Kb C^7 CJornf U ICam ^rl|0ol library Digitized by Microsoft® KD 631.B78C97"'""'"'"' """^ "■^inSlfimiiSiiiSWRl!.',"! sketch with 3 1924 021 672 872 Digitized by Microsoft® This book was digitized by Microsoft Corporation in cooperation witli Cornell University Libraries, 2007. You may use and print this copy in limited quantity for your personal purposes, but may not distribute or provide access to it (or modified or partial versions of it) for revenue-generating or other commercial purposes. Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® LORD BOWEN Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® U.TboniBanJPtiiTto. ■'"'TW^VSBaStm^^luSei u ^St^-^t-^z-j Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® LORD BOWEN A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH WITH A SELECTION FROM HIS VERSES By sir henry STEWART toNNI NGHAM K.C.I.E. LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET 1897 Digitized by Microsoft® LONDON : f PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. Digitized by Microsoft© PREFACE. I HAVE to acknowledge my obligation to several of Lord Bowen's friends who have helped me in the compilation of this sketch — notably, to the Hon. George Brodrick, Sir Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant-Duff, Lord Justice Fry, Lord Davey, Mr. Justice Mathew, Mr. Bullock Hall, the Dean of Westminster, the Dean of Wells, Professor Robinson Ellis, the Rev. W. G. Cole, and the Rev. Arthur Austen Leigh, who have been good enough to furnish personal recollections or letters. These communications, too long to be con- veniently embodied in the sketch, and too valuable to be curtailed, are collected in a separate volume ; but I have taken advantage of the writers' permis- sion to make free use of them whenever it seemed desirable for the purposes of the memoir. It was in the first instance written for Charles Bowen's family, and I have occasionally inserted letters Digitized by Microsoft® VI PREFACE. which, from their familiarity, might seem scarcely fitted, as they were certainly not intended, for the eyes of any but intimate friends. It has been found that the interest in the subject, extended to a wider circle, and the sketch is now, accordingly, offered to the public. I have not, however, thought it neces- sary to alter the original structure of the work, and so, perhaps, rob the portrait of some characteristic traits. H. S. C December^, 1896. Digitized by Microsoft® CONTENTS. PAGE INTRODUCTION ... ... ... ... i CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOL LIFE ... ... lo LIFE AT OXFORD ... ... ... ... 27 LIFE IN LONDON ... ... ... ... 76 THE BAR ... ... ... ... ... 114 THE BENCH ... ... ... ... 143 SOCIETY AND LITERATURE ... ... ... 177 CLOSING YEARS ... ... ... ... 223 Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® LORD BOWEN. INTRODUCTION. When a friend, loved and admired, passes away from us, there is a natural desire for something which may serve to give distinctness and perma- nence to the impression which he made upon us in his lifetime. Such a desire is reasonable. When nothing of the sort is done, we become more than ever conscious of a loss which, in one sense, grows with the lapse of time. The definite out- line becomes blurred ; year by year the figure stands out in less bold and clear relief; the colours fade ; recollections, however affectionately cherished, become vague, faint, and inaccurate. So the dull processes of oblivion begin. Natural, however, as such a wish may be, its fulfilment presents grave difficulties to him who attempts it. It is no easy task to delineate or analyze the qualities which have combined to form an impressive and delightful Digitized by Microsoft® LORD BOWEN. personality. So much, in such cases, is inde- scribable, or describable only by reference to those inner and subtle phases of character which cannot be dragged into publicity. We know by melan- choly experience how perilous is the attempt to portray, through the cold medium of written de- scription, the influence of personal charm. The pen, however conscientiously handled, is — as a hundred ambitious failures remind us — but a coarse and feeble instrument for the appreciation of the nameless magic, the infection of intellectual or spiritual mood, the moral magnetism, the inde- finable influence on heart and nerve, which give some favoured natures so powerful a hold upon the affections of their fellow-men. The volatile essence escapes while we examine it. The residuum is always disappointing. How vapid, trivial, and overstrained seems often the recorded eloquence which, we know, stirred great assemblies to the quick, "shook the arsenal, and fulmined over Greece " ! How commonplace the treasured say- ings of historical conversationalists! What less exhilarating than the array of witticisms with which too faithful chroniclers justify the reputation of accomplished members of Society ! Whence, we wonder, came the magic which gave phrases such Digitized by Microsoft® INTRODUCTION. as these their potency over the hearts and intellects of mankind ? As well ask whence comes the magic of music, or the charm of the landscape which fades from our view before we have drunk our fill of its delight. The difficulty of adequate portraiture is enhanced in the case of men whose energies have been con- centred on an absorbing profession. Such a man's real work, the serious efforts and successes of his career, his intellectual idiosyncrasies, his moral gifts, are known to a comparatively narrow circle of observers, who watch him from day to day at his task, and are competent to form a just esti- mate of his achievements. The outside world must take him largely on trust. It sees the result in his successes, his rise to eminent position, his selection for important and difficult duties, the pro- fessional ascendency which the verdict of his con- temporaries accords. But the real nature of these successes it knows only by hearsay. The dis- tinguished judge leaves no adequate monument but his judgments ; and these are accessible and intelligible to none but the few who possess the requisite knowledge, skill, and assiduity to study them understandingly. Outside his Court and the Reports in which his utterances are recorded, he Digitized by Microsoft® LORD BOWEN. is — SO far as any real appreciation of his powers goes — almost unknown. If he lapses into literature, or amuses himself with Society, it is in leisure moments when his real business is, perforce, at a standstill ; when an exhausted brain or shattered bodily powers warn him from continued intellectual strain ; when his doctor has insisted on an interval of idleness, and bade him, if he wishes to escape from an impending collapse, to devote himself strenuously to being amused. The world, accord- ingly, never sees him at his best — never knows the real man, in the full vigour of body and mind, in the full swing of unimpaired energies, the de- lightful consciousness of intellectual prowess. When he writes, it is probably for the purpose of divert- ing his thoughts from topics whose too engrossing interest has overtaxed nerve and brain, or, as a tour de force, in some rare moment of leisure snatched from the turmoil of a professional career. When he shines in drawing-rooms, it is often because he feels incapable of shining with his proper lustre in Court. He is trifling because Nature has rebelled against too protracted serious- ness. The bow is unstrung that it may recover its elasticity. Such men's relaxation is likely to be more edifying than the strenuous activity of less- Digitized by Microsoft® INTRODUCTION. gifted natures ; and Society, dazzled and delighted, forgets that the performance which it admires is not the measure of what the man can do, but the pastime with which he has been ordered to refresh himself as the penalty of overtaxed energies and the condition of possible return to the serious busi- ness of existence. But there are graver difficulties than these in the way of such a sketch as that which I am now attempting. Some natures, perhaps the happiest, possess the convenient attribute of transparency. Their thoughts, their tastes, their struggles, — each step in their mental and moral development, — are open to all who care to know about them. They are inspired by a frankness — not wholly untinged, perhaps, by vanity — which disposes them to talk about themselves. They break out in autobio- graphies and personal recollections. With amiable naiveU they proffer to the public eye the vagaries of a restless intellect, the conflict of reason and faith, "the pageant of a bleeding heart." As re- gards their own mental history, such persons have no private life, nor wish to have it. The first-comer is welcome to enter and make himself at home. The biographers of such persons have an easy task. The difficulty begins with natures of less simple Digitized by Microsoft® LORD BOWEN. texture, and temperaments less unreserved. There are minds which are dominated by an instinctive reserve. They have intellectual and moral recesses, the gloom of which they themselves hardly venture to explore, problems which they give up as in- soluble, depths which no plummet may sound, obstinate questionings to which no answer is forth- coming, mysteries of their own consciousness before which they stand in mute bewilderment. The last thing which natures so constituted can endure is the idea of the prying eye and officious tongue, which would destroy the privacy of existence, invade the recesses of thought and feeling, and make their inner life the theme of common talk. To invite the public to walk in, observe, and criticize, seems to them a sort of desecration of holy places, which should be guarded in obscurity. If they have a strong emotion, their first impulse is to shroud it from notoriety. Some friendly ear may, in some especially confidential moment, catch a hint of that which lies beneath ; but such flashes of outspokenness are few and far between. To the world at large the man remains inscrutable. To the acquaintances of Society he shows in abundance all that Society demands — brilliancy, affability, sym- pathetic good-nature, amusement. His inner — his Digitized by Microsoft® INTRODUCTION. real self — is shrouded in impenetrable reserve. His fun is often the unconscious artifice of Nature guarding itself against unwelcome invasion. With a dexterous hand he guides conversation away from topics which may aid the invader's movements. He is an adept in the arts of polite but effectual resistance to the too eager familiarity which is inquisitive, and may soon become impertinent. If he ever unlocks the secret chambers of his soul, it is under conditions which impose an eternal silence on those who are allowed to enter. How, without betrayal of sacred confidence, can any attempt at the portraiture of such a character be made ? In Lord Bowen's case the difficulty is enhanced by the circumstance that the two persons best ■qualified from long and intimate friendship to form a judgment on his life and character passed from the scene within a few weeks of his death. The late Master of Balliol, exercising a discretion which, without questioning, we may be allowed to deplore, directed a holocaust of his papers, and among them perished, it is certain, much that would have exhibited Charles Bowen in one of the most inte- resting phases of his character — his warm affection and unswerving loyalty to a teacher whom he Digitized by Microsoft® LORD BOWEN. revered. Lord Coleridge, who early appreciated his brilliant junior's endowments, and who remained on terms of confidential and affectionate intimacy to the end, survived just long enough to learn and mourn his friend's death. He is no longer here to give — as he would, one knows, have given in a delightful form — the result of his lifelong friendship. The loss in either case is irreparable. No adequate account of Charles Bowen's life and character can, accordingly, be given. None the less, those who loved him and who knew how truly lovable he was, cannot but crave for some lasting embodiment of their remembrance. Little or much as we may have known, or may know, an impression remains, too dear to be allowed to fade. Some definite portrait we must have — however inadequate and unworthy — round which our thoughts may rally, and which may give precision, reality, and life to the floating images which memory — treacherous and wayward servant at the best — brings fitfully before the mind's eye. The physical portrait, faulty and insufficient as the eye of affection feels it to be, is, nevertheless, not without its value. It cannot fill the void — it cannot lessen the sense of loss ; it falls short in a hundred ways of all that we remember of the living man. None the less we prize it. Some Digitized by Microsoft® INTRODUCTION. such value may, it is hoped, attach to the attempt to group into a consistent whole, and embody in a permanent form, some scattered recollections, which no one who knew Lord Bowen would willingly let die. Digitized by Microsoft® lO LORD BOWEN. [1835. CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOL LIFE. Charles Synge Christopher Bowen was born January i, 1835, at Woolaston, a village near Chepstow, in Gloucestershire, of which his father, the Rev. Christopher Bowen, had at that time the curacy. Mr. Bowen came of an Irish family from County Mayo. In theology he was a pronounced member of the Evangelical school. He was a man of exceptional vigour both in mind and body, of natural gentleness and calm, and of considerable gifts. He abounded in amusing stories of the Ireland of former days. He had a fine voice, was an excellent reader, and his children enjoyed no greater treat than to lie on the hearthrug and listen to his rendering of one of Shakespeare's plays. Mr. Bowen was subsequently for some years curate of the Abbey Church at Bath. Thence he was transferred to the Rectory of Southwark, and, subsequently, to St. Thomas's, Winchester. Later Digitized by Microsoft® EARLY YEARS. 1 1 in life he settled at Totland, near Freshwater, in the Isle of Wight. Mr. Bowen, as an Irish proprietor, had suffered from the famine years, and the family, in its various homes, lived in frugal fashion. He died, in a very hale old age, when on a visit to the Riviera in 1890. Charles Bowen's maternal grandmother. Lady Steele, was a daughter of Count d' Alton, an Austrian officer of distinction, one of the Imperial' chamber- lains at the Court of Joseph II. He fell in the trenches of Dunkirk, while co-operating with an English force against a French Revolutionary army. His widow, an Irish Clancarty by descent, was a fervent adherent of Marie Antoinette, and much esteemed in Royalist circles. She migrated to England, where her second daughter, Charles Bowen's grandmother, married Sir R. Steele, an Irish baronet, and an officer in the 4th Dragoon Guards, then quartered near Dublin. Lady Steele moved for a while in the society of Dublin and its little Court ; but gradually withdrew into a small circle of congenial religious friends, and devoted herself to a life of study and benevolence. She was not slow to recognize her grandson's brilliant promise, and took a lively interest in his school and college career. To her intelligence, seriousness. Digitized by Microsoft® 12 LORD BOWEN. [i845- and strength of will, it is probable that Charles Bowen was indebted for some of his most charac- teristic gifts. At ten years of age Charles Bowen was sent to school at Lille, along with his younger brother, Edward. Here the two lads spent a year, learning French and laying the foundation of a polite educa- tion. This period of expatriation — necessitated by the mother's broken health — was not altogether a happy one for the little exiles. The rdgime was strict, and Charles underwent some harsh treatment. There are letters — monthly productions, apparently — from Charles to his father and mother, the phe- nomenal propriety and laboured caligraphy of which suggest the superintendence of a friendly critic's eye. Charles writes that he has begun Latin, and is in the second book of the "^neid." He was evidently a precocious child. "I should like," he says, "to begin Greek again, for I have forgotten all but a few words." Strange utterance for a ten-years-old scholar, which sounds as if no time had been lost at home in starting the prize-man of the future on his career of letters. He is learning French fables, he tells his mother, and is progressing favourably in le dessin. " I hope that when I shall see you again, I shall be able to draw pretty well." The little Digitized by Microsoft® SCHOOL DAYS AT LILLE. learners were hard-worked indeed. " We have ten hours of lessons in the day, and we have begun geometry, though not in our own but in another French book, which I do not like half as well as Euclid. We are obliged to pronounce the Latin just as we would pronounce our French, which improves it very much, I think, and which is much better for us, for it teaches us to read French as well as the Latin." There are, happily, some lighter touches, more consonant with childhood's wants and tastes, " On Thursday last," Charles writes, "we walked to Menin, which is sixteen miles off; there I bought some skates, and we came back in a little voiture when it was quite dark, and they did not give us a lantern ; therefore we were nearly upset twice. There is a great difference between the towns of France and England, for the towns of France, at least those of the frontier, are all fortified ; and in England there is no need of all this fortification, for the sea is enough defence for it." In a more natural vein is an account of Madame Marzials' fite, which is duly celebrated by holiday- making, presentation of presents and flowers, a state dinner at half-past three, and a " party " at seven, at which were " all our boys, the professors, and six or Digitized by Microsoft® 14 LORD BOWEN. [1850. seven young ladies. We played blind-man's buff, and a French game called 'Toilette,' which I am just going to explain to you. . . . Thus ended the birthday of Madame Marzials." " As a child," writes Edward Bowen of his brother, " he was a great reader, and a very fast one. Our books were few, but very well read. Two volumes of Johnson's complete works were a great treasure, and the ' Rambler ' and ' Idler ' ; of course all Scott, and as much Shakespeare and Spenser as he could understand. But games were, also, never out of his thoughts or his ambitions. He was physically strong and active then and for several years after ; in fact, till his law work began. He is the only person I have ever known to jump a cow as it stood." From Lille, Charles Bowen was sent to Black- heath Proprietary School, where he remained for three years, learning, amongst other good things, to be an excellent cricketer. Here the character and powers of the young student made themselves distinctly apparent. In September, 1850, we find the Rev. E. J. Selwyn, the Head-master, writing to Dr. Goulburn, Head-master of Rugby, with reference to Charles's entrance at a public school. He speaks of his appetite for knowledge in every Digitized by Microsoft® ELACKHEATH SCHOOL. 1 5 branch of learning, and " his capability for acquiring and digesting and retaining it as of a very remark- able order," His capabilities had, it would seem, been severely tested. "Among the subjects he has read with me," says Mr. Selwyn, "are the ' Hecuba,' the ' Medea,' and the ' Ajax,' the first book of Herodotus, a good deal of the ' Cyropaedia,' some of the orations of Demosthenes, several books of Homer, a good many Idylls of Theocritus, and the first book of Thucydides ; and, in Latin, most of Horace, a good many Orations of Cicero, the third book of the * De Officiis,' nearly the whole of the ' De Oratore,' and, I think, the Georgics. As far as my recollection serves me, this is a tolerably accurate account of his reading, though it does not include all. In composition he is quite as successful as I have ever found boys of his age, and in Latin Elegiacs his advance has been lately rather remark- able : a fatal facility is sometimes his bane in this particular. Indeed, his chief defect is an occasional tendency to inaccuracy, but not at all remarkable in a boy so young and so advanced." He had suffered, Mr. Selwyn thought, "from the absence of the kind of support which the society of active and honourable rivals always furnishes to boys of an aspiring disposition. His temperament is very Digitized by Microsoft® 1 6 LORD BOWEN. [1850. nervous and excitable ; a harsh word will easily disconcert him, and he readily forms attachments to those who are set over him, and will take pride in pleasing them." "In respect of moral character," Mr. Selwyn goes on to say, " I would willingly believe that he is even a pious boy ; or, if that be a quality beyond the range of our power to certify with perfect security, he is, at least, all that a boy may be, short of that. Of the soundness of his principles and the genuine- ness and sincerity of his motives, I have never had the shadow of a doubt. Of his truthfulness and love of truth in others I have the highest opinion, and I can bear strong testimony to his unflinching adherence to the truth under all circumstances. The excellent manner in which he has been brought up under the immediate and unfailing care of his parents manifests itself in him most conspicuously. I dare not say that he has been tested yet as he will be tested at Rugby, where the temptations and other incentives to err are probably so much greater than at Blackheath. When, however, the time comes that shall try him, I shall indeed be surprised if he be found not to stand the test." Amply indeed did Charles Bowen justify this agreeable prophecy. In 1850 he was entered at Digitized by Microsoft® RUGBY. 1 7 Rugby in the School House, then presided over by Dr. Goulburn, who had, some months previously, become Head-master of the school. Bowen and several other clever new-comers — amongst them Robinson Ellis, now Professor of Latin at Oxford, and T. H. Green, the well-known tutor at Balliol — were placed in the Upper Fifth, the highest Form in which the rules of the school permitted a new boy to begin his Rugby career. The master of this Form was Mr. Bradley, the present Dean of Westminster. Besides his master in Form, each boy had a private tutor, and the tutor, in the first instance, selected for Charles Bowen was the Rev. G. E. L. Cotton, subsequently Head-master of Marlborough and Bishop of Calcutta. Mr. Bradley was not long in discovering that it was no ordinary pupil with whom he had to deal. He describes him as a boy to whom his heart at once went out — full of life, energy, and interest in all things, quick in intellectual movement, voracious in literary appetite — altogether delightfully clever. " I remember," says Mr. H. T. Rhoades, one of Charles Bowen's school-fellows at Rugby, " his arrival at school. He came in the middle of the term, the evening before the whole holiday, on which nearly every boy made some excursion for c Digitized by Microsoft® 1 8 LORD BOWEN. [1852. the day. I was living in the town, and, as our families were acquainted, I went to the School House to get him to spend the day with us ; and, much to my surprise, I found him in the dormitory, reading ' Alcestis ' for his amusement." At the end of the first half-year, Charles Bowen's and Robinson Ellis's names appeared at the head of the list. This involved their promotion to the "Twenty," a Form which intervened between the Fifth and Sixth. Charles Bowen thus passed from Mr. Bradley's Form instruction. In 1852, however, on Mr. Cotton's appointment to Marlborough, Bowen became Mr. Bradley's private pupil, and continued to be so for the rest of his Rugby career. He and seven or eight other pupils were constantly in their tutor's study. A close and intimate friend- ship was cemented between the two, and Mr. Bradley obtained a fuller insight into the young scholar's extraordinary gifts. " There was," writes Dean Bradley, "a great power in him of covering quickly a large and varied field of work. In this, I have had no pupil at Rugby who could be compared with him. I remember well how, in his last year and a half, he would bring me his 'Corpus Poetarum,' and I would suggest to him large portions of Lucretius, as well as of later poets— Digitized by Microsoft® FIRST SUCCESSES. 19 Juvenal, Martial, Lucan, and even Claudian — for private reading ; and I remember the surprise with which I have received his request for more, showing me how much he had contrived to read since he had last consulted me." Such powers and such diligence produced the natural result. Honours soon began to rain apace. The Rugby Miscellany for 1853 records a prize poem on "Venice," recited by Charles Bowen in Rugby School on June 21st. In the same year he was successful in gaining the prize for the Parker Theological Essay, by a disquisition on " The Several Parts of Public Worship, and their relation to each other as illustrated by the Morning and Evening Services of the Church.'' Opinions will differ, probably, as to the wisdom of inviting lads of seventeen to enter upon a grave theological disquisition, and to display a familiarity with a host of Fathers, Divines, and other ecclesiastical mag- nates, which it would be equally impossible and undesirable that they should really enjoy. Charles Bowen's essay was, however, a remarkable perform- ance. The extraordinary diligence which charac- terized all his work was apparent in an imposing array of authorities ; grave opinions are enumerated with the solemnity which the occasion demanded, Digitized by Microsoft® 20 LORD BOWEN, [1853-4. and a rich profusion of theological lore, skilfully- thrown into artistic form, reaped its appropriate reward in the eulogium of a learned prelate, the Bishop of Winchester, who wrote to congratulate Mr, Bowen on a son of such fine theological promise. Other successes were soon to come. In 1854 C. Bowen won the Queen's Medal for Modern History and the prize for a Latin essay. In November, 1853, he went up to Oxford as a can- didate for the Balliol Scholarship, and came back to school having achieved this much- coveted distinction. " I never before or since," says Dean Bradley, " in my long experience as a schoolmaster, wrote the usual formal testimonial for a pupil of whose success I felt so absolutely certain. He remained at Rugby till the following summer, and was, I need hardly say, quite the heroic figure in the society of his con- temporaries. His high spirit, his high principles, his great humour, his prominence in all outdoor school amusements and pursuits, secured him the affection of his friends, and the homage (for it almost amounted to that) of the mass of his schoolfellows," This hero-worship was, no doubt, intensified by an episode which, about this time, presented the young scholar to an admiring world in an attitude Digitized by Microsoft® A SCHOOL CHAMPION. 21 which all could appreciate — that of the physical champion of an injured cause. It was the fashion of that day to call in question the Monitorial System, which Dr. Arnold had established with such marked success at Rugby, and which the other great English schools were hastening to introduce. Prominent among the assailants was the Daily News, and a representative of that journal happened to be at Rugby when an incident — of common enough occurrence in school-life — seemed to offer excellent material for a fresh assault. Three little boys — none of them within measurable distance of the Sixth Form — got into a quarrel while out jumping. The quarrel ended in two of them pushing the third into a brook which he could not summon up courage to jump. A grotesque mis- representation of this childish squabble appeared in the Daily News, with an appropriate denunciation of the system under which such oppression could occur. Boyish indignation is quickly kindled, and Rugby was very indignant. As ill-luck would have it, Charles Bowen and the guilty newspaper corre- spondent crossed each other's paths. The school- hero promptly called the calumniator to account. An altercation ensued ; and how easy and natural the lapse from words to blows ! The proceeding Digitized by Microsoft® 22 LORD BOWEN. [1854. was a hazardous one, for Charles Bowen was, says the Dean of Wells, " two or three stone lighter than his antagonist, a burly man of forty, broad shouldered, six feet high, and powerful, fourteen stone." Fortune, however, favoured audacity. The man of letters succumbed to the youthful prowess of his assailant, and was forced to retreat, worsted, from the field — worsted, but not resourceless ; for the strong arm of the law was invoked, and Charles Bowen's joy of victory was sobered by the arrival of a summons to answer a charge of assault before a bench of Warwickshire magistrates. Things were beginning to look serious; there is extant a letter of Charles Bowen's to his brother, in which he sets out his case with studied moderation, and is evidently anxious as to the impression which the story might make upon his parents. Happily the Bench rose to the occasion, appreciated the exces- sive provocation which had betrayed the young Rugbeian to a deed of violence, and imposed a fine so nominal as to leave no doubt that the defendant's behaviour was more than half approved. The hero of the occasion returned to his co-mates more heroic than ever. There was, however, plenty of scope at Rugby for athletic distinctions of a less equivocal order. Digitized by Microsoft® RUGBY GAMES. 23 Charles Bowen had thrown himself with ardour into the games of the place,* attained the distinction — dearest of earthly honours to the schoolboy heart — of a place in the school Eleven, and became a redoubtable champion of the football field. Rugby football was then, as it is now, a somewhat rough form of amusement to those who took a prominent part in it, well calculated to stir the combatant to an angry mood. Nothing, however — not even the heat of physical encounter — could ruffle Bowen's urbanity, the sweetness of his temper. One of the comba- tants in those Homeric struggles still recalls the " angelic smile " with which Bowen, after carrying discomfiture into the enemy's ranks, and being himself the object of many rude assaults, would emerge from the fiercest football scrimmage. About this time Charles Bowen was within measurable distance of becoming a soldier, a pro- fession in which throughout life he took a lively interest, and for which he always felt a strong predilection. The war with Russia — the tragic excitements of Crimean battle-fields — were firing * The Dean of Wells, T. W. Jex-Blake, records an occasion in May, 185 1, on which Charles Bowen, then "a new fellow," created a sensation in a House Match between the School House and " Cotton's," by hitting Godfrey Lushington, the champion bowler of Cotton's, " for five to leg." Digitized by Microsoft® 24 LORD BOWEN. [1854. the blood of the youth of England, and Dean Bradley relates how, when a certain number of commissions were placed by the War Office at the disposal of the head-master, Bowen was sorely exercised in mind by the temptation of a military career. Some overtures to his father on the subject encountered, we may believe, a discouraging reception, for the idea was ultimately abandoned. Bowen was now too hard at work to indulge in day-dreams, military or other. His teachers, however, appear sometimes to have tried his temper. In a book of notes, taken under Dr. Goulburn's instruction, occurs a little outbreak of impatience. " I protest," writes the young student, "against taking these notes, and solemnly declare that I take them only under physical compulsion." Despite such occasional lapses, Charles Bowen proved himself a model scholar. In June, 1854, he left Rugby, his honours thick upon him. His crowning achievement was to win the First Exhibition, the examiners adding "Facile Princeps" to his name. His fame still lives in Rugby tradition. Bo^v dyado's became a school watchword, and Gray's ode — "Owen's praise demands my song, Owen swift and Owen strong" — was adapted to a later hero-worship by the addition Digitized by Microsoft® RUGBY HONOURS. 25 of an initial " B." " What impressed his contempo- raries," says Mr. H. T. Rhoades, " was the union of brilliance and sound qualities with great athletic powers. He gained the cup held by the winner of the greatest number of 'events' in the athletic games, and he was, without exception, the finest football-player I remember." Professor Robinson Ellis, Charles Bowen's friend and most formidable competitor at Rugby, furnishes some interesting reminiscences of their careers — of struggles in which victory fell sometimes to one, sometimes to the other ; of the resolution of each — successfully accomplished — to break the spell which for seven years had denied to Rugby the honour of a Balliol Scholarship ; and of tragic vicissitudes which shook the calm of schoolboy life : such, for instance, as Bowen's failure to win the prize for a Latin poem, which public opinion had accorded to him, owing to a critical objection taken by the com- position master to the expression " auratum Oriona," which Bowen had coined out of the Virgilian line — "Armatum que auro circumspicit Oriona," an abbreviation which his critic denounced as " un- classical and impossible," and which was instrumental in transferring the prize to a candidate of whom no one had ever thought. Digitized by Microsoft® 26 LORD BOWEN. [1854. "A wave of High Church sentiment was," Professor Ellis says, "at this time passing over Rugby School." Goulburn, who succeeded Dr. Tait, in 1850, had introduced many of the ritualistic innovations, which were then the symbols of Trac- tarianism. A Roman Catholic Church had recently been raised in a conspicuous spot adjoining the playing-fields ; three Rugby boys were believed to have "gone over," and sixth-form enthusiasts began to dream of possible reunion with Rome. Bowen showed but slight sympathy with the prevailing mood; nor was he impressed by the miracles re- corded by William of Malmesbury and Bede, whose chronicles had been admitted for study in the Sixth Form in lieu of the ordinary Greek or Latin history. "In 1852," says Professor Ellis, "table-turning became all the rage, and a passion for magnetic experiments invaded Rugby. We turned tables in our studies, and even in our bedrooms, and tried our magnetizing powers on each other. In this Bowen was remarkably successful. His eyes were strong and penetrating, and he succeeded in putting many of the boys on whom he experimented into a state of coma." Happily for the nerves of all parties, the head-master intervened, and put an end to this dangerous form of excitement. Digitized by Microsoft® ( 27 ) LIFE AT OXFORD. Charles Bowen went up to Oxford with all the prestige of a Balliol Scholarship, a first-rate school reputation for ability, and — still dearer dignity in schoolboys' eyes — a well-established fame in the athletic world. The boyish traditions, which grow so generously around a successful and popular com- rade, heralded his advent. Oxford received him with open arms. At Balliol he was especially welcome. The student set rejoiced in an accession which was certain to confer lustre on the College and the University. Cricketers hailed a valuable reinforcement to their ranks. The devotees of foot- ball, which the Rugby game was helping to bring into fashion, had heard of his prowess, and knew that a mighty man had come amongst them. All alike found in the new-comer a delightful acquisition for every gathering, where the charm of companion- ship could be quickened by high spirits, geniality,. Digitized by Microsoft® 28 LORD BOWEN. [1854- wit that played but never wounded, and fun that knew no touch of coarseness. There was a prejudice in those days against a somewhat pretentious superiority, which the Rugby system was supposed to engender, and which did not tend to conciliate outsiders. The Rugby monitor was supposed to pride himself on his " moral thoughtfulness ; " a scoffing world denounced him as a prig. There were those who thought that they discovered in Charles Bowen, on his first arrival at Oxford, a touch of this Rugbeian temper, lurking under an almost deferential urbanity of manner. If it were so, it speedily disappeared under the wholesome influences of the larger world to which he now belonged. No one was ever less anxious to pose as superior. His aim seemed rather to keep his superiority well out of sight. Life at the University, to those who enter upon it with Charles Bowen's advantages, is among the halcyon periods of human existence. Its freedom alike from the petty discipline of school and the anxieties of after-life, its absorbing interests, its varied enjoyments, its wide and unexplored fields of intellectual adventure, as the serious aims and pursuits of life break gradually into view ; the Digitized by Microsoft® SPIRIT OF REFORM AT OXFORD. 29 opportunities for friendship which present them- selves on every hand, and the capacity for hero- worship which such opportunities enkindle ; last, and not least, the inspiring genius of the place, its solemn beauty and charm, make up a whole which, to a sensitive and congenial temperament, scarcely falls short of fascination. Charles Bo wen entered with avidity upon the new and delightful chapter of his life. It was an exciting atmosphere for so ardent a nature to breathe. The old Conservative tastes and traditions of Oxford and the new spirit of Liberalism were meeting, like two opposing currents, and seething in conflict. Reform was in the air, but there were many to whom Reform implied the shock of all that was dearest and most sacred. The great theological movement, which had stirred the preceding gene- ration, had sunk into comparative quiescence. John Henry Newman no longer entranced an audience at Littlemore. The last of the distin- guished Oxford converts had passed the uncertain frontier which separated the domains of the Roman and Anglican Churches. Religious controversy was no longer the topic of the hour, and was tabooed at social gatherings. The affectation of Roman modes of thought and Roman ceremonial had Digitized by Microsoft® 30 LORD BOWEN. [1854. ceased to be in vogue, and was even liable to a little contemptuous persecution.* The Reform movement of the earlier years of the century, which the High Church reaction for a while superseded, had resumed its course. To the theological move- ment had succeeded another, with as serious a spirit and an even wider scope. There were leading spirits at Oxford, who saw that the English Universities had fallen from their original ideal, and were missing their true function as national centres of education. They were courageous innovators. They had resolved not only that Oxford should open her gates to the nation at large ; but that her teaching and system should be brought into touch with the wants, convictions and difificulties of modern England. She should no longer continue to be the stronghold of obsolete methods, the rallying-point of respectable abuses, the home, as Mr. Bright said, of dead languages and undying * " I remember," said the late Mr. C. H. Pearson, a distinguished Oxonian of a rather earlier date, "a debating society of young Churchmen, which so irritated the Protestantism or the common sense of a rather sporting college by carrying a resolution that 'St. Augustine's interference with the British Church was uncatholic and uncalled for,' that, at the next meeting, the orators were dispersed by the agency of hot pepper, thrown into the room, and saluted with a baptism little short of total immersion as they left the Quad." Digitized by Microsoft® BALLIOL COLLEGE. 3^ prejudices, but should become a great instrument for moulding the character and guiding the lives of the on-coming generation, and, through it, of the nation at large. Her sons were to be sent out — not mere Churchmen or scholars — but fully equipped for the struggle to which their age would commit them — in intelligent sympathy with their fellow- strugglers, fitted to appreciate and to co-operate with all that was best, truest, and highest in modern life. Among the centres, where the spirit of reform made itself especially felt, was Balliol College. Dr. Jenkyns, the Master, a vigorous and far-sighted administrator — despite some foibles and eccentrici- ties with which his contemporaries were accustomed to make merry — had been laying, deep and strong, the foundations of the future greatness of the College. He was insistent in improving wherever improve- ment seemed possible, in perfecting the discipline and education of the place, and in collecting, for the purpose, a group of tutors whose zeal and abilities were destined, at no distant date, to carry Balliol to the foremost rank as a seat of learning. Prominent among them was Benjamin Jowett, whose influence on those who came within his reach had been felt, year by year, in an ever- widening circle, though still narrow as compared with that of later times. At Digitized by Microsoft® 32 LORD BOWEN. [1854. this period he was chiefly known to the outside world as a courageous and original thinker, and as the advocate of views on various theological topics, which were regarded in orthodox circles as dangerous innovations. His Commentary on Three Pauline Epistles seemed to the general English reader — whom, in those days, the research and learned speculations of Germany had scarcely reached — to mark the initiative of a revolutionary epoch in Biblical interpretation. Such a man makes his influence felt on friend and foe. The upholders of plenary and literal inspiration — and they were neither few nor uninfluential — were scandalized and alarmed. The echoes of the controversy fluttered the dovecots of many a snug common-room and quiet country parsonage. A few years later, Jowett emphasized his position as a reformer by his par- ticipation in a collection of " Essays and Reviews," which speedily became notorious as a quasi-authori- tative announcement of a progressive propaganda in matters theological. The frightened champions of orthodoxy are not apt to be too scrupulous in their attacks on a supposed heresiarch. Some of the attacks on Jowett were, to say the best of them, ungenerous, and aroused the sympathetic indignation of his friends. The well-meaning combatants, who Digitized by Microsoft® BALLIOL COLLEGE. 33 flocked up to Oxford from country parishes to vote against the endowment of Jowett's Chair, forgot that to curtail an author's salary is not an effectual method of refuting him. The attempted persecution of Jowett, at any rate, appealed to all that was generous in the undergraduate mind. Bowen early became, and remained throughout, his warm ally. It was inevitable that the two men should become close friends. Jowett found in Bowen the ideal student of his hopes and vows. Bowen became, year by year, more impressed with the Master's excellence, wisdom and far-reaching kindness. His friendship for Jowett, and the sincere loyalty and devotion with which he regarded him, were, I be- lieve, among the one or two most powerful external influences which moulded Charles Bowen's tastes and sympathies and shaped the course of his life. Another of the Balliol tutors was Lake, the present Dean of Durham, an accomplished scholar of a different cast of thought from that of Jowett, and exercising a less active personal influence on undergraduates, but, nevertheless, one of the lead- ing spirits of the college. Among the junior tutors were Riddell, a bright, charming, saintly character, well equipped with the refined scholarship for which Shrewsbury School was justly famed; and Edwin Digitized by Microsoft® 34 LORD BOWEN. C1854. Palmer, the late Archdeacon of Oxford, younger brother of the late Lord Selborne — one of a trio of brothers of whose attainments Oxford is justly- proud. Henry Smith was lecturer in mathematics, and was loyally devoting his extraordinary powers to the task of education. Bowen at a later date became his pupil, and, at the time of his death, bore testimony in language of fitting beauty to the almost unique combination of moral and intellectual excellences which presented itself in this splendidly endowed nature.* It was no small privilege, certainly, which the members of Balliol at this period enjoyed. The scholars formed a corps dUite, whose prestige was unquestioned, and whose standard effected the surrounding level of industry and thought. It had, moreover, become the custom to invite such of the unsuccessful candidates as had attracted notice in the Scholarship Examinations, to enter the college as commoners ; and Balliol thus gathered to itself the flower of the public schools, and contained a class of men distinctly above the average of under- graduate ability. * The article in the Spectator of February i, 1883, reprinted as " Recollections by Lord Bowen " among the " Biographical Sketches of Henry J. S. Smith " (Oxford : Clarendon Press), is an excellent specimen of Bowen's style in journalism. Digitized by Microsoft® BALLIOL COLLEGE. 35 Amongst the Balliol men of Bowen's own standing were Newman, a serious and profound student, the promise of whose early career was, unhappily, clouded by a breakdown of health; Merry, 6p9ws iiravvfio?, whose lot, at a much later stage, it was, as Public Orator, to commemorate Charles Bowen's death among the losses of the year; Cordery, hovering between literary sestheti- cism and the sterner studies of the schools, but brilliant in each alike; Blomfield, a son of the Bishop of London, himself in later years a bishop, endowed with an hereditary aptitude for classical niceties, and a dry and caustic wit; Warre, the present Head-master of Eton, in those days much renowned as a sturdy oarsman ; E. H. C. Herbert, a young man of rare charm and promise, who entered the diplomatic service, was employed at Athens, and met a tragic fate at the hands of brigands at Marathon. Among Charles Bowen's more intimate college friends were Arthur Austen Leigh, now Vicar of Wargrave ; Alexander Craig Sellar, of whose services in and out of Parliament the Liberal Unionist party has so grateful a recollection ; and Bullock-Hall, now the hospitable lord of Six Mile Bottom, who had formed on the Rugby cricket- Digitized by Microsoft® 36 LORD BOWEN. [1854. ground a friendship with Bowen, which became confirmed at college, and lasted, in undiminished vigour, to the end. W. G. Cole, now Rector of Newbold Verdun, in Leicestershire, was at this time a scholar of Trinity ; the separation of colleges, however, had done nothing to impair the warm affection which had grown up between the two at Rugby, and which continued unabated throughout life. Of senior men outside the college, who formed a part of Charles Bowen's surroundings, there were, besides Henry Smith, Sir Alexander Grant, re- nowned as an expositor of Aristotelian philosophy ; T. C. Sandars, an expert in Roman law, who was on several occasions Bowen's tutor, one of the men of whose rare gifts of wit, learning and wisdom the world never knows, but who for many years con- tributed to enrich the periodical literature of his country; George Brodrick, the genial and accom- plished Warden of Merton, who had known Bowen from childhood, and to whose recollections of his friend I have been largely indebted in the prepara- tion of the present sketch. Horace Davey had already established a reputation, which his profes- sional career has not belied, and was displaying in the schools the intellectual prowess which has carried him to the House of Lords. John Conington, Digitized by Microsoft® OXFORD FRIENDS. 37 though much of a recluse, was widely known and admired as among the most accomplished Latinists of his day ; and Goldwin Smith, master of a style of unsurpassed brilliancy and force, was warring fiercely upon all — friend or foe — who had the misfortune to cross his path and to provoke his somewhat indiscriminate combativeness. Arthur Butler, no unworthy member of a family of scholars, was widely esteemed for culture and geniality ; Jex-Blake, unconscious of the awaiting doom of Head Masterships and Deaneries, was dividing his thoughts between academic honours and the triumphs of the hunting-field ; George Goschen, leader of distinguished Rugbeians, was hurried away from academic triumphs to no less pronounced eminence in the world of politics and finance ; and Charles Pearson, an Oriel Fellow of distinction, whose failing health, a few years later, drove him to Australia, where he rose high in the sphere of education and politics, and gathered, it must be feared, from a somewhat gruesome .experience, the materials for the gloomy vaticinations of the future of humanity with which he startled Society a year or two ago. At Wadham Richard Congreve had for years been making his presence felt as a man of courageous thought, strong grasp, and intellectual Digitized by Microsoft® 38 LORD BOWEN. [1854-60. acumen. He was an acknowledged authority on historical subjects, and had gathered around him a small but distinguished circle of admirers, who became in later years the interpreters to their country of the doctrines of Comte, and the pro- tagonists of Positivism. An atmosphere charged with intellectual and spiritual forces so powerful and so conflicting, was not likely to remain long undisturbed. The new ideas craved expression. The series of "Oxford Essays," edited by T. C. Sandars, made its first appearance in 1854, and struck a new note of literary activity. Henry Smith, in his essay on the plurality of worlds, boldly challenged the great authority of Whewell, and gave the world a fore- taste of his extraordinary gifts. A few years later the plan of the " Oxford Essays " was abandoned ; but in "Essays and Reviews" a more systematic attempt was made to liberalize English theology, to enlarge the limits of the freedom which clergy- men of the English Church might lawfully enjoy, and, especially, to place Biblical criticism and the whole theory of Biblical interpretation on a sounder and more intelligent basis. A writer in the Edinburgh Review— \i\ras,ei.i a redoubtable cham- pion of any cause in which religious freedom was Digitized by Microsoft® ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 39 concerned — has given a graphic account of the fierce controversy which ensued, and the sort of panic which spread through the ranks of the more con- servative order of Churchmen. It gradually became apparent that much which the authors of " Essays and Reviews" alleged — however startling to the uninformed — had long been familiar to erudite theologians, and had even been avowed by them, though in language less aggressively crude. Some needlessly offensive phrases demanded apology ; but when these had been condoned, the result was found not to transcend the liberty of judgment accorded by the Church of England to her ministers. While these high combats shook the upper air, the tide of practical reform was flowing in lower regions with a force and rapidity which struck timorous obstructives with consternation. One by one, in rapid succession, the traditional safeguards began to totter, to crumble, to disappear. A Royal Commission threw wide the gates of the University to all who wished to enter, irrespective of creed. The obligation of celibacy, which had given to the tutorial body something of a conventual character, was treated as an obsolete survival of monasticism. The monopolizing supremacy of classics and philo- sophy as topics of education was successfully Digitized by Microsoft® 40 LORD BOWEN. [1854-60. disputed. Logic and the refinements of the School- men began to wear a pedantic and medieeval air. Physical science, in all the audacity and self-confi- dence of youth, boldly asserted her claims, and the Aristophanic sarcasm, Aii^os fiaa-Ckeiei rov At" i^€K7]\xiKco<;, seemed in course of realization. There was, naturally, much alarm, and something of the indiscriminating antagonism which alarm engenders. Fierce assaults were delivered at any point which seemed assailable. Stanley and Jowett stood out as obvious objects of attack. "Jowett- baiting," writes Sir Mountstuart Grant-Duff, "was, indeed, the favourite amusement of the united forces of Anglo-Catholic, High and Dry Anglican, and Evangelical Parsondom. I remember that, on one occasion, I think in 1864, we were all summoned to go down to vote in Convocation about some changes in the curriculum. Shortly afterwards we were again summoned, as a grand Jowett-bait was im- pending in the same august assembly. Some one in the train, on the way to Oxford, said, ' I really think that we may win to-day about Jowett's salary. The country clergy came up in such numbers to vote about that educational question, that they will hardly go to the trouble and expense of coming again.' ' Won't they ? ' said Bowen ; ' they will Digitized by Microsoft® OLD WAYS AND NEW. 4 1 think that education is a bad thing, but that justice is a worse, and they will come in hundreds,' which was precisely what they did." This story, though belonging to a somewhat later stage of Charles Bowen's career, well illustrates the influences which were acting on him from the outset of his University life. He found around him, on all hands, men bent on improvement, eager to remove inequalities and disabilities, anxious to throw open to the nation at large the advantages which had hitherto been the monopoly of a privileged class. In another sphere he saw new aspects of theological opinion presented with all the force of research, ability and insight, and confronted by an opposition which — if it may be said without disrespect — was not always intelligent, generous, or well informed. Opinion has marched so fast the last forty years, that it is not easy to realize the position from the standpoint of the oncoming generation of that day, and the alternatives which presented themselves for acceptance. I remember, for instance, hearing a distinguished member of his party, preaching to the University in St. Mary's Church, advance with vehemence the proposition that the Christian religion, indeed all religious belief, would be fatally undermined if the authority or authenticity of a Digitized by Microsoft® 42 LORD BOWEN. [1854-60. single word, " a jot or tittle," of the accepted canon were allowed to be called in question. Another leader, justly eminent as orator and scholar, devoted his fine powers to explaining to the undergraduate conscience the grounds on which the Athanasian Creed must be regarded as an essential part of the Christian's panoply, and an unfailing source of peace and joy to the reflective mind. On another occasion a much-esteemed prelate enforced the wavering orthodoxy of his audience by the stern truth that errors of opinion were, if sin was to be weighed against sin, sins of a deeper dye and involving graver consequences to the sinner than mere peccadilloes against morality. Compare views such as these with Professor Jowett's erudite and deeply considered essays on Biblical authority, and on the true purport of " Inspiration," or with the generous appreciation of excellence and nobility which breathes through every line that Stanley wrote, and can it be a matter of surprise that undergraduates of Charles Bowen's temperament should have espoused with enthusiasm the cause, as it seemed to them, of justice, truth, and common sense ? Charles Bowen became and remained for life a reformer; remained, too, the affectionate disciple and friend of the man who Digitized by Microsoft® THE "IRELAND." 43 bore the main brunt of the encounter, and enjoyed the chief honours of the persecution — Benjamin Jowett, Bowen's list of academical successes was a long one. In 1855 he succeeded, at his first trial, in winning the " Hertford," the blue ribbon of Latin scholarship at Oxford. Two years later he won the " Ireland," the other great classical distinction of the University. His letter to his friend Cole, in reply to a letter of congratulation on this achievement, will be appreciated by Balliol men, who remember the College jokes to which it refers. " Dear Cole, " Many thanks for your very acceptable letter of congratulation, which made good fortune itself more agreeable. It is these little tokens of epistolary intercourse which set the seal of heaven upon the sea of life. I was, of course, much pleased to hear of the result of the examination, which I did as I was a-playing rackets with M. Pattison, in the identical court where I was fortunate enough to hear of the Hertford. It was after a brilliant and extraordinary manoeuvre of that learned individual, resembling in all important particulars a series of charges of the heaviest cavalry, that Palmer appeared at the door with gladness in his gaze. The following conversation of the most exciting and intense nature then ensued, strictly Digitized by Microsoft® 44 LORD BOWEN. [iSsS- resembling that which used actually to occur at the most important crises of Greek life. Palmer. avSjOee ig /xoi fir}Kog ektuvov Xoyov. Palmer. OsXeig aKoieiv ttuvO' aji i^uprifiiva ' Bowen. ri jut} OiXovm Oarspov ir/oo/3aXXErat. Palmer, twg av sKfiaOi^g TTor ^av)((i)g EX^fv. " Here followed two or three pages of beautiful and polished Greek dialogue, at the end of which Palmer observed — ' Ef/SEjovtav (rvviadi aoi Kiicrrifiivoj).' " Chorus of animated M. Pattisons, in slightly inferior Greek to that which formed the medium of communication between the celebrated individuals above. 'loVf lov, lav fioi\a S^ * irus ffe vpoffel'iru ; t/ Se (roi \e^U) ; & eiSal/uDv,