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

406

Lzfe of Benjamin Jowelt

[CHAP. XII

'They seem to have forgotten that, in a certain sense,
the Authorised Version is more inspired than the original.'
Early in the October of I869, Jowett met Mr. Gladstone
at Camperdown House, Dundee, where both were guests
of the Earl of Camperdown. It was not the first occasion
of their meeting1; but a country house gives opportunities
which are not to be had in London, and for the few days
which Jowett spent at Camperdown the politician and
the thinker were much together. He had looked forward
with great eagerness to this visit, and his host reports
that he had never seen him so absorbed in any one. They
talked incessantly for hours in the library and about
the grounds. Jowett was very much provoked one
morning when Gladstone had insisted on rising early
and going to hear an Episcopal preacher at Perth.
Mr. Gladstone at this time was considering the outline
of his first Land Bill of I870, and Ireland was one chief
topic of their conversations. Mr. Gladstone tried to
impress on Jowett's mind that no one hitherto had
understood the Irish, or had rightly sympathized with
them. Jowett came straight from Camperdown to
St. Andrews, and told me of the great interest he had
felt in this meeting. 'It was the first time,' he said,' that
any one of such great simplicity had been in so exalted
a position.' It would be curious and interesting to mark
the sequel; but it seemed to him to be full of peril,
because the great statesman was 'so powerful and so
unsound.' He observed that Mr. Gladstone failed to
recognize the truth, that the moral excuses for political
crime ought not to make a statesman less firm in
repressing it.
On the Sunday after his return to Balliol, October I7,
They had breakfasted together in London.