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

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Lzfe of Benjamin Jowett

[CHAP. XII

[i868.]
'I went and took luncheon with Lowe, who appears to be
profoundly in earnest about Education, and talked extremely
well about it. I ventured to give him a sort of lecture about
being more conciliatory, and the necessity of uniting persons
and classes if he means to do anything with Education. He
quite agreed, and thought that he would draw up a short Bill.
I am more hopeful about him than I ever was before, notwithstanding his desertion of the classics '
He visited Mr. and Mrs. Lowe at their country house
near Caterham, Surrey, and on one occasion entertained
the company there by reading long passages from his
translation of the Phaedrus.
The edition of the Republic, which he had hoped to
finish in a year or two, was now thrown aside for
the translation of the whole of Plato, that is to say,
of the genuine Dialogues, to which some doubtful ones
were afterwards added. It is not wonderful that the
end of this labour seemed to fade before him as he
advanced in it. For his design enlarged; he revised
again and again, and he never turned aside from
other calls upon him, which grew and multiplied.
Also, he was at last forced to limit his hours of labour.
For the long strain of the preceding years had
told. 'All things come to those that wait;' but sometimes they come when the power of using them is
partly spent. He had never had a severe illness, but
his health from time to time had been unequal 2, though
1 In lecturing at Edinburgh wearing of broadcloth to people
(Nov. I867), and in a speech who had not a shirt to theirbacks.'
to the Liverpool Philomathic 2 In the summer of I858, when
Society (Jan. i868), Mr. Lowe was struggling with his second ediunderstood to disparage classical tion of St. Paul, he made a short
education. Jowett told me that expedition in the Lake country.
when taxed with this Lowe had 'Even then,' says the Warden of
said, 'I could not recommend the Merton, 'he felt that he could