When the curate of whom I have spoken was first ordained, the incumbent gave him instructions as to what he was to do. Afterwards he found him visiting and over-zealous for the age, and said, "Now don't do too much in the parish, and never give anything away." The curate expressed surprise, when he added, "If you want to give, always come to me"—a suggestion the curate never failed to carry out. The rector had a very poor opinion of clergymen who wrote fresh sermons every week. "I've only got two sermons for every Sunday in the year, and I preach them all every year. I don't see why I should trouble myself to write any more, for when I preach them, I find I don't recollect them myself, so it's quite impossible the congregation should." As reminiscences of a type of clergyman very common at this time, but nearly extinct now, these notes seem worth recording.
Most of the Norfolk clergy were then old-fashionedtives of the first water. One day at a clerical dinner-party at the Palace, the Bishop, probably with the view of improving the taste of his guests, said, "When I first came into this diocese, I found the clergy would drink nothing but port. I used every means I could think of to alter a taste I could not myself enter into. All failed. At last I hit upon something which I thought was sure to be successful. I told my wine-merchant to send me the best of all other wines and the nastiest of port. But the clergy still insisted upon drinking the nasty port. So, when I felt my plan had failed, I wrote to my wine-merchant again, and told him to let them have it good."
The Bishop used to be greatly amused by an epitaph in Bergh Apton Church, which said that the man commemorated was "very free of his port," meaning that he was very hospitable (from portcullis), but the common people always thought it meant that he drank a great deal of port.
My dear old uncle was a capital bishop, and his clergy gradually learnt to think him so. But it was a sailor he had wished to be. He had been better fitted for that profession originally. Indeed, when he was a very little child he had such a passion for the sea, that once when he was missed from his cot, he was found asleep on the high shelf of a wardrobe, having climbed up there because he thought it was like a berth. Through life he was one of those men who never want presence of mind, and this often stood him in good stead. One Advent Sunday it was the Bishop's turn to preach in the cathedral, where the soldiers in the barracks usually attend the service: but it was terrible weather, and, with due regard to their pipe-clay, they were all absent that morning. The Bishop had prepared his sermon especially for the soldiers he expected to hear it, and he had no other. But he was quite equal to the occasion, for, after he had given out the text, he began—"Now this is the sermon I should have preached if the soldiers had been here," and went on, without concerning himself further about their absence.
On another occasion he fell fast asleep in the cathedral during the sermon. At the end, when the choir broke out into the "Amen," he suddenly awoke. In that moment he could not collect himself to remember the words of the blessing, but, "Peace be with you" he exclaimed very solemnly, and it did quite well.
"Uncle Norwich," with his snow-white hair and black eyebrows, and his eager impetuous manner, was a somewhat startling figure to come upon suddenly. There was a private door in the wall in a remote corner of the palace-garden. A rather nervous clergyman who lived close by had passed it for years, and had never seen it open. His curiosity was greatly excited about it. One day when he was passing, he could not resist the impulse, and looking up and down the road, and seeing neither the Bishop nor any of the Stanley family about, though very shy, he stooped down to peep in at the keyhole. At that moment the Bishop's key entered the lock on the other side, the door flew open, and he found himself confronted by the Bishop in person!
It was soon after we left Norwich that Jenny Lind, then at the height of her fame, went to stay at the Palace, and great was the family enthusiasm about her. My aunt conceived an affection for her which was almost maternal. Arthur Stanley admired her exceedingly, in spite of his hatred of music, but amused her when he said, "I think you would be most delightful if you had no voice."
At the end of August I returned to Harrow.
To MY MOTHER.
"Harrow, Sept. 10.—Alas! our form is under Mr. Oxenham. He has the power of flogging, and does flog very often for the least fault, for he really enjoys it. He is such an old man, very old, very sharp, very indolent, very preachy. Sometimes he falls asleep when we are in form, and the boys stick curl-papers through his hair, and he never finds it out. He always calls his boys 'stupid little fools,' without meaning anything particular by it. This morning he said to me, 'Stuff and nonsense, stupid little fool; don't make yourself a stupider little fool than you are.' He is always called 'Billy.'"
"Sept.—I have been racket-fagging all afternoon. It is such dismal work. You have to stand in one corner of the square court and throw all the balls that come that way to the 'feeders,' who throw them to the players when they are wanted. The great amusement of P., one of those I fag for, is to hit the racket-balls with all his might at the fags, and he tried to cut me off a great many times, but missed. At last P. said, 'I'll go and get another fag instead of that young beast Hare,' and he went, but he never came back, or the fag either.
"One day our room bought a pipkin, saucepan, and frying-pan to cook things in, but Mrs. Collins (the matron) took away the frying-pan, and the others were bagged. But we got another pipkin, and one night as we were cooking some potatoes, in little slices as we have them at home, they made such a smell that Mrs. Collins came up, and told Simmy, and he was very angry, and would not let us have fires for a week, and said we should all have extra pupil-room; but fortunately he forgot about that."
A. P. Stanley to A. J. C. H.
"University College, Oxford, Oct. 16.—The Goblin presents his compliments to the Ghost, and will give him a leaf of a bay-tree from Delphi, a piece of marble from Athens, and a bit of tin from the Cassiterides, on condition that the Ghost can tell him where those places are, and where the Goblin shall send these treasures."
A. J. C. H. to A. P. Stanley.
"Delphi is the capital of Phocis and the seat of the oracle in Greece. Athens is capital of Attica in Greece, and the Cassiterides are islands in the Western Ocean. The Ghost presents his compliments to the Goblin, thanks him very much, tells him where the places are, and begs him to send the things from those places to the usual haunt of the Ghost. The Ghost has communicated the Goblin's stories of the beautiful Hesketh and Mrs. Fox to the boys at night. The Ghost flitted up Harrow church-steeple yesterday, and was locked up inside. Farewell, Goblin, from your most grateful cousin—the Ghost."
This letter reminds me how I used to tell stories to the boys in our room after we had gone to bed: it was by them that I was first asked to "tell stories."
The winter of 1847–48 was one of those which were rendered quite miserable to me by the way in which I was driven to the Rectory, where Aunt Esther made me more wretched than ever, and by being scarcely ever permitted to remain in my own dear home. I fear that in later days I should have acted a part, and pretended to like going to the Rectory, when it would instantly have been considered unnecessary, the one thought in the mind of all the family being that it was a duty to force me to do what I disliked; but at that time I was too ingenuous to indulge in even the most innocent kinds of deception. My own brothers, Francis and William, who were now at Eton, came to the Rectory for part of their holidays, but their upbringing and their characters had so little in common with my own, that we were never very intimate, though I rather liked them than otherwise. They hated the Rectory, and got away from it whenever they could.
Of all the miserable days in the year, Christmas was the worst. I regarded it with loathing unutterable. The presents of the quintessence of rubbish which I had to receive from my aunts with outward grace and gratitude. The finding all my usual avocations and interests cleared away. The having to sit for hours and hours pretending to be deeply interested in the six huge volumes of Foxe's "Book of Martyrs," one of which was always doled out for my mental sustenance. The being compelled—usually with agonising chilblains—to walk twice to church, eight miles through the snow