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

64

Life of Benjamin Jowett

[CHAP. III

I had finished them. Remember me to Mr. Turner, Johannes,
Aunt Courthope, Uncle, and all others.
That his letter to his mother should have remained
unfinished is not wonderful, considering the excitement
which his election had caused amongst his comrades.
This is recorded in a letter from James Sandham,
Commoner of St. John's (also transcribed by the glad
father):'Nothing has been talked about here so much for a long
time. It is thought to be, as it is, a most wonderful achievement. "Little Jowett" was nearly pulled to pieces when his
success was known; one man shaking his hand with all his
might and two or three others contending for the other, till at
last, being hoisted above their heads, he was carried in triumph
round the quadrangle '.'
When Jowett was Vice-Chancellor, one of his contemporaries whom he happened to be entertaining at
luncheon said, referring to this election.' I then thought
you four the happiest people going.' 'So we were,' said
the Master in a cheerful tone.
A word may be added here d propos of 'little Jowett.'
The undergraduates of his own time seem to have shared
this impression with those who twenty years afterwards
loved to talk of 'little Benjamin their ruler.' Yet it
was only partly justified. Jowett was not 'little' in the
sense in which Dean Stanley and Dean Johnson of Wells
were little men. He was really middle-sized, with rather
sloping shoulders, and a chest not broad but deep. His
boyish countenance, like Milton's,
'Deceiving the truth
That he to manhood was arrived so near,'
Cf. Mr. L. A. Tollemache, as high as he could, and he was
Benjamin Jowett, p. 43: 'He at carried round the quadrangle on
once testified his joy by leaping the shoulders of his friends.'