The life and letters of Benjamin Jowett, M. A., master of Balliol college, Oxford.

82

Life of Benjamin Jowell

[CHAP. IV

In the summer of I84I, Jowett made what seems to
have been his first foreign tour, in company with a friend
whose initials are J. P. Entering the Continent at
Ostend, they visited Antwerp, Brussels, Malines, Ghent,
Liege, and other Cathedral towns in Belgium, Treves and
the valley of the Moselle, Coblentz, the Rhine, Mayence,
and Heidelberg. He makes careful notes of the architecture of the Cathedrals, the sculptures in wood and
marble, the chief pictures, and the religious habits of
the people; also of the Roman remains at Treves; and
he gives a picturesque description of the scenery of
the Moselle. He had already commenced the serious
study of Political Economy, and one page is filled
with observations 'On the state of the poor-Schwalbach.' On another page there is a list of works on
Political Economy to be got for the College Library, and
also a series of acute general remarks on the New
Science, on the Industrial Revolution which had given
rise to it, on the importance of the subject, its relation
to morality, and the uncertainties attending it.
Two extracts from the notes of this tour may serve
to show how his speculative thoughts were balanced
with an active habit of intelligent observation:'The Moselle, a muddy, rapid stream running between hills
clad with vines and underwood-sometimes rugged and precipitous-sometimes shelving down in layers to the water's
edge-at others opening into a sort of amphitheatre, at the
foot of which the river takes its winding course. In many
places it has the appearance of a lake seeming to spring from
the successive ranges of hills which cross one another until
lost in the vista. Sometimes scenery varied by the cornfields
which wave on the very top of the steep. The vines in many
places stretch as far as the eye can reach.
'Low down on the river the rocks become more craggy and
terrible, gradually closing in so as to conceal the river from