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

220

Life of Benjamin Jowett

[CHAP. VII

patible. As Sir A. Grant, one of his earliest and most attached
pupils, once observed to me, his talk was less remarkable for
knowledge than for thoughtfulness.
'Nothing, however, in his relation to his pupils pleases me
more in retrospect than the fatherly vigilance with which he
watched over able but unsteady young men. He was untiring
in his efforts to keep them straight, and when he failed in this,
to set them on their feet again. He cared for them as few
fathers care for unsteady sons, saving them from themselves and
persevering in the face of disappointment.'
LETTERS, 1850-1853.
To A. P. STANLEY.
August 22, I850.
This is dated Oban, though I am really at Duntroon,
spending a day with the Bishop. His powers of entertainment
are as good as ever-indeed, he is at times quite mad with fun.
I have left off assisting in the affairs of the Scotch Episcopal
Church, which he does best in his own peculiar fashion.
I work with my pupils of an evening, and for an hour in the
morning. The sermons make some progress. I still find
ghostly comfort in reading Plato and Hegel and Bacon, after
Mauricianism, Niebuhrism, Bunsenism, &c., have departed, and
the shades of German divines begin to vanish. Many thanks
for your account of Neander. I wish he had lived to finish his
history. Yet it is not the Church History-how different in
command of his subject when compared with Gibbon! It is
uninteresting and uncritical, and yet too critical to retain
a religious or devotional interest.
To A. P. STANLEY.
OBAN, September 9, I85o.
Manning and Co. have issued a circular to the Clergy
to the effect that they never intended by taking the Oath of
Supremacy to imply that the Queen could decide spiritual
questions; and requesting to know the opinions of others.
The whole question is getting to a very false position. Five