December 13, Edinburgh.—Breakfast with Dr. Chalmers. His modesty is so extreme that it is oppressive to those who are in his company, especially his juniors, since it is impossible for them to keep their behaviour in due proportion to his. He was on his own subject, the Poor Laws, very eloquent, earnest, and impressive. Perhaps he may have been hasty in applying maxims drawn from Scotland to a more advanced stage of society in England. December 17.—Robertson's Charles V., Plato, began book 10. Chalmers. Singing-lesson and practice. Whist. Walked on the Glasgow road, first milestone to fourth and back in 70 minutes—the returning three miles in about 33¾. Ground in some places rather muddy and slippery. December 26.—A feeble day. Three successive callers and conversation with my father occupied the morning. Read a good allowance of Robertson, an historian who leads his reader on, I think, more pleasantly than any I know. The style most attractive, but the mind of the writer does not set forth the loftiest principles. December 29th, Sunday.—Twenty-four years have I lived.... Where is the continuous work which ought to fill up the life of a Christian without intermission?... I have been growing, that is certain; in good or evil? Much fluctuation; often a supposed progress, terminating in finding myself at, or short of, the point which I deemed I had left behind me. Business and political excitement a tremendous trial, not so much alleviating as forcibly dragging down the soul from that temper which is fit to inhale the air of heaven. Jan. 8, 1834, Edinburgh.—Breakfast with Dr. Chalmers. Attended his lecture 2-3.... More than ever struck with the superabundance of Dr. C.'s gorgeous language, which leads him into repetitions, until the stores of our tongue be exhausted on each particular point. Yet the variety and magnificence of his expositions must fix them very strongly in the minds of his hearers. In ordinary works great attention would be excited by the very infrequent occurrence of the very brilliant expressions and illustrations with which he cloys the palate. His gems lie like paving stones. He does indeed seem to be an admirable man.
Of Edinburgh his knowledge soon became intimate. His father and mother took him to that city, as we have seen, in 1814. He spent a spring there in 1828 just before going to Oxford, and he recollected to the end of his life a sermon of Dr. Andrew Thomson's on the Repentance of Judas, 'a great and striking subject.' Some circumstance or another brought him into relations with Chalmers, that ripened into friendship. 'We used to have walks together,' Mr. Gladstone remembered, 'chiefly out of the town by the Dean Bridge and along the Queensferry road. On one of our walks together, Chalmers took me down to see one of his districts by the water of Leith, and I remember we went into one or more of the cottages. He went in with smiling countenance, greeting and being greeted by the people, and sat down. But he had nothing to say. He was exactly like the Duke of Wellington, who said of himself that he had no small talk. His whole mind was always full of some great subject and he could not deviate from it. He sat smiling among the people, but he had no small talk for them and they had no large talk. So after some time we came away, he pleased to have been with the people, and they proud to have had the Doctor with them.60 For Chalmers he never lost a warm appreciation, often expressed in admirable words—'one of nature's nobles; his warrior grandeur, his rich and glowing eloquence, his absorbed and absorbing earnestness, above all his singular simplicity and detachment from the world.' Among other memories, 'There was a quaint old shop at the Bowhead which used to interest me very much. It was kept by a bookseller, Mr. Thomas Nelson. I remember being amused by a reply he made to me one day when I went in and asked for Booth's Reign of Grace. He half turned his head towards me, and remarked with a peculiar twinkle in his eye, "Ay, man, but ye're a young chiel to be askin' after a book like that."'
RELATIONS WITH CHALMERS
On his way south in January 1834, Mr. Gladstone stays with relatives at Seaforth, 'where even the wind howling upon the window at night was dear and familiar;' and a few days later finds himself once more within the ever congenial walls of Oxford.
January 19, Sunday.—Read the first lesson in morning chapel. A most masterly sermon of Pusey's preached by Clarke. Lancaster in the afternoon on the Sacrament. Good walk. Wrote [family letters]. Read Whyte. Three of Girdlestone's Sermons. Pickering on adult baptism (some clever and singularly insufficient reasoning). Episcopal pastoral letter for 1832. Doane's Ordination sermon, 1833, admirable,—Wrote some thoughts. Jan. 20.—Sismondi's Italian Republics. Dined at Merton, and spent all the evening there in interesting conversation. I was Hamilton's guest [afterwards Bishop of Salisbury]. It was delightful, it wrings joy even from the most unfeeling heart, to see religion on the increase as it is here. Jan. 23rd.—Much of to-day, it fell out, spent in conversation of an interesting kind, with Brandreth and Pearson on eternal punishment; with Williams on baptism; with Churton on faith and religion in the university; with Harrison on prophecy and the papacy.... Jan. 24.—Began Essay on Saving Faith, and wrote thereon. Jan. 29th.—Dined at Oriel. Conversation with Newman chiefly on church matters.... I excuse some idleness to myself by the fear of doing some real injury to my eyes. [After a flight of three or four days to London, he again returns for a Sunday in Oxford.] Feb. 9.—Two university sermons and St. Peter's. Round the meadows with Williams. Dined with him, common room. Tea and a pleasant conversation with Harrison. Began Chrysostom de Sacerdotio, and Cecil's Friendly Visit. [Then he goes back to town for the rest of the session.] Feb. 12, London.—Finished Friendly Visit, beautiful little book. Finished Tennyson's poems. Wrote a paper on ἠθικὴ πίστις in poetry. Recollections of Robert Hall. 13th.—With Doyle, long and solemn conversation on the doctrine of the Trinity.... Began Wardlaw's Christian Ethics. 26th, London.—A busy day, yet of little palpable profit.... Read two important Demerara papers.... Rode. At the levee. House 5½-11. Wished to speak, but deterred by the extremely ill disposition to hear. Much sickened by their unfairness in the judicial character, more still at my own wretched feebleness and fears. April 1.—Dined at Sir R. Peel's. Herries, Sir G. Murray, Chantrey, etc. Sir R. Peel very kind in his manner to us. May 29.—Mignet's Introduction [to 'the History of the Spanish succession,' one of the masterpieces of historical literature]. June 4.—Bruce to breakfast. Paper. Mignet and analysis. Burke. Harvey committee.61 Ancient music concert. Dined at Lincoln's Inn. House 11¼-12¾. Rode. June 6.—Paradise Lost. Began Leibnitz's Tentamina Theodiceæ. June 11.—Read Pitt's speeches on the Union in January, 1799, and Grattan on Catholic petition in 1805. 15th.—Read some passages in the latter part of Corinne, which always work strongly on me. 18th.—Coming home to dine, found Remains of A. H. H. Yesterday a bridal at a friend's, to-day a sad memorial of death. 'Tis a sad subject, a very sad one to me. I have not seen his like. The memory of him reposes gently in my inmost heart, a fountain of tears which soften and fertilise it in the midst of pursuits whose tendency is to dry up the sources of emotion by the fever of excitement. I read his memoir. His father had done me much and undeserved kindness there. 20th.—Most of my time went in thinking confusedly over the university question. Very anxious to speak, tortured with nervous anticipations; could not get an opportunity. Certainly my inward experience on these occasions ought to make me humble. Herbert's maiden speech very successful. I ought to be thankful for my miss; perhaps also because my mind was so much oppressed that I could not, I fear, have unfolded my inward convictions. What a world it is, and how does it require the Divine power and aid to clothe in words the profound and mysterious thoughts on those subjects most connected with the human soul—thoughts which the mind does not command as a mistress, but entertains reverentially as honoured guests ... content with only a partial comprehension, hoping to render it a progressive one, but how difficult to define in words a conception, many of whose parts are still in a nascent state with no fixed outline or palpable substance. July 2.— ... Guizot. Cousin. Bossuet (Hist. Univ.). Rode. Committee