing your kindness not a little to ask you to entertain a broken-down curate with a cold and headache hanging about him, for a week. But it will be a good test of your capacity for either of the two professions between whose respective charms you are hesitating. I defer till our interview all talk about Somerset, your travels - our book - or the "(\res Ionesii Ecclesi‘\)" which I have not forgotten. We can then chat more at large over your choice of a profession. You know my wishes already. But don't vex yourself about the future. . . . As to what is to become of you in the future, you need fash yourself very little. Even in the lowest sense, work and head pay in the world. In a higher sense we can rest very quietly, not idly, till the clouds are cleared away for us. It is just the restlessness about our future, this want of faith, to speak plainly, that makes our way seem so hard in life. Do you remember how anxiously I looked forward to the concomitants of my clerical life, and even did not know all my apprehensions at the chance of meeting a "hard" vicar - working in fetters, and the like. Well, look how happy I am here - over-petted,

I daresay, but revelling in this home sunshine. Would it not have been wiser for me to have done my work and left the future to a wisdom higher than mine? Pardon my little sermon, dear Dax, it is preached rather to myself than to you. It is really preached at my anxieties about the future of my opinions - church-theories, and the like. Where am I drifting to? Will not the stone fall some day on me? These are the questions which will rise up. To work fearlessly, to follow earnestly after Truth, to rest with a childlike confidence in God's guidance, to leave one's lot willingly and heartily to Him - this is my sermon to myself. If we could live more within sight of Heaven we should care less for the turmoil of earth. While we remain mere ministers of the Church of England we must be afraid of our neighbours' ill-will, of accusations of atheism, of "ignorant bishops"; but once become a minister of the Church Eternal, and the cry of controversy falls unheeded on ears that are deaf to all but the Heavenly harpings around the Throne. Of course this is what people are ready to sneer at - Mysticism. But in the union of Mysticism with freedom of thought and inquiry will, I am persuaded, be found the faith of the future. Of this, however, more hereafter. - Believe me, yours most sincerely, J. R. GREEN. [} [\To W. Boyd Dawkins\] }] KING'S SQUARE, May 1861. DEAR OLD FELLOW - I have two pleasant letters of yours to reply to, and I think I had better go through them (\seriatim\). . . . Now for your last little note. Don't get in a rage, and call me a coward for what I am going to say. What is the meaning of this window to Robertson of Brighton? Is it a counter protest? Tell me very frankly if it is - if it is likely even to be taken so.

If it be I will have nothing to do with it, much as I love and reverence the man. Don't misunderstand me. I feel the great temptation of the pleasure of seeing myself denounced in the Record. There are times when I long for a fight, as when I read for instance of the renewed refusal of Jowett's just claims to a stipend. But speaking calmly I see more and more reason for keeping clear of controversy. In a mere worldly sense a reply keeps the ball up. When Johnson was asked why he did not extinguish the petty libels against him by an answer, he said, "There is nothing the rascals would like better, but it takes two people to play at battledore and shuttlecock, and I shan't help them." And in another sense I can't afford to fight. Just look at dear little Stanley. See how controversy is dragging him down from his natural sphere of the widest charity - embittering him - though one still feels the jar of linking together two such names as bitterness and Stanley. I have perfect faith in the truth. I don't think it needs defence of ours. I do think it needs our silence. The clamour will pass away, and not a few will look back on their share of it with shame. I don't think we shall have any shame in looking back at our silent endeavour. But tell me more of Stanley. What is the "row" about him - tell me all the particulars. I am most anxious to hear about them. You must have guessed what a vivid pleasure your pluck in joining his class at this moment would give me. Thank you for it, dear Dax. - Yours most sincerely, J. R. GREEN. [} [\To W. Boyd Dawkins\] }] June 19, 1861. MY DEAR DAX - I have just read with horror at the end of your note from the railway station, "I expect

a letter on Tuesday." (\Rusticus expectat!\) item with double horror in its first page, that my last "was not of satisfactory length." My letters are not "(\strata\)," but rather little patches of rich deposit. You are not to rush over them, as you would pace over your own, but sit down with sieve and hammer, and find a specimen in every line. (\De libro!\) your Huxtable success fades before mine. At the Bishop's fˆte I picked up Arnold ((\quondam\) orator, and Oxford man), now busy reviewing for the Literary Gazette, and contributing to the Gentleman's Magazine, etc. He wishes much to make my acquaintance, and will give us a lift certainly in the Literary Gazette, and probably in other quarters, on the appearance of Somerset. This will sell fifty copies, or perhaps double that number. Your paper on the relation of Tert. Fossils to the Development Theory must be most interesting. I feel impatient to see it, although I am resolved not to dabble in science, which I have no time to pursue scientifically. Dobbs sent me a full and most entertaining account of the Yarnton discoveries. At present they seem "dateless," but I should fancy that further search, and the instructions which Dobbs has given, will furnish some clue to the important point. Was it from you that I learnt that the bit of green metal found turned out a part of a Roman fibula, or something of the sort? If so, we have bodies interred in a fashion (crouching) characteristic of British or Celtic burial, yet in a Roman age. This would confirm my belief that our so-called British cairns, etc., date really during the period of Roman connection with, or rule over, England, i.e. either from the first or second conquest to the close of their empire in Britain. My fluctuating health has taken a good turn, when all else are waxing pale and withery under the Tartarian heat. I will improve steadily till you appear. - Believe me, my dear Dax, yours most sincerely, J. R. GREEN.

[} [\To W. Boyd Dawkins\] }] June 26, 1861. MY DEAR DAX - Your curator plan seems a very excellent one. Perhaps I am prejudiced in its favour by the hope of having you so near me. But we can talk more about it when we meet. I shall be very happy to "receive" you, and if you will tell me the date of your arrival will procure you a bed either here or in the vicinity. You have no doubt seen in the papers an account of ye great fire across the Thames. But no account that I have seen at all realises its horror. On the Saturday night I was at Dr. Stanley's in Belgrave Square. We heard rumours of a great fire near London Bridge, and saw the clouds above breaking up into fiery islets, with gaps of bright blue sky between them. Leaving Stanley's at eleven, Coxhead and I cabbed away to London Bridge. Great streams of people were pouring down Cheapside, and as we turned into King William Street the great dome of St. Paul's towered all bright with the reflected blaze above us, and the top of the monument shone out against the dark smoke-clouds that went whirling by. The long file of carriages moved step by step onwards, and brought us at last to the bridge, thronged with a wild excited mob. I shall never forget the sight that broke on my eyes. On the north side lay the custom-house, etc., its rows of lamps looking pale and ghastly in the glare, and behind the long rows of buildings stretched away etched out by the vivid light of the conflagration. Beneath rolled on the river, of a dark slate colour, dotted with thousands of boats, each with its reverse side undistinguishable from the dark stream, while the side fronting the flames reflected a bright white light. On the southern side of the Thames a great band of melted oils and fats went slowly floating down, burning with an intense white glare around the carcases of boats and filth up to the edge

of the wharves. From that edge, over a space of five or six acres, lay a vast hell of fire. No other word would describe it. Dark volumes of heavy smoke dipped down and surged upwards over the sea of red lurid flame, through which ran lines of vivid white light that marked the ranges of burning warehouses. And on the outskirts of this awful scene lay a thick belt of smoke, parted here and there by fresh swirls of flame that leapt ever onward to some new prey; on to a fresh range of great stores on the one side; on the other, to the old church of St. Olave, whose clock struck midnight quietly as of old in the midst of the "thud-thud" of the engines, the songs of the firemen, the excited shout and hum of the vast crowd on the bridge. And over all brooded a night still, calm, breezeless. Men watched in agony the slightest jet of wind that came up the river, for there was not one who did not know that if the wind freshened all Bermondsey was doomed. But the lull continued, as though the angel of destruction withheld his hand from this crowning chastisement. An interruption here reminds me that I have said enough about the fire. A word about our book. There is a copy of the Somerset Arch‘ol. Soc. Trans. in the British Museum library. They are absolutely necessary for me. Is Huxtable a member, or any one else, who could lend them? Tax your memory. I have finished Glastonbury, and shall now begin my work in order, working in the materials I have gathered as I go on. I sketched the opening last night. I found the references at the bottom of the opening page would be to Deuteronomy, Michelet's France, the Iliad - a collection worthy of my omni-gatherum reading. - Believe me, dear Dax, yours very sincerely, J. R. GREEN. [} [\To W. Boyd Dawkins\] }] KING'S SQUARE, August 23, 1861. MY DEAR DAX - Many thanks for your letter - improved like wine by keeping. The best "point" in

your notes was the dip into the cloud and the rise out of it. With your keen eye for scenery and the detail of a landscape you will by reading, especially by reading poetry, obtain in time that power of grouping and classifying which makes just the difference between a picture and a catalogue. Let me hear a little in your next about your geology, your success in quarries, any new ideas which have started up in your mind. My own, braced by the fresh air I too soon relinquished, is brimming over with theories and "broad philosophic views" to use M.'s scoffing phrase. I have been working very hard at the Early Irish Church History - an operation very like travelling through a jungle, but still I think likely to work up into my Opus satisfactorily. At present I am eager about getting my poor school children a breath of fresh air; I mean organising a trip to Epping Forest for them. œ s. d. is the difficulty, as subscriptions have been very rife among us lately here, and our good people are tired. I am now trying the bad ones - but I want you to help me with half-a-crown (send it in stamps), which will enable us to give five poor white-cheeked little wretches a day of great enjoyment - I am sure you will not refuse. It will be a thank-offering for the fine weather. I have just had two charming letters, one from Trevor Owen who has deferred his M.A. till next term in order that he may take it with me, which delights me; another from my brother. The clock is striking - I will send a second sheet to-morrow. - Yours sincerely, J. R. GREEN. [} [\To W. Boyd Dawkins\] }] KING'S SQUARE, September 16, 1861.

MY DEAR DAX - Whether you are in debt to me or I to you I can't remember. Whichever is the case, our silence has lasted so long that I think it comes under the statute of limitations, and the creditor is debarred even from a right to complain. In your last you kindly offered 2s. 6d. towards our fˆte. I found myself in a fearful financial hobble - but my good genius came to my rescue, brought me œ1 from the Miss Boyds, rolled 40 tizzies out of Macphail's pockets, extracted 30 bob from D. Castle at Bristol, and landed me on the shore of solvency. The day was a most delightful one, Epping a real Forest. I shocked two prim maiden teachers by starting kiss-in-the-ring; I astonished the Scripture-reader - a really energetic fellow - by my energy and decision. ("He didn't think Mr. Green had so much in him!") I returned in triumph with only one child in a ditch, and the applause of the parochial mothers, while the children extemporised a chorus on their return passage: - We've had a happy day - ay - ay - We've had a happy day - ay - ay And for it we're indebted (ter) To Mr. Green (with sublime energy). The British Association seemed to me a lame affair this year, but the opening address by Murchison (so far as I could understand it) was very interesting. The discovery of the marine formation of coal was quite new to me, and solved many questions which had of old suggested themselves. Surely his Scottish investigations go far to confirm the theories of Lyell as to the metamorphic nature of the lower rocks. But my geology is rapidly drifting away from me - and yet what a glorious science it is - while I plunge deeper into historical research. My ecclesiastical studies have plunged me into that Irish Bog called the Legends of Patrick, and when I shall emerge I know not. I want

very much to write to Dobbs on the subject, but it is in vain I implore you to communicate his direction. Do! I am rather breaking up again, in spite of cold water and early rising, and what is more trouble, my hair is coming off in double-quick time. I shall soon be bald and be-wigged - well you are such a gorilla. Apropos of which the Athen‘um has turned round, and is calling on Du Chaillu derisively to produce his letters from the Gaboon, which must have arrived by this time but have never shown up. A more serious grief to me has been the severe illness of Mrs. Ward, who, on our return from our children's fˆte, was attacked with a severe internal seizure, whose nature the doctors can hardly tell, but which was of a most agonising character. She is now happily recovering, but is terribly weak and pale. I know you laugh at my enthusiasm about her; but it is something for me, too, to have one who loves me for my own sake, not as some do, for my head, and who gives me, what I have never known - a home. It was this - not a wife - that - as you know - I used to long for of old, and this God has given me here. He has given me something more - an Ideal of Christian Womanhood - which hushes and awes my own sceptical brain into a silent reverence and love. I am looking about for a school for my sister - and should be glad for you to make some inquiries (mind near London) - then send me the directions of, or introductions to, some authorities (\in re\) Somersetshire. Then let me have those Transactions of the Somerset Arch‘ological from your friend. - Believe me, sincerely yours, J. R. GREEN. [} [\To W. Boyd Dawkins\] }] KING'S SQUARE, 1861. This starts a day later than I had intended, my dear Dax, for yesterday found me too tired with sick visits and the like (fevers being very plentiful just now), that

I feared to inflict my tedium on you and deferred writing till to-day. With but little advantage, for to-day finds me spent with a good morning's grind at the British Museum over "Roman Bath," and I fear I shall be as tedious as ever. I have finished Patrick, and flung my Ch. Hist. work to the dogs, and taken my final plunge into Somerset. I find the Celtic part to be as I conjectured [\(illegible)\] if there be such a word, without date I mean. A tumulus may be a century older than C‘sar, or have been thrown up by Cassibelan, or be coeval with Constantine; some tumuli are indisputably Roman, not merely erected during the Roman occupation by the Romano-Britons, but by the Romans themselves! This question in fact is in the sceptical stage, a stage very useful to it, but precluding all historical treatment. Roman Somerset, on the contrary, I think I can treat in great detail and minuteness. Their towns, their country houses, their farms, their roads, camps, mines, all have left pretty traceable marks of themselves, though of the latter, except the tools I have heard of as being found in the workings at Mendip, I can find little mention. I should be glad if you would make inquiries on this point. Ilchester, of which you give so Hudibrastic an account, is a famous Roman station; don't forget always to inquire after old charters, deeds, etc. I want, too, the direction of that card at Axbridge, get it from Williamson, when you are with him. Apropos of W., I am glad to hear of your resumption of the cave-business. Let me hear of your success (\in re ossiƒ\). When are we to become members of the Somerset Arch‘ological Association? It will be needful for the Opus, - will it not? And what sort of a reception does your mention of it meet in the country? I should have been glad, unscientific as I am, to have heard a little more of your Triassic reformations. It would be good practice for you to have to bend your pen down to my level, even if it were a little tiresome. My own life is so monotonous as to furnish scarcely

anything for a letter. I had, however, a funny visit the other day. There was one fellow - a big chap at school - against whom I cherished an undying hate. Common injustice on M.'s part threw us a little together, when his father's death threw him literally without a penny on the world. He disappeared in Devonshire; I heard of him last as an usher, and my heart being touched I wrote to him, but my letters remained unanswered. The other day he hunted me up in my rooms, bearded, bronzed. He had been usher here, there, everywhere - he had lived upon twopence a day - he had taught himself mathematics - he had paid scores of old debts - he was now mad with tic from want of good food, and yet stood before me with a coat far better than mine, and a certain prospect of œ300 a year! The fact was that in extremity of want he heard of a great railway contractor to whom he could get an introduction, - went to him and was told he could have a small place at home at once, - "but if you knew surveying I could give you employment on a South American line of a better sort," - hurried back to his friend, who happened to be Captain Drayson, Head of the Surveying Department at Woolwich, with whom he was then staying, learnt Survey in a week, and has won his post of œ300 a year! Well he deserves to be a millionaire. I was struck with the great good which hardship had done him, and wondered whether, if want had ever looked me so hard in the face, I should be the weak, easily-shut-up-able creature I am now. And yet I fag pretty well - some seven or eight hours (\per diem\), and my brain was never more vigorous. I am in dread of being left alone, as both the incumbent and Mrs. W. leave for the seaside in a week or so. This to me is a horrible expectation, and I expect great dumps, so that your visit in passing through would be a great piece of charity. Let me hear soon from you in spite of my dilatoriness. - Believe me, sincerely yours, J. R. GREEN.

[} [\To W. Boyd Dawkins\] }] KING'S SQUARE, October 18, 1861. The readiest way of bringing me to Oxford, my dear Dax, would be to ascertain for me these particulars. 1st. Am I of sufficient standing to take my M.A.? (This learn from Gilby or some authority. I don't know even the date of my matriculation.) 2nd. If so, - what does the degree cost? - what is requisite? - and what are the degree days? If you let me know these items at once we will hold the first meeting of the New Somerset Historical and Geological Association at Oxford in a very short time. "The meeting was well attended. We were happy to see the Rev. J. R. Green, and A. E. Dobbs, Esq. on the platform. The chair was taken by the celebrated geologist, W. Boyd Dawkins, who, after an inaugural lecture on mud, called on the Rev. J. R. Green to read his paper 'On Roman spoons and on the mode in use at that period of locking them up.' Mr. Dobbs, after contesting the position of the Rev. Gentleman, and eloquently proving that no specimen of a Roman plate basket had ever been discovered, exhibited a fragment of a Roman or Saxon teapot, the spout and body of which were lost. This interesting relic was last exhibited at the 'Handle Festival.' Mr. Dobbs then read a brief paper on the phrase 'Does your mother know you are out?' which he attributed to Deborah, in a copy of whose song, preserved in the library of T. C., Dublin, it is found as a last triumphant taunt over the unfortunate Sisera. Our reporter was here unfortunately overpowered by sleep, but has been courteously informed by the chairman that after a vote of thanks to Messrs. Dobbs and Green, moved and seconded by the chairman, and a vote of thanks to the chairman, moved by Mr. Green and seconded by Mr. Dobbs, the meeting ended." But what have I to do (I, a John Baptist, - christening East End babies in the desert of St. Luke's) with those that

dwell in king's houses, St. Audrie, - Brighton, etc. What friendship with them who take down the Court Guide to ascertain their friends' directions? I am much more at ease among snobs. To find "the centre of a large circle" at Brighton or elsewhere has an odour of Euclid Bk. III. about it, which is eminently disagreeable to the unmathematical. I can't "cultivate" centres (though my Incumbent complains of my tendency to cultivate Dissenters). Seriously, however, my dear Dax, I rejoiced much over your triumphs. They roll on grandly like those Homeric beggars of whom Diomed kills a dozen in a line. I shall tie my cockleboat to the big ship Dawkins A1, and let it tow me into harbour. Throw us a rope, old card, it won't hinder you much, you know. You see my spirits have returned, spite of my Incumbent's absence, and the presence of a sore throat. In fact an adorer hinted that the great "hindrance to my ministerial success" was my tendency to laugh. Still it is awfully dull, the "idea" being away, and my head having been too ill the greater part of this week to read. Left alone as I am I have little leisure for work, but I hope to bring you down the Introduction, Early Belgic, and Roman periods of our Opus. I suppose all you have to do now is to throw the stores you have collected into shape, a task more tedious than it seems. Did you ascertain from W. the name of that publisher at Bath who sent him that offer, or of that Axbridge Quaker? I suppose you know all about B.'s disappointment - his success in obtaining an appointment and subsequent rejection by the medical referees. It is a great blow to him, and he seems thoroughly thrown on his beam-ends. I have advised him to seek your counsel if up at Oxford. He is, I still think, a very different fellow from the Welsh ruck of Jesus, and perhaps this may be a turning-point in his life. He seems to have a tendency towards Geology - perhaps he would read with you for the Phys. Science School, if he has time

enough, for Classics are out of the question. - Believe me, my dear Dax, yours very sincerely, J. R. GREEN. [} [\To W. Boyd Dawkins\] }] November 28, 1861. MY DEAR DAX - Good news and bad news, worried and pleased, I want to have a chat with you. Last - a she-worry, our lady organist here, has been making me "a monster unto many," by twisting my jokes into earnest, till people believe my earnest a joke. I was awfully riled for five minutes, fancying it very awful to be thought a hypocrite; but that fancy is wearing off, and I find the imputation not nearly as uncomfortable to bear as might be expected. The only wonder to me is how the "good people" live. To have to rise at 8, and not lie down till 10, and walk about all day with a terror about the slightest crack in your spotless reputation - your ears tingling with a prevision of the howl that would greet your fall, the sighs and groans and lamentations of the other "good people" who must have a fling at you to show that they are in no danger of a similar lapse, this beats Blondin. Whereas I walk whistling along, secure in having no character to lose, and conscious that if I were to pick a pocket people would only say drily, "Just what we expected," and "Pass by on the other side." And now, sick of "I," and jumping over "O" one comes to "U." How are U? U found your journey a success, and came back with the two preceding vowels Triumphe, did you? Accept my congratulations I have paid your Pastoral Aid subscription of œ1:1:0 ("no gentleman subscribes a pound") to our treasurer, in order to have a distinct motive for heartily wishing to see you in Town. The move succeeded, and I have a strong desire to look upon your face again.

Write at once, and let me know whether D. is through. If those examiners knew him, I would defy them to pluck him. He would just say, "How d'ye do?" in his own way, and Testamurs by scores would flutter out of their pockets, sign themselves, and flutter off into his. D.'s "How do you do?" is a speech in itself. It gives you a general impression that men are not half as bad as you thought them, apologises for unanswered letters, assures you of the warmest friendship, and sets your mind at rest on every topic which has of old made it anxious. I suppose it is this last property of it which makes it as sovereign against scepticism, as it is against indigestion and blue devils, Strauss and Frank Newman, and Essays and Reviews vanish away. And I believe that the secret of D.'s great orthodoxy is this, that whenever a doubt crosses his mind he just says to himself, "How do you do, my dear D., how do you do?" and in an instant becomes as sound as the Thirty-nine Articles. - Write at once, J. R. GREEN. [} [\To W. Boyd Dawkins\] }] January 6, 1862. Were you aware, my dear Dax, that the Somerset Arch. Soc. (I copy from their report 1852) possesses "an important unpublished work by the late Mr. Williams, on the Geology of Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall? It is a work of great research, and contains new views of the order of strata in the western counties. The manuscript book is accompanied by Mr. W.'s field map of the counties, geologically coloured, and large and extensive diagrams of the district in various directions." Mr. W.'s theories may be as valuable, say as Mr. Dawkins's, but his details, I should think, might bear gleaning. Now we are on the topic of our book I have a little to tell, if I have not told it before, of my interview with Stanley. I explained

our plan as a whole - the new connection established by recent discovery between the two sciences, - gave him as good an idea as I could of the way you meant to treat your division, and spoke at large of my own. He cordially approved the latter, professing himself utterly at sea in the former, but was full of encouragement, and offers of "recommendation." We had better apply to a publisher at once, he said, before our subscription list, stating what our expectations from the latter would be. He approved of our plan of obtaining "introductions," suggested Phillips for yours, and offered me his own. On the whole as Parker is interested in the county, he recommended me to apply to him. All this promises a good voyage to our little book, and I think we may as well apply at the beginning of next term, when Stanley and Phillips can speak personally for us. I remove on Saturday to my rooms at 30 Haverstock Street, City Road, our lay assistant's house. There I am as sure of cleanliness as I am here of dirt. When shall I see you there? An ovation waits you in King's Square, where the last doll has received the name of "William" in your honour. They are wonderfully touched with your thoughtful kindliness. I being accustomed to it was so little affected that I was unanimously voted hard-hearted. Meanwhile, a little tact is doing its work. My old project, so long held in check, of the formation of a choir, suddenly finds favour in the sight of all. My Incumbent is ready with the salary of a choir-instructor; one friend is off to Exeter Hall, to engage men for basses and tenors; another is hot upon practising the boys steadily for a hour a week [^a: SIC EDN^]. I expect a few breakdowns, but we shall in the end get a choir; and I shall inscribe on my shield, when I take to wearing one, old Charles V.'s motto, "Time and I against any three" (mem. the three not to be Daxes, I am so awfully afraid of (\hoc genus\)). - Believe me, most affectionately yours, J. R. GREEN.

[} [\To W. Boyd Dawkins\] }] CITY ROAD, January 15, 1862. You will see, my dear Dax, that I have changed my lodgings, and in the horrors attendant upon the change a reason why I have not answered previously the letter of yours which crossed my last. However, I am comfortably settled here now, and impatient to see you in my new rooms. You are due here, are you not, for your paper before the Geol. Soc. about the end of the month? Pray introduce me to Macmillan when you arrive, if such a thing be possible. You never made a better hit. Among the Stanley and Kingsley set Macmillan is the "pet publisher" of the day. Of all this, however, more when we meet. I had this morning a letter from Trevor Owen - he is the busiest of curates - apparently very happy and busied in his parish. Dick tells me (from good sources) that Ch. is becoming an Oxford Simeon; has eighty men at prayer-meetings, is going to re-pew his church for their accommodation, build new schools, etc., etc. God speed him! There may be higher and nobler creeds than his, but there never was a truer, more earnest-minded labourer among the [^GREEK CHARS.^] Perhaps this narrow type of Evangelicalism has its use, sweeps the narrower, more limited minds into Christ's net, gathers up "the crumbs that remain that nothing be lost." God is a great Economist. I have been immensely struck, in going over the "Som. Arc. Ass.," to find how all their attention has been concentrated on a few periods; on the British (so-called) and Medi‘val times. Roman Somerset attracts very little attention, Saxon ditto none; there is not a paper on the Norman period, nor on the Reformation, only one on the Great Rebellion time, none on the Monmouth rebellion, or thence to our own day. I think - if I do nothing else - I shall direct the attention of our Somerset friends to new diggings. So far as I have gone I am at no loss

for materials. I have a question or two for you to solve if you visit the Taunton Museum. There are some birds' bones found at Worle Camp, with those of (\Bos longifrons\), etc., British pickings of disputed age; I fancy bones of domestic fowls, which, if so, would throw great light on date of such remains. I don't doubt you could bring Osteology to bear on this question - it would be a very novel application. Come and enjoy your repute at the Parsonage. My nose is sadly dislocated there, and I am every day tempted to buy an advowson, and present it to my Incumbent, to eclipse your generosity! The next living which falls in your way - pray, think of me. - Your affect. friend, J. R. GREEN. [} [\To W. Boyd Dawkins\] }] THE PARSONAGE, KING'S SQUARE, July 24, 1862. MY DEAR DAX - I have been hoping to hear from you day after day the event of your candidature at Southampton, which I am afraid by your silence has been unsuccessful. With such testimonials, however, as yours, ill-success cannot continue long, and in the meantime you can safely commit your way to the Wisdom which ordereth our going, and "maketh our way acceptable" to Itself. It is very hard, however, to feel this - harder than to write it - this perfect submission to the Will of God. You know to what I allude, but you cannot know how day after day but renews the sense of loss, and seems to leave me but the more desolate than before. I am sure of your sympathy, dear Dax, do not let me be less sure of your prayers. You ask in what way the aid you so frankly offer can be afforded. I did not point to any particular mode; you might hear of some presentation to a school

for one boy, or of an exhibition for another, or of some office in the city for another; if such things chanced to come before you I feel sure you would remember these motherless children. It is a great comfort to me to be able to do some little towards comforting them. My poor Incumbent does not rally - rather seems to yield to depression more every day. This is a chill, dull letter, and yet it is a pleasure to write it and know that dull as it is you will be glad to have it. W. blamed me for refusing any legacy from my Aunt. "What if you were ill and your means failed?" he asked. "Then I should write to Dax." - Good-bye, friend, loyal and true, J. R. GREEN. [} [\To W. Boyd Dawkins\] }] KING'S SQUARE, July 25, 1862. I write merely a few hurried words, my dear Dax, to congratulate you on your accession to Jermyn Street, announced in to-day's Times. Whatever comes your life-work is now fully begun. You, I know, will not waste precious years as I have done; with you life and its work is a sacred thing - the Gift of God. Let me know what you are doing and thinking, it is long since I have heard from you. I am at present sleeping up at Highgate, where the air is giving me tone and vigour; not that I am not in admirable health, but depression has its usual results. I shudder to think in what a depth of worldiness this great sorrow found and struck me. It is so easy to talk of Eternity, and so hard to live out of Time. Yet this - if any - is the lesson of Death to souls that must be Eternal. The blow has humbled - if it has crushed me - and I look on these, her little ones, coming so near to God in the simplicity and affectionateness of their piety, while I stand so far off in the coldness and lifelessness of mine, and understand the Lord "Except ye

be as little children ye cannot see the Kingdom of God." God bless you in all things, dear Dax, and keep you, true friend to yours, J. R. GREEN.

[} [\To W. Boyd Dawkins\] }] KING'S SQUARE, September 1, 1862. I cannot help smiling, my dear Dax, at the contrast between the life sketched in your letter and the life I shall have to describe in mine. You - reading, geologising, slanging Browne, writing papers, organising a Natural History Society, sketching curates, finding a bone-cave in the sermon, off to the British Association, - I petting little Margie on the sofa, and preferring a chat with her to writing my crack article for the Saturday. "Do you know, Mr. Green, why mamma has gone to Heaven? Jesus wanted her!" I wonder how much deeper the Saturday could have gone than this little philosopher of four. She is very puzzled about the question of recognition. "Mamma is an angel now. How shall I know her when I go to Heaven? Oh, I know, she will come and tell me she is my own mamma. Shall you go to Heaven, Mr. Green? oh yes, you will come with us, and we shall all be together again." Do you ever feel humbled and guilty before a child? I thought, and think still of her, "Shall you go to Heaven?" and know not what to say. I daresay it is very unphilosophical, very "contrary to sound doctrine," but Heaven is far dearer to me now one I love is there. And yet I cannot say, with my little one, "Oh yes." Impressions that seemed so deep flit away so fast, and Eternity that revealed itself across the grave shrouds itself again, and Heaven that seemed so near recedes farther and farther away. Oh, if I love

Heaven I love all; even the affections that chain most men to earth are there to draw me thither. Pray for me, Dax, as I for you, that we may answer this child's question with her "Oh yes." It is a little additional bond between us that you like Elia. Lamb's humour has a delicate and evanescent flavour that can only be described by his own words in describing the flavour of "Roast Pig." Of course you have read that incomparable essay. I knew a Goth once who wrote on the margin of his copy (he lent it to my sister Addie, who showed it me), "I don't believe a word of it." I longed for dear Charles Lamb to rise again and enjoy the joke. Pray pursue your investigations (\de castris rotundis\). In spite of Warre's explanations they strike at the root of his theories. He believes "round camp" to = Belgic; the Belg‘ being an invading people from (prob.) Northern Gaul, and this being "their type." Now if the round form be, in a majority of cases, determined by local considerations, it is impossible to draw any radical distinction between these and other camps. They may have been works of the same people under different circumstances. And "may have been" is all he alleges for his own theory. As to the date of "hut circles," it is, I think, a far more difficult question than arch‘ologists generally suppose. Remembering the swarms of outlaw bands, at various times of our history, and the degraded condition of the peasantry till quite a late epoch, it requires, I think, some boldness to date them before the invasion of Claudius. However, this is "treason," and for your own ear alone. . . . - Good-bye, dear Dax, affectionately yours, J. R. GREEN. [} [^TO W. BOYD DAWKINS^] }] KING'S SQUARE, September 6, 1862. Your "quiet Sunday" project, dear Dax, has given quite a spur to my never very slumbering desire to see

and chat with you. I have no friends - dogs, horses cats, or mice - and I can but trust that "gubs" are as rare as vipers. B.'s paper is "rot," and I have told him so in plain words. His choosing such a subject is a piece of great conceit. Why can't he paddle till he has learnt to swim. However, though a little plain and honest, my note is, I am sure, kind, and will really be of use to him if he will take the advice I give. I, however, send you first the note that you may see it. L.'s letter is a contrast to its fellow. I shall be glad to see his papers. Have you written to D.? (I ask because I did in very diplomatic style), and will you try H.? What is this about raising the price to 2s. 6d.? Who in his senses would give half-a-crown for it? I hope next Monday, when the British Museum opens, to set to and complete my paper for the Druid; and in the course of next week I shall send those papers for the Saturday to Freeman. Will "Somerleaze, near Glastonbury," find him? Write and tell me. I think it very likely I shall have a little book out in about twelve months. - Affectionately yours, J. R. GREEN. [} [\To W. Boyd Dawkins\] }] KING'S SQUARE, September 11, 1862. I trouble you with another note, my dear Dawkins, partly to remind you of your promised visit on Sunday, a pleasure which no excuse will prevail on me to forego; partly to tell you that B. is in a state of hopeful penitence, apologises for his paper, and promises amendment; but more to explain to you the leading features of a new design which I should wish you to think over, and give me your opinion of when you arrive. You know, perhaps, that my earliest project in the department of history was that which Dean Hook has since carried out - a series of lives of the "Archbishops of Canterbury." The greatness of many of the prelates

struck so vividly on my imagination that it was not till I came to closer quarters with the subject that I perceived, what only the progress of the work has revealed to the Dean, the insignificance of others, and the impossibility of stringing the history of the Church upon so varied a collection of individuals. I left Oxford, therefore, with the full purpose of becoming the historian of the Church of England. Few, I felt, were more fitted, by the historical tendency, the predominant feeling of reverence, the moderation, even the want of logic or enthusiasm in their minds, for the task of describing a Church founded in the past, yet capable of wondrous adaptation to the needs of the present, the creature of repeated compromises, essentially sober yet essentially illogical. The prospect widened as I read and thought. On the one hand, I could not fetter down the word "Church" to any particular branch of the Christian communion in England; after the Reformation, therefore, all historical unity would have been gone, though, throughout the hubbub of warring sects, an ideal unity might still have been sought and found. On the other, I could not describe the Church from the purely external and formal point of view taken by the general class of ecclesiastical historian; its history was, with me, the narrative of Christian civilisation. And to arrive at a knowledge of this, it was necessary to know thoroughly the civil history of the periods which I passed through; to investigate the progress of thought, of religion, of liberty, even the material progress of England. No existing history helped me; rather, I have been struck with the utter blindness of all and every one to the real subjects which they profess to treat - the national growth and development of our country. I should then have had to discover the History of England, only after my investigations to throw them aside and confine myself to a narrower subject - a subject too whose treatment after the seventeenth century becomes (artistically) impossible and unhistorical.

I tell you all this in so great detail because I fear a charge of vacillation in announcing my purpose of undertaking the "History of England." You will see how there is no vacillation in the matter, but a deliberate development and growth. I won't trouble you with my ideas as to the History or its treatment. But if you were to change its title into that of "A History of the Developement of Christian Civilization in England," you would not do it much wrong. Good-bye, if this seems too like an essay, congratulate yourself on being spared an essay in conversation, a talked essay instead of a written one. I am deliberating whether to preach next Sunday, but your dread of "curates" and their sermons may perhaps induce me to spare you. - Good-bye, affectionately yours, J. R. GREEN.

[} [\To W. Boyd Dawkins\] }] KING'S SQUARE, September 24, 1862. I don't doubt, my dear Dax, that you have saluted me by many not very complimentary epithets for my long silence. Perhaps my diary would be my best excuse. Hughes's marriage, my brother's visit, sermon writing, and miscellanea occupied from Thursday till Sunday. On Sunday night, on my return from church, it was discovered that the house had been broken into, my cashbox broken open, and œ10 abstracted. With the money went, what I valued far more, my letters to and from the dear friend who is gone. As securities for much larger sums than œ10 went with it I had to waste Monday in providing against further depredations at the bank, and when Tuesday came I found the day was promised and vowed to my brother and sister, and spent it with them at the Exhibition. When I returned a dirty packet awaited me, - the thief, after examining the letters, had sent them back! Conceive my delight, first at the recovery of what I prized so much, secondly at the revelation of the fellow's own heart. Of course X knows he had a motive. It is quite marvellous how cunning he is in "motives." The curious thing is that he can only discover bad motives for every good act, and does not reverse the matter and discover good ones for every evil act. It is clear that if there is a high probability for an evil motive having prompted the restoration of my letters, there is an equally high probability of a good motive having prompted their abstraction. But then there is the keen delight of sneering at sentiment, honour and high feeling having been rechristened by gentlemen of the "motive" school. Well, he is welcome to his enjoyment. Your Somerset house payments I will now attend to. On Monday I was left with 1s. 6d. in my pockets, and could plead "no assets." As to Durham, unless I

greatly mistake, all that has as yet appeared in the report of the commissioners appointed to inquire into the state of the university, advises a total reconstruction in the secular system. Whatever one's own wishes might be, there is not the slightest probability of the scheme as they propose it eventually passing. It stands over at any rate till Parliament meets. I doubt ((\pardonnez moi\)) your assertion about there being no book on the general geology and geography of England. Remember that a rather popular and not a highly scientific book is what I want. I am not going to write a scientific treatise, but a geographical preface. Is there not a book by Macculloch? Ask your co-adjutor Avelyn. Then, too, could you lend me your small geological map? i.e. if you don't want it at all. I am really rather bothered about this, as I want to commence at once. After a chapter on the Geology and Geography of England, its bearing on the industry, character, and history of ye people, I proceed to a second on "Prehistoric Britain," from tumuli, skulls, Davis and Thurnam's Crania Britannica, etc. Now, this is a subject of yours, on which you probably have some valuable papers. Pray communicate all the data you have to me, your own researches included. Do not mind overloading me with references to books and papers, that is what I want. My third chapter will embrace from C‘sar to Agricola. My fourth an exhaustive sketch of Roman Britain from the second to the fourth century. My fifth (the most difficult in the book) on the fall of the Roman Empire in Britain, the rise of independent kingdoms and states, and the early conquests of the Saxons. . . . Good-bye, - a shoppy letter you will say; I hope you are happy and well, as so good a fellow ought to be, though I feel disgusted at your knavery (\in re\) the "Nat. Hist. depart. of the Som. Arch. Ass." as you facetiously term it. - Good-bye, affectionately yours, J. R. GREEN.

[} [\To W. Boyd Dawkins\] }] KING'S SQUARE, October 16, 1862. Whatever comes to you never let go your ideal. I think it is a great thing and one that "lifts one up for ever," to have laboured with singleness of mind for knowledge. If I could advance History, if you could advance Science by a single fact (it is a [\(illegible)\] and can never die), I am sure we could both willingly lose all thought of ourselves, and be content to remain obscure, and it may be poor. But knowledge is great riches. And to live face to face with the revolutions of nature or of man is to be wealthy indeed. I am working well at my history, and if I could photograph the thoughts of my brain, you would see the greater part of the two first chapters. But in setting on paper I cannot help being very slow. I see at every sentence some new and better plan of arrangement, some necessity for doubting an old and accepted fact, - or of bringing in a wholly new series of topics, - that here, as in life, (\diversa sunt impedimenta\); it is the very wealth of materials which hinders my progress. However, I begin with the great empire of the Celt over Ireland and Britain and Gaul and Italy and Spain, - then it is broken up by the invasion of the Bolg, pulsing on the shores of Britain, - by the growth of Druidism, - by the increase of wealth and civilisation, - by the arms of Rome. Then C‘sar strikes it down, - but it lives still in Britain and Ireland, and even Agricola when his campaign completes its reduction in the first leaves it still free in the second. Will it not revolutionise our history, to strive from the Irish traditions and poems to recreate

those ages of which nothing is known, to see the Bolg coming in primeval time from the Rhine to the Liffey, the Forth, and the Thames? Even a failure will draw attention and arouse history to fill up the gap. If I can be nothing else I will be the forlorn hope and help to fill the ditch. - Good-bye, God bless you. J. R. GREEN. [} [\To W. Boyd Dawkins\] }] OXFORD, October 27, 1862. (\MON CHER AMI\) - The trouble of arranging details (a task especially uncongenial to me as you know), of seeing undertakers, registrars, and the "grim train of death" must be my apology for omitting to send you back or to notice your paper on Battle Church. I must say I think the preface the best part of it - that one long crow of triumph over folk "impudent as they are small, who know nothing of tracery or Parker's book thereupon" - a doo-de-doo-doodle-doo!! There is a fellow here, "impudent" it may be, but undoubtedly small, who wishes to know: 1. Whether the Arch‘ol. Society of Sussex, being one of the best in England, has not embalmed the Church in some number of its Transactions? 2. What authority for "pointed arches immediately after the landing of William"? Parker's book on "(\Dawkinsius ille\)?" 3. Concerning that "Purbeck factory," why may not the "gang of workmen" have made the two fonts at their respective localities rather than at the isle of Purbeck? And is not the latter hypothesis a little more in accordance with modern notions than with ancient? Item concerning the "Pilaster factory." ((\Pace\) the small impudent man, it may be worth while to gather up facts relative to this last point. Its bearing on industrial progress in England is most important.)

4. In your concluding generalisation you say "Never was architecture and carving at a lower ebb in England than in the days of the Stewarts." These "days," comments "(\homunculus impudens\)," would range roughly over the whole of the seventeenth century, and include Wadham Chapel in the earlier period and Christchurch Hall staircase in the latter. Looking at these, at the Gothic reaction under James I. and Charles I., at the existence of Inigo Jones and Whitehall, and the rather obstinate fact of the architecture of the eighteenth coming directly after this abused architecture of the seventeenth, (\Homunculus\) wishes a little reconsideration of this point. I forward you with it (\fragmenta qu‘dam\) of a paper now in process of printing. I have left materials enough for a second. Pardon me for having scribbled your papers over with pencil marks; I rewrote the paper in the train and had no other writing materials. B. is in a state of Heavenly tranquillity and friendship, and has forgiven me for having made his paper Christian. I have prevented him from acting most foolishly in one matter since I have been here, - he abused me but adopted my unpalatable advice. Ah me! isn't there a Providence in the world which watches over Bs.? Good-bye, remember me very kindly to your mother and believe me yours ((\Minime atque impudentissime\)), J. R. GREEN. [} [\To W. Boyd Dawkins\] }] KING'S SQUARE, November 4, 1862. MY DEAR DAX - I re-inclose Falconer's letter, a very frank and honest one. I see no reason for

supposing Roberts aware of the intentions of the Council, and prefer the charitable theory. Most earnestly do I hope for your success - whatever be the fate of our housekeeping projects. I have more than myself to think of now, you know. My sister must, in a year's time, live with me, a fact which complicates matters. Yet I am desirous of a settlement of some sort. I see storms ahead. The rumours of Maurice's rejection of clerical preferment have set me thinking - thinking. There are clearly two errors to be avoided. 1. Remaining in a ministry without holding the prescribed doctrines of that ministry. 2. The opposite one of exaggerating one's own variance of opinion from the prescribed formularies. And there are two great principles to be kept in mind. 1. To remain in the ministry of the Church of England so long as by doing so one is helping to broaden its sphere of thought. 2. To quit it the moment continuance within it tends to narrow one's own. I get wretched as I think of it. At the worst indeed one does but become a layman of the Church of England. But this - this owning one's start a false one, owning the failure of one's theories, owning that one's teaching has not been fair to the Church - this beginning again is not all. I hope I look a little beyond myself. If the clergy are bound down and the laity unbound - if the Teacher may not seek the Truth, and the taught may, if the Church puts the Bible in the hand of one as a living spirit, in the hand of the other as a dead letter - what is to come of it? I love the Church of England. You who know what my historic plans were for it - know this well. But what is to become of such a monstrous system, such a Godless lie as this? If they would but let things alone! I see every day the light broadening. I see men like Ward letting in new light, admitting, unconsciously, limits to their old dogmatism. I could wait and hope, knowing (\Veritas prevalebit\). But Law must be called in to crystallise this embryonic mass. Law must hedge in Truth and

the Conscience. Essayists must be condemned. Jowett is, I hear, to be prosecuted, Maurice is going, - Colenso is to be, I know not what. I wait - but I think the end is at hand. "Who are the Gwythol?" "A tribe, individuals of which are scattered over England, one being found at Battle, Sussex. Hence our old word 'wittol' or blockhead, from their intellectual qualities." "Who are Gwyddel?" People whom Basil Jones knows something about - and whom I have learnt something about from Basil Jones. I go down to Oxford again on Friday. The holiday at Battle I still hope for, if I may be suffered to hope. Good-bye, J. R. GREEN. [} [\To W. Boyd Dawkins\] }] KING'S SQUARE, November 20, 1862. MY DEAR DAX - I fear I have been very neglectful of you of late. It sprang of my being "over careful" about myself. I begin at last to wish to "get on," not for my own sake, Heaven knows; indeed I am most happy and comfortable here. But, as you know, there are others of whom I think incessantly, and whom my promotion would enable me to do more for. While my thoughts were first fermenting came a quasi-offer from Ridgway - my old Tutor - just appointed to the Principalship of the Training College at Culham, of his Vice-Principalship, - œ200, rooms and grub, in all œ300. No position could have been less to my taste. Indeed, to leave London at all would be a sore trial, both in a literary sense and as parting me from my dear little ones here. However, I braced myself stoically up, and all but accepted it - when, (\voila\), a note from the Bishop's Chaplain, Freemantle - followed by an interview in which, as I understood him, he offered me the Curacy of Fulham, under the Bishop's nose, with a distinct promise of promotion if I did well. I consulted others, and all agreed it was a brilliant opening, so I definitely

declined the other, when this morning arrives a note from Freemantle telling me of another candidate with apparently quite as good a chance, if not better. This is Coxhead whom I think you met once here - very good fellow and very "heavy." I take it for granted that a combination of these qualities will succeed, and don't feel disposed at any rate to make any push for the place (pushing not being in my line), so I suppose the result will be I shall remain where I am - a result not at all disagreeable. Still, all this has broken in on the even tenour of my way, as you may suppose, and has been intensely disagreeable. If I don't get Fulham I shall remain here, doing far more than I have done as a curate, but definitely relinquishing all hope or outlook for clerical preferment, and throwing my future wholly on literature. . . . Next ((\quam proximo intervallo\)) to the pleasure of having you here is the pleasure of having A., who has entered at Lincoln's Inn, and is full of his new profession. Somebody said that Burke's conversation was equally entertaining whatever its subject, and so it is with A. He is charming alike in mortgages and revivals, and Petronius and Mathew of Westminster, and the first chapter of Genesis, and the date of the Civil Law, and Oxford scepticism, and the Indian Civil Service, and Pal‘ontology, and the Latin Grammar, and the Civil War in America (to mention about one-tenth of the topics ranged over in some three hours last night), in all "(\nil tetigit quod non ornavit\)." Of course he equally desires your settlement in town. - Believe me most affectionately yours, J. R. GREEN. [} [\To W. Boyd Dawkins\] }] KING'S SQUARE, November 25, 1862. MY DEAR DAX - The Fulham affair has, through a singular succession of mishaps, apparently blown

over, and I am driven to remain (hard fate!) with the little ones whom I love best on earth. Do you not pity me? Fulham turns out to be far more eligible than I had ventured to hope so that there is everything to vex me if I choose to be vext, but I don't. And so (\revenons au mouton\) of King's Square for a year or two more. An awful thing for a "genius" - is it not? You defined "genius" when here as a peculiar aptitude for a certain branch of study. Pardon me, that is Talent. Genius is a much higher thing: the power of bending circumstances to our will. In other words, it is something to have a special aptitude for Stones, like you, or Dates-cum-facts, like me; it is something more to be able to elicit greatness and fame out of a Surveyorship or a Curacy. Suppose we go in then for Genius, not Talent. I have no news, save news of the weather - for the last two or three days has made me a Bus-meteorologist in my frequent Fulham voyages in chase of this Will-o'-the-Wisp of a Cure. But as my observations are extremely unscientific, referring principally to the coldness of my fingers and blueness of my nose, I forbear to trouble you with them. My Incumbent's sermon in the evening, he tells me, was intended to supply simply the deficiencies of mine. Is it not charming to convert an Incumbent into an Editor, and his sermon into an Appendix? - I feel quite proud. - Yours affectionately, J. R. GREEN. [} [\To W. Boyd Dawkins\] }] KING'S SQUARE, December 9, 1862. Nothing, dear Dax, could better picture my languor and physical depression during the past week than the fact that I have left your most affectionate note without a reply. Simple as it was, it gave me great pleasure at a time when my thoughts were very gloomy and depressed. The clouds have cleared away now,

but much of the weakness continues; and hovering about is that with me infallible sign of something wrong, restlessness, and a craving to be out of this Babel of brick and mortar in some quiet little country parsonage. I can say however to all this "It cannot be." Babel must be my home for years, and one must put a brave heart on it as thousands have done before me. Indeed my present plans point rather to a settlement in Babel. I have some notion of getting up a "district" here, and becoming an Incumbent. More, however, of this when I see the matter a little clearer. And now of yourself. It was charming to hear that the storm had blown over, and your content and happiness come back again. Forgive so un-news-ey a letter, and heap coals of fire on my head in your next. In the meanwhile believe me. - Sincerely yours, J. R. GREEN. [} [\To W. Boyd Dawkins\] }] KING'S SQUARE, December 15, 1862. Many thanks, dear Dax, for your speedy remittance which I hasten to acknowledge, though hardly in spirits for a letter. I have just come from Guildhall, where I have been pleading for a boy who has just left our school with the best of characters, and within six months has robbed his employer. The magistrate was very considerate, and the boy appearing really to have been misled by a fellow-apprentice, dismissed him with a reprimand. There were a group of Pharisees at the door as we left the court, and their comments were pleasant to hear, "Lucky you escaped transportation, my boy!" "A few years ago you would have been hung for that, young sir," and the like. W. was with me, and his eyes filled with tears. "I was thinking," he said, "if it had been one of my boys standing there" - and then he paused, I never liked him more.

(\Ne nos inducas in Tentationem - sed libera nos a malo\) - how we all tremble on the verge of the great abyss, held back only by the Grace of God. (\Ne nos inducas - ne nos inducas!\) It is what I often think of when these dear little ones here come crowding into my arms, and their white little souls stand out in relief against mine. It is an awful thought that the hours as they pass will bring sin and shame to the little one who nestles to one's breast, and an awful mystery that that very sin and taint seems needful for the full development of man - that the penitent scarred with traces of past guilt is nobler and higher in the scale of humanity than the guileless child. What does it all mean? But I weary you, and cross perhaps that fresh pure pleasure you are just taking in the love of children. No, I have no "bookish ways" with children. Even now you would laugh to know the eagerness I feel for the love of the little ones here. "Christmas comes, the time of gladness," as the carol has it, - "gladness" indeed when it brings all the loved ones around me. They all come home this week or next. - Faithfully yours, J. R. GREEN. [} [\To W. Boyd Dawkins\] }] KING'S SQUARE, December 30, 1862. MY DEAR DAX - This will reach you as the old year is passing away, and bring my best wishes for the New. They are no formal wishes for you, dear friend, whom every year makes an older, but cannot make a warmer or a surer one. It is one of the items in my bill of gratitude to God which the year sends in as it passes away, that knowing my need of a friend He has given me one so loyal and true. I hope your Xmas has been as happy as mine. Some people in this overwrought age long for the simpler and less complex pleasures of a lower stage of human culture; for my own part I know of one simple

pleasure that no human advance can rob one of, the joy of little children. They laugh with me, romp with me, steal my watch, run away with my sixpences, absorb my time, tyrannise over all my old bachelor habits, bid me "put down my book," and it is put down; "talk," and I abandon my loved silences; "play," and I play; "take them out," and I turn sightseer for the first time in the 25th year of my life. And out of all this comes a happy, most happy Xmas. This year our schoolmaster, having High Church leanings, has taken the Christmas decorations in hand. I defy any one to see them and remain grave. The ivy buds all over with white roses which are either miraculous or of white paper. The parish is divided on the question; the orthodox like as usual the miraculous view; the Neologians shout "paper." The matter is likely to come before the court of Arches, when we shall at last know what we are to believe. Another lovely controversy has been raging here on the Quantity and Quality of the consumption effected at the Tea-Meeting or School Treat. Happily this has been satisfactorily settled. A little boy burst on his way home, and obliged us with a post-mortem. Two layers of cake; traces of watery action, supposed to have been produced by hot tea; a layer of bread and butter; two thick strata of seed-cake; traces of renewed aqueous disturbance; a thin dark line (opinions divided, Orthodox say "tea grounds," the Neologians "slate-pencil" nibbled while waiting for grub); alternations of seed and plum-cake surmounted by four tiers of bread and butter, and disturbed by the action of liquor. A superficial deposit of a saccharine nature is supposed to consist principally of "goodies" from the Xmas tree. Our schoolmaster was superb. He had had a quarrel with the Incumbent, and was in tragic spirits. "Now Mr. G.," shouts the curate, "will you start a little music for the children?" "I should infinitely prefer, sir, to lie down on the floor and die." "Hum,

but you know that wouldn't amuse the children half as much!" "Sir, my heart is broken." "No matter if your voice is not." (\Risu solvuntur irae atque maerores\), and the (\carmen\) began. Sad nonsense. Isn't it time for happy nonsense this merry Christmas? There are sad enough thoughts behind it. Thoughts of one who has found other peace than our "Peace on Earth." I wonder when that cloud will drift away. Perhaps only when all clouds drift away - in the New Heaven and New Earth. - Good-bye. God bless you. J. R. GREEN. [} [\To W. Boyd Dawkins\] }] Rev. N. T. HUGHES, LINBY, February 23, 1863. MY DEAR DAWKINS - My ride down here so utterly upset me that for two or three days I was in the depths of depression and physical weakness. And in order to meet this I had to dose myself with quinine and port wine, which effected their purpose but of course were the very worst things for my pleurisy, which is still therefore unsubdued. Still I trust much to the air, and I am able to get out, and hope this week will see the end of my ailment. I hope your own vanished in the air and leisure of Hailsham. The country round here was Sherwood forest, the scene of Robin Hood's exploits, and his cave and hut, both in the vicinity, bring them every day to one's memory. The oak stands at the entrance to Newstead, Byron's place, which is close by us. Beyond, on the low surge of hills that close the horizon, is the house of Mary Chaworth, his love. I amuse myself with parallels between Byron and Robin - the outlaws of ancient and modern days. H. is most kind, and as a nurse deserves a very high certificate. He has learnt a great deal these last few days in the mustard poultice line. His wife is in town,

and he mourns after her like a dove, or a husband five months old. But he is a right good fellow, and a seeker after Truth. ((\Pace\) the signer of Scientific Protests.) Direct here, though I may be soon in Town. - Faithfully yours, J. R. GREEN. [} [\To W. Boyd Dawkins\] }] HOXTON, March 24, 1863. [\[I omit the previous letter mentioned in the first sentence, criticising some opinions expressed by Prof. Dawkins.]\] MY DEAR DAX - I think if you read my last letter again, you will see something graver in it than the irony of its tone. Indeed if it be not grave and earnest I have nothing graver, nothing more earnest to say now. Pray read it again. I see no limit to this progress in "religion." It is on the very idea of progress that my faith, my deep and intense faith in Christianity, rests. Like you I see other religions - the faith of the heathen or the faith of the Jew - doing their part in the education of the human race. And I see the Race advancing beyond the faiths that instructed it, so that at each great advance of human thought a religion falls dead and vanishes away. And I judge that this must ever be a condition of human progress, except some religion appear which can move forward with the progress of man. There comes a religion which does this. Take your Gibbon and test what I say. The fresh sons of the Germanic forests break in upon (\effete\) Rome - and all perishes of Rome save this. Christianity assumes new forms and a new life, and moulds this chaos into the World of the Middle Ages. Think how different was the "need" of Augustine and the "need" of St. Louis - yet Christianity had wherewith to supply both. And then the Middle Ages vanish away, and the World of our day emerges from the Reformation, and Christianity takes new forms and infuses a new life into the new phase of humanity.

Think how various were the "needs" of St. Louis and Luther - yet Christianity could meet and satisfy both. And now human thought makes each hour advances such as it has never made before; and Christianity, spiritualised and purified by the wider demands made upon it, is ready to meet and satisfy them all. Oh, how this retrospect over eighteen centuries of revolution brings out these old, old words, "I see that all things come to an end, but Thy commandment is exceeding broad!" There are many sides to this thought which may serve to bring it closer home. Compare the religion which is theoretically next in rank to Christianity, the Moslem, and see how it utterly fails to meet the progress of man. Or, again, see the flexibility and adaptability of Christianity in the divisions of the Christian world, and ask what a life there must be in the faith that can satisfy and meet the wants of the Englishman, the Spaniard, and the Greek. Or, again, think what a capacity of advance there must be in a faith which is simple enough for the Sussex cottager and deep enough for problems such as the problems of to-day. I glance at thoughts, each big enough for an essay, that I may hurry on to that view of the progress which one may call the internal as opposed to the external view. Christianity is a religion of the Future. The Sermon on the Mount is a succession of "impossible precepts." They are all summed up in a precept still more impossible: "Be ye perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect." And so it must ever keep ahead of man. If there be any truth in our veriest instincts God must ever be beyond us, beyond our power, our knowledge, our virtue. And it is to that "beyond" that Christianity points - it is thither it bids man march. Hence life becomes, not the dead contented indolence of the Moslem, but a vivid activity. Think of St. Paul's images - the race, the fight - or of that nobler passage - the sum of Christian philosophy - where he pictures the growth "together" of the Christian Church, of the Christian world, "unto the measure

of the stature of the fulness of Christ" (see passage Eph. iv. 16). Yes, the Church, like its Head, groweth daily "in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and Man." Your "doubt," "difficulty," "mess" may ground you the firmer in the Truth that can thus meet and satisfy your doubts. And what if this progress which we see in the Future be visible in the Past? If Man seem but an outcome of the advance of the animal world, "a monkey with something non-monkey about him," what if Science confirms the Apostle's grand hint of the unity of the world about us with our spiritual selves, "the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in bondage," etc. If there are hints of a purpose to be wrought out in them as it has been wrought out in us? Well, it is a grand thought - little more as yet - but one which may widen for us our conception of the revelation in Christ - the revelation of God's love to His children. "Is he," said Paul of Abraham, "the Father of the Jew only, is he not also of the Gentile?" - and may it not be ours to say as the breadth of God's Fatherhood opens upon us, "Is He the Father of man only, is He not the 'All-fader'" as our old Teuton fathers called him, is He not the Father of the Brute also? Forgive this rough scribble, I am in the horrors of moving, and have no time to think. To-morrow or the next day (if any sediment of me remains) I will send you Mr. Phail's direction and the P.O.O. All is going on well here. I had an interview with the Bishop. He was very kind and confidential, which argues well for a certain young curate of my acquaintance. Congregation still progresses. - Faithfully and hurriedly yours, J. R. GREEN. [} [\To W. Boyd Dawkins\] }] HOXTON, March 28, 1863. MY DEAR DAX - Your letters, in their frequency and fulness alike, serve only as standing reproaches of mine.

I write so seldom and so briefly because I have so little to tell. The church here is filling, but my hopes of getting a curate are dashed to the ground, I fear, by the resolve of the Curate's Aid to make no new grants this year, in consequence of the great falling off in their funds. This is the more to be regretted as my chest is still so weak, and the pleuritic pain, which I hoped had fled for ever, recurs now and then with a rather uncomfortable pertinacity. Indeed, any great exertion, a walk to Kentish Town or Whitehall ensures me a return of it. I trust however much to the coming summer and the outing I must get then, - and yet I hardly know how. I am rather lonely, - rather dispirited, - and will not inflict further dulness on you. - Faithfully yours, J. R. GREEN. [} [\To W. Boyd Dawkins\] }] HOXTON, April 25, 1863. MY DEAR DAX - . . . All is going on very monotonously here. The parsonage slowly rises and promises to be as pretty as London smoke will suffer it. A. is learning the organ at Oxford and is already great in the pedals. My little Godchild is cutting her teeth without losing her temper, - or her health, a phenomenon in babyhood. She is making rapid progress towards the recognition stage and will soon know me. Managing this parish is like walking on a wall adorned with broken bottles. I am blandness itself, with occasional raps sharply put in for impertinent occiputs. They look astonished; but before they have made up their minds for a row I am bland and civil as ever. Convincing churchwardens of their real insignificance while remaining on "the best possible terms" with them is a process which varies the monotony of one's life with stray gleams of fun. The best fellow about here is a rough and ready "Tom Daubeny," a chemist, making heaps of tin, very busy, very blunt and a capital

backer. His shop is the Club of the neighbourhood, and he is equally useful at gathering or diffusing the news one wants. Moreover, he has a notion of "moving with the times," - is "unsectarian," etc., so that one has free play. Then there are two "goodest" people called Hopleys, - real gold but worked up in very old fashion, and incapable of being melted down. They are sure to go to Heaven, says everybody, at which I rejoice; and equally sure, I think to myself, to meet Puseyites there, - at which I smile. Then there is a vehement and voluble gentleman with a slight impediment in his speech, for ever discoursing of "tempemomy schools" and also "temporary." Very curious discoveries, too, one makes. The most polished gentleman here I found in a pork-butcher's shop; the most learned scholar in my clerk. My clerk's wife is a fat Welshwoman, and "has liked you, sir, ever since you pronounced Machynnlleth right in her hearing." She knew the Gibbestian family who were small farmers. One poor old soul, who is a-dying, is "Exeter-born" and talks real fresh countrified Devon in the midst of this wilderness of Cockneydom. - Good-bye, dear Dax, believe me faithfully yours, J. R. GREEN. [} [\To W. Boyd Dawkins\] }] HOXTON, May 28, 1863. MY DEAR DAX - I think I have done well in my fight against London air (?) for two years and a half though, - as it turns out, I am better at last. After an illness - fever, weakness, (\olla-podrida\) of come-over-abilities - which has kept me sleepless and pretty nearly foodless for the last three weeks, I "cabbed" (as convalescent) to Adams this morning. He sounded me; pronounced the pleurisy "still there," - lungs sound, at least he could discover no tubercle, but very delicate. Then he proceeded that a low condition of health rendered such lungs most susceptible of disease. Whereupon I

stopped him, "Do you mean that this low condition is connected with my present residence and work?" "I do. You ought to be in a quiet country curacy, or at the sea-side." "You think if I persist in staying I render myself very liable to disease?" "I do." "Then please write that to me in a note which I may send to ye Bishop, and I will resign at once." The Bishop will be furious, and justly, - but that is the least of it. There is this poor parish, my sister, myself "(\meteoros\)." I can't tell what will come of it. However, God will provide. I feel that He has in thus breaking down my plans taken me into His charge. I spent a day with D. a little time since, who advances in a most odd fashion. When I saw him before he had given up the first chapter of Genesis, but believed implicitly in all the rest. Now Genesis is wholly absorbed, but its disappearance has in no wise affected his faith in the four remaining books of the Pentateuch. So gradual a rate of digestion will keep the Apocalypse for his heirs. He seems to be really getting on well in the Chancery quiddities, and perhaps he regards the critical question as a suit, and opens upon it in a succession of pleas and rejoinders. You saw H. B.'s "first." I was unfeignedly glad and wrote so, warning him not to "demane" himself by taking a Jesus Donship. As he hasn't replied, suppose he is riled and intends the (\descensus Averni\). Faithfully (feebly, weakly, dizzily, mopily, faintly, dreamily, dully) J. R. GREEN.