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

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Lzfe of Benjamin Jowett

[CHAP. VIII

to a younger man for his good, ' Whatever one may think
of Jowett's scholarship, it must be admitted that he lives
the life of a Philosopher.'
Jowett himself took these carpings very lightly.
'I often think,' he said with a touch of irony, 'that
unworthy as I am, I have to deal with the greatest of all
literatures.' He must have found no small compensation
for the local disparagement, although he never spoke on
the subject, in the recognition of continental scholars.
Otto Jahn, in the preface to his standard edition of
Plato's Symposium (published in I864) for which Jowett
had collated afresh the MS. in the Bodleian Library,
spoke of him as 'an accomplished Grecian, and a man
distinguished alike for independence and liberality of
mind.' He set himself at once to revive his classical
attainments-going regularly through Pindar, and at
one time reading a book of Homer every day. He
had a note-book filled with lectures upon Sophocles,
and Aeschylus was continually in his thoughts. But his
main designs already centred on Plato. About a year after
his appointment he was making preparations for an
edition of the Republic, and enlisting various old pupils 1
and other friends for an edition of the chief Dialogues
to be prepared independently, but in a common spirit. He
had commenced his own portion of this work, in which
some of his lectures were to be embodied, when the
demand came upon him for a new edition of the St. Paul,
the rapid sale of which was a natural result of the recent
outcry. His first impulse had been to say,' I will not
alter a word.' The book was the ripe fruit of intense,
unremitting study through the best years of manhood.
1 J. Riddell, Sellar, Grant, Philebus, and Jowett at one time
Henry Smith, Lewis Campbell. hoped that MaxMiiller might help
E. Poste of Oriel undertook the him with the Cratylus.