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

164

Life of Benjamin Jowett

[CHAP. V

scepticism, if we are to do anything more than add another
guess to the many already made by Genus Theologicum. I was
very sorry to hear of De Wette's death: an honest man and
a great critic.
Last night I read a good part of the Apostolical Fathers. It
is difficult to imagine how anything so poor and so miserably
rhetorical could have been written so near the Apostolical Age
and the writings of the New Testament.
Mtiller' and Morier are here with me-the first busy with
his book on 'the Arian nations before their separation, as
traceable in language.' The book is in many parts interesting,
but requires a much more artistic working up....
I am sorry to see the democratic cause falling so low: there
is still a hope 'of the Prince of Wales being King of England.'
I would sooner live in the backwoods than in Cossack Europe.
Whether the democratic party or the despotic aristocratic party
is uppermost is almost equally bad. Chartism and Protectionism, Legitimist, Socialist, Church and State, Manchester and
Almack's, wealth and birth, should balance each other, and all
be regulated by education, common sense, and Sir Robert Peel.
One is especially sorry to see Germany in its present state,
seeming to fulfil all the worst prognostications of Tories and
bigots, and destroying all faith in ideals....
To R. R. W. LINGEN.
KESWICK, [September 8, I849].
What an extravagant value for human life seems to be
springing up, seen in Peace Congresses and Rush2 petitions,
such as would have been despised in an ancient state. I don't
like to see the military spirit of a people destroyed in this way.
And as to Rush petitions:-to give the poor wretch time to
repent, who has lived all his life in the moral sink of Field
1 Mr. Max Miller had recently made a Fellow of Balliol, but the
come to Oxford, introduced by the negotiation ended in his becomChevalier Bunsen, and was pre- ing a Student of Christ Church
paring the Essay on Comparative under Gaisford's headship.
Mythology which appeared in 2 i. e. for the reprieve of the
1856. Jowett had tried to get him murderer of that name.