Passages from the two volumes were read out to us, with that murmur of admiration his friends knew so well, and we were all cheered with the news that a new poem might be expected at Christmas. Very soon after this (to me) memorable breakfast, he was elected, as an undergraduate, Fellow of Exeter, and in my second term at Oxford he was placed in the first class. He was resident at Exeter College where I was, and during that time my intimacy with him grew greater. The two men of whom he saw most in Oxford during his year of grace were J. A. Froude and A. H. Clough. I do not think that in later years, when he had parted company in many ways with Froude, he would readily have admitted the influence which Froude undoubtedly had over him, and the direction he gave to his reading. Jowett he looked upon at that time in a light in which he did not latterly regard him. But his loyalty and allegiance to his constant friend, whose Vice-Principal he afterwards became at Kneller Hall, Archbishop Temple, was always unshaken and enduring.

Palgrave's love for Scott, Wordsworth, and Tennyson continued to grow; and all who knew him at this time will remember the delight he showed in Ruskin's revelation of the greatness of Turner, and his intense interest in music. No one enjoyed the pleasant evenings at Sir Henry Acland's, where good music was well performed, more than he did; and one or two members of a circle of friends still remaining will frankly acknowledge how much they owe to the inspiring power with which he would recite some of his friend Clough's verses, or read some passage from Emerson, a great favourite in those days, though not so prized in maturer years. I think many of his Oxford friends, though very sorry to miss him, felt that it was good for him to be taken from the general pursuit of literature to the serious work of the training school. But those who felt that their own sympathies were enlarged and their best, tastes elevated, missed him sorely when he left Oxford

and only visited it occasionally. One feature of his life at Oxford ought certainly to be remembered, the hold which he never lost on theology and history, and which became so evident in his later years. I have often discussed with him the positions of Newman, Arnold, Maurice, and Jowett; and remember well how he used to put his finger with real discrimination on certain weak places, not always, as I thought, sufficiently mindful of the particular view advanced. For Newman and R. W. Church he had always the warmest admiration, and for A. P. Stanley, though differing from him in many ways, he had the truest appreciation.

When I entered on active clerical life I only saw him occasionally in London, but whenever we met he had always something interesting to tell, and dwelt, as his friends knew, upon the merits or demerits of prominent politicians or authors. It was certainly a delight to him to know that a taste for Wordsworth's poetry had been revived by his judicious selections in the 'Golden Treasury.' I think nearly every piece contained in the early editions was talked over by him at his house in London or at the Athenæum, and he delighted to tell me how careful he had been to secure the verdict of Tennyson in his work.

When one meets a friend occasionally after a time of great intimacy, it is always interesting to note changes of opinion on important questions. Palgrave grew gradually to dislike many of the projects of his more Liberal friends at Oxford, and he also took a different view of Carlyle's literary and historical judgments, and would often express himself with great vehemence. I remember, however, that in his earlier days he took a strong side in the controversy about Cromwell's character, and used to speak of the advantage he had enjoyed from the sober historical methods of his father, Sir Francis Palgrave, and the historian Hallam. It was a great delight to him to find that Bishop Stubbs highly approved of the line he took, in his

notes in the 'Visions of England.' In later years his admiration for Bishop Lightfoot and his writings was unbounded, and I shall not forget the delight with which he told me that his son was to join the band of young men who read under the Bishop's direction at Auckland Castle. I pass over many pleasant meetings in London at his own house, when the merits of Matthew Arnold's poetry, and his first volume of 'Essays in Criticism,' the place of Clough in poetry, and the revival of interest in Wordsworth's poetry and Coleridge's philosophy, in two fresh and suggestive essays by his old Balliol friend, J. C. Shairp, were the theme of many talks, prolonged sometimes to late hours, and always ending in rapturous readings from 'Maud' and 'In Memoriam,' and enlivened by personal recollections of the last visit to the Isle of Wight, and the last conversations held with the great poet. Tennyson has had many admirers and many interpreters, but Palgrave was certainly one of the very first to recognise the distinctive quality and nobility of the poetry which has made so deep a mark on English thought and taste. When an essay on Tennyson's poetry by G. Brimley first appeared in a volume of 'Cambridge Essays,' many thought the eulogy overstrained, but Palgrave stoutly maintained that the place of Tennyson would in the next generation be very near Wordsworth's. As years went on it was delightful to find in him the same freshness and purity of taste. The result of his Oxford lectures in 'Landscape in Poetry' is a standing evidence of the dignity he claimed for Alfred Tennyson.

After Palgrave's election to the chair of Poetry at Oxford, his visits to me at Salisbury were almost annual, and it was an intense pleasure to talk over the days of Oxford life, when Max Müller charmed us with his delightful playing of Mendelssohn's masterpieces, and the last sermon of Stanley, Jowett, or Pusey was discussed. In all plans for the educational advancement in the diocese of

Salisbury, Palgrave, as a resident at Lyme and a member of the Synod, took a hearty and generous interest. No literary work he engaged in interested him more than the choice selection of 'Sacred Poems' he edited for the Oxford Press. Sensational literature he had a horror of, and his feeling for Scott as a poet and novelist seemed to me to grow greater every time we met. The careful revision of the 'Golden Treasury,' and the inclusion of one or two poems unduly neglected, was a marked feature of later years. On all great subjects his thoughts seemed to me to have deepened and strengthened, and although I was sometimes at variance with him as to the positions taken by some of our old friends, nothing ever occurred to mar the familiarity of our intercourse. It is not easy to set down in plain terms any proper expression of the debt one owes to a friend with whom one has travelled along passes known only to the few, and with whom one has held true communion of thought, but I can freely assert that I am only one of many who will long look back with real gratitude to the high elevation in poetry, art, and music to which Francis Palgrave delighted to point as the goal for all rightly directed human effort.

CHAPTER II

KNELLER HALL, AND THE EDUCATION OFFICE,

1849-1862

MARCH 31, 1849, formed an epoch in F. T. Palgrave's life, for it was the day on which he first met Alfred Tennyson, at the house of Mr. W. H. Brookfield in Portman Street. So much has been said and written concerning this intercourse and friendship of forty-three years, that it is not necessary to touch more than slightly on the impression Alfred Tennyson made on him. It was indeed a strong and mutual friendship, but more than thiswith F. T. Palgrave it was a hero-worship most utterly loyal and true, one of the chiefest influences of his life. To attempt to describe all that Alfred Tennyson was to him would be especially superfluous now, for it is so lately that we have had given to us, in the Life of Tennyson,' my father's own recollections and impressions of this beloved and honoured friend. He wrote: Tennyson's affectionate friendship has been one of the mainstays of my life'; and those who have heard him speak of the poet, cannot fail to remember that he never mentioned him but with the profoundest reverence and gratitude. The first meeting is briefly described in his journal :