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

440

Life of Benjamin Jowett

[CHAP. XII

Fraser is a contemporary and acquaintance of mine-an
honest, free-spoken man-a good speaker and preacher-not
much speculative intelligence, and what there is will probably
disappear in the episcopal swaddling.
There is a good deal both of comfort and of serious meaning
in that saying of Lord Melbourne's, 'My dear fellow, would
you wear such a dress as that for ~io,ooo a year?'
This is the best place in which I ever was for work, the
only place in which I do any work. And as yet I do not feel
the worse, and expect to survive until the ist of June.
To R. B. D. MORIER, C.B.
[January, I870.]
I spent two days in a Scotch house1 with Gladstone,
who talks (I thought) rashly about the Land Question.
I imagine that he and Bright are the only members of
the Cabinet who are likely to be in favour of extreme
measures.
Have you read any books about the Irish Question? I am
told that the right books are: (i) The Report of Lord Devon's
Commission; (2) Lord Dufferin's book; (3) Mr. Maguire's
book. The great difficulty is the small holder. When it is
said, as Gladstone says, that land is a question of life and
death to the Irish peasant, I think it should be remembered
that he has the Poor Law and employment as a farm labourer
and emigration. G. had a ridiculous notion (he had a great
many) that the reason why the Irishman in America hung
about the great cities was that he had such melancholy
recollections of agriculture in his own country!
I am hoping to finish Plato if I am industrious and don't go
visiting this spring. If I am alive I shall come and see you at
the beginning of the summer, and bring the four volumes with
me. It would have been a gain for me if Scott had been
made a Bishop, but I don't complain, for I have the College
better in hand than formerly. I shall go on as I have done
with the College, and try to find more time for writing.
Though I am not yet old, I feel that the years are getting
1 Viz. Camperdown, near Dundee. See p. 406.