The struggle was hardly a little one to a youth whose fame in the cricket field stood so high, and who was never happy or healthy without strong bodily exercise. Nor had he outgrown his taste for this particular sport. Professor Edwin Palmer (alluded to above) describes him as at this time 'a thorough public schoolboy, with a full capacity for enjoying undergraduate society and undergraduate amusements, though with so fond a recollection of Eton that to some of us he hardly seemed to appreciate Oxford sufficiently.'
Again, Mr. Roundell (his late adversary at Lord's) says: 'He was a reluctant and half-interested sojourner was ever looking back to the playing-fields of Eton, or forward to the more congenial sphere of a country parish.' So it was his prime pleasure and glory that he thus denied himself, though not with total abstinence, for he played occasionally. I remember hearing of a match at Ottery, where he was one of an eleven of Coleridge kith and kin against the rest of Devon. His reputation in the field was such that, many years later, when he chanced to be at Melbourne at the same time with the champion English eleven, one of the most noted professional cricketers, meeting him in the street, addressed him confidentially, 'I know, sir, the Bishop of Melbourne does not approve of cricket for clergymen in public, but if you would meet me in private at five o'clock to-morrow morning, and let me give you a few balls, it would be a great satisfaction!'
Some resolution thus was required to prevent cricket from becoming a tyrant, as so often befalls those whose skill renders them valuable. Tennis became Coley's chief recreation, enabling him to work off his superfluous energy at the expense of far less time than cricket matches require, and in this, as in everything active, he soon excelled.
As to the desserts upon which the young men in turn were spending a good deal out of mere custom, harmlessly enough, but unnecessarily; as soon as the distress of the potato famine in Ireland became known, Patteson said, 'I am not at all for giving up these pleasant meetings, but why not give up the dessert?' So the agreement was made that the cost should for the present be made over to the 'Irish fund.'
Another friend of this period, now well known as Principal Shairp of St. Andrews', was then in the last year of a five years' residence. He has been kind enough to favour me with the following effective sketch of Coley as an undergraduate:—
'Patteson as he was at Oxford, comes back to me, as the representative of the very best kind of Etonian, with much good that he had got from Eton, with something better, not to be got at Eton or any other school. He had those pleasant manners and that perfect ease in dealing with men and with the world which are the inheritance of Eton, without the least tincture of worldliness. I remember well the look he then had, his countenance massive for one so young, with good sense and good feeling, in fact, full of character. For it was character more than special ability which marked him out from others, and made him, wherever he was, whether in cricket in which he excelled, or in graver things, a centre round which others gathered. The impression he left on me was of quiet, gentle strength and entire purity, a heart that loved all things true and honest and pure, and that would always be found on the side of these. We did not know, probably he did not know himself, the fire of devotion that lay within him, but that was soon to kindle and make him what he afterwards became.'
In truth he was taking deep interest in the religious movement, though in the quiet unexcited way of those to whom such doctrines were only the filling out of the teachings of their childhood. He was present at that sermon on the 'Entire Absolution of the Penitent,' with which, on the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany, 1846, Dr. Pusey broke his enforced silence of three years.
The same evening Coley wrote to his sister Fanny:—
'I have just returned from University sermon, where I have been listening with great delight to Pusey's sermon on the Keys for nearly two hours. His immense benevolence beams through the extreme power of his arguments, and the great research of his inquiry into all the primitive writings is a most extraordinary matter, and as for the humility and prayerful spirit in which it was composed, you fancied he must have been on his knees the whole time he was writing it. I went early to Christ Church, where it was preached, and, after pushing through such a crowd as usually blocks up the entrance into Exeter Hall, I found on getting into the Cathedral that every seat was occupied. However, standing to hear such a man was no great exertion, and I never was so interested before. It will probably be printed, so that you will have no occasion for any remarks of mine. It is sufficient that he preached the doctrine to my mind in an invincible manner.' The letter has a postscript—'Easter vacation will be from three weeks to a month. Hurrah! say I; now a precious deal more glad am I to leave Oxford for the holidays than Eton, though Feniton is better than either.'
Even in the last undergraduate year, the preference for Eton remained as strong as ever. Coley intended to remain at Oxford to read for honours through great part of the Long vacation; and after refreshing himself with a run to Eton, he wrote:—
'Now for a very disagreeable contrast, but still I shall find great interest in my work as I go on, and reading books for the second or third time is light work compared to the first stodge at them. I am, however, behindhand with my work, in spite of not having wasted much time here.... I really don't see my way through the mass of work before me, and half repent having to go up for class.
'…I went to the opera on Tuesday, but was too much taken up by Eton to rave about it, though Grisi's singing and acting were out and out; but, in sober earnest, I think if one was to look out simply for one's own selfish pleasure in this world, staying at Eton in the summer is paradise. I certainly have not been more happy, if so happy, for years, and they need no convincing there of my doting attachment to the place. I go down to Eton on Election Saturday and Sunday for my last enjoyment of it this year; but if I am well and nourishing in the summer of 1849, and all goes right with me, it is one of the jolliest prospects of my emancipation from the schools to think of a month at Eton. Oh! it's hard work reading for it, I can tell you.'
Thus Coley Patteson's work throughout his undergraduate three years was, so to speak, against the grain, though it was more diligent and determined than it had been at Eton. He viewed this as the least satisfactory period of his life, and probably it was that in which he was doing the most violence to his likings. It struck those who had known him at Eton that he had 'shaken off the easy-going, comfortable, half-sluggish habit of mind' attributed to him there, and to be earnestly preparing for the future work of life. His continued interest in Missions was shown by his assisting to collect subscriptions for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. In fact, his charm of manner, and his way of taking for granted that people meant to do what they ought, made him a good collector, and he had had a good deal of practice at Eton in keeping up the boys to the subscription for the stained glass of the east window of the Chapel which they had undertaken to give.
That Long vacation of study was a great effort, and he felt it tedious and irksome, all the more from a weakness that affected his eyelids, and, though it did not injure his sight, often rendered reading and writing painful. Slight ailments concurred with other troubles and vexations to depress his spirits; and besides these outward matters, he seems to have had a sense of not coming up to his ideal. His standard was pitched higher than that of most men: his nature was prone to introspection, and his constitutional inertness rendered it so difficult for him to live up to his own views, that he was continually dissatisfied with himself; and this, in spite of his sweet unselfish temper, gave his manner at home an irritability, and among strangers a reserve—the very reverse of the joyous merry nature which used to delight in balls, parties, and gaieties.
Though an ardent friend, he became disinclined to enter into general society; nor was the distaste ever entirely overcome, though he never failed to please by the charm alike of natural manner and of Christian courtesy; the same spirit of gentleness and kindness very soon prevailed in subduing, even in family life, any manifestation of the tender points of a growing character.
In the autumn of 1849, he obtained a second class in the school of Literae humaniores, a place that fairly represented his abilities as compared with those of others. When the compulsory period of study was at an end, his affection for Oxford and enjoyment of all that it afforded increased considerably, though he never seems to have loved the University quite as well as Eton.
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