Complete works of samuel.., p.365
Complete Works of Samuel Butler, page 365
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FROM BARON MERIAN.
“January 24th, 1823.
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“Pray push Mr. Whiter to send me his letter. ’Tis a great drama we are about, and he has opened the scene. Whatever is printed here of that sort shall be sent to you. It has been found that nine hundred years ago the Chinese had paper money (banknotes) just as we have, and with the same vicissitudes of rising and falling, the same wry remedies, etc. But that’s another chapter.
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“Two circumstances make a man rise: favour, which you disdain; and merit, which you possess — but merit often subsides when it is not supported by what the French call ‘la force des choses,’ a power infinitely more powerful than the ‘force des hommes.’ We Christians might call it the views and decrees of Providence. You will never get a bishop’s mitre and crook for your sake: you will get them for the sake of your flock — not because you have friends, but because you are a bishopable man.”
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TO THE REV. T. S. HUGHES.
(Original in possession of addressee’s representatives.)
“March 12 th, 1823.
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“What you tell me about your projected review interests me much more. If you can effect a change in the present disgraceful system of public classical examinations and awards of prizes you will do a great thing. I have lately conversed with Parr, Dobree, and Blomfield on this subject, who are all quite of my opinion. The utter ignorance of all Latinity which allows such detestable verse and prose to go forth to the world under the shape of odes and essays is an ceternum opprobrium to the University. I must write to you again on this subject if I can. I know that ‘ Eubulus’ had an intention of putting forth a pamphlet on that subject, and that he was deterred by fearing he should be misunderstood by the young men, who might suppose he was criticising them instead of their judges. I suggested a plan to him by which this difficulty might be avoided, but other occupations, I believe, will prevent him from undertaking it. And here, in strict confidence, let me give you a piece of advice which you may do well to profit by. If you are disposed to fall foul upon ‘Eubulus,’ read temperately and dispassionately his two pamphlets, and do not petulantly think to write him down. He is not one whom it is wise to provoke, and I know he has an esteem for you, and is your well-wisher, and inclined to think of you as highly as I believe he does contemptuously of ‘ Philograntus.’ I give you this piece of advice in the strictest confidence, but you must profit or not by it as you please. And let me give you another hint: do not toady anybody in your review. I heartily wish you well on your marriage and your subsequent plans.”
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FROM BARON MERIAN.
“May 13 th, 1823.
“DEAR SIR, — Nothing can be more judicious than the rules which you lay down for the investigation of Analogy. I am bound to say so, because they are the very same which we follow. Nay, we make use of a printed formulary (first sketched by the Empress Catherina II.), containing about three hundred chief words of the identical classes which you mention. Bread, however, is perhaps not quite proper, as being an artefactum which many nations have been and some arc still without.
“Grammar (inflexions) is less important than Roots; roots are the inalterable stuff, grammatical accidents are the variable forms; it signifies little that the Germans say hack-end and the English hack-ing, or the Romans po-orum and the English ‘of the por-es,’ the first syllable, i e the root, being decisive. I call here par a root, though, strictly spoken, gutturals only can form roots.
“The expression ‘fas coming from fa’ is not quite in our style; fas comes not from fa, and fit comes not from fas. They are not father and son; but, as you yourself perfectly indite, they are ‘brothers and sisters’ sprung from one general idea and primitive verb, fa, pa, or ha (cry, speak), which you will meet with in fifty distant places, modified into φά-<ο, φη-μί, fa-or, for, bo-o, βο-άω, as you jusily observe. The Chinese have preserved fa and pa (Deguignes, 1118, 1157, 11683).
“Lex (legs) belongs not to lego in the sense of ‘read’; it might belong to λίγω in the sense of ‘say’; but in fact it belongs to λέγω in the sense of ‘lay,’
‘lay down.’ (Compare the second line of this letter, and Ge-setz, setze, statutum, statuo, θεσμός, θίω, etc.)
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“At present and in the meanwhile, if you should not be convinced of the truth of the axiom that all languages are one language (which you may well doubt of, since you have yet seen but a very small part of the proofs), pray let me ask you but one moderate favour — suspend your judgement. Say not No. The axiom is not to be demonstrated — it is already demonstrated on this side the Channel; and you and your English friends, who in a short time must become the chief supporters and most zealous proclaimants of a doctrine which the immortal Whiter (whom, by-the-bye, his countrymen did not understand, and therefore not extol) roused — you, gentlemen, I say, will once thank an old honest Continental correspondent for having preserved you from an otherwise unavoidable retraction. Fight against us as much as you can day and night, you will please and oblige us, but do not condemn us unheard. No jury would.”
FROM THE REV. (AFTERWARDS ARCHDEACON) R. W. EVANS.
“TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, June 8th, 1823.
“MY DEAR SIR, — You have learned from my brother that Dobree has announced himself a candidate, and the πτηνών
“Ever your sincere and grateful “R. W. EVANS.”
Professor Dobree died in 1825; but Mr. Evans, finding that he could not attend both to his duties as ‘a tutor of Trinity and to those of the Greek Professorship, did not offer himself as a candidate.
FROM BARON MERIAN.
“June 16 th, 1823.
“‘ I believe we mean pretty much the same thing in most respects’ — Dr. S. Butler. Most certainly, and this is my pride. Could it be thought that I should maintain any literary scheme which you, upon examination, had rejected? Never. Truth is the same everywhere, and what men like you cannot acknowledge to be truth is not truth, and therefore no food for me.
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“The name of ‘Eubulus’ I shall not mention; but it is so very characteristic that children, I think, might guess the man.
“I consider your rnagna et pmclara CantabridgLnsia as of the greatest importance. Cambridge by these means, and by these alone, can speedily overtop Oxford. Cambridge must enlarge its basis. Classic studies are very fine and elegant, and mathesis is a very sure and certain discipline. But they are both small — nay, very small — parts of human knowledge, all the chief parts of which ought to be taught at such places as call themselves Uniiersitas. Let every branch take its appropriate place, but let not some, like parasitic plants, eat up the tree. Besides, even classical studies cannot be carried ‘on as they ought without more general views, nor without previous notions of the whole of which they are a fraction.
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“Young has stung Champollion. About a month hence Champollion will sting Young. But I conjecture that the English sting will be the deeper, for ’tis one thing to discover, and another to improve. Cura ante utrtnia ut vakas. Eris tunc ex ornniparte beatus. Have.
“P.S. — A true French invention. You have heard of the Zodiac of Denderah which is now at Paris in the Louvre, but has not answered the expectations of the savants. Well, to provide it with an antiquity which it has not, what have they imagined? In the royal Louvre a sculptor has been ordered to add a face behind a face already insculpted on it, and so we nova see a Janus instead of the former simple face.”
FROM B. H. KENNEDY, ESQ. (AFTERWARD? REV.).
“BIRMINGHAM, June 28th, 1823.
“DEAR AND REVERED SIR. — My father and myself feel extremely grateful for your kindness in sending the certificate to the Master of St. John’s, and in suggesting the corrections, which were sent the same day to Mr. Hastings Robinson, and will, I hope, answer in time. I wrote without any idea of success, and of course the news was most unexpected; but I may safely say that I then felt, and still feel, more pleasure in being the first Johnian and the first Salopian who has gained the Porson Prize than in any consideration of a personal nature, and that in my academical career the honour of my school and college will predominate over every other feeling. I trust my present success will not lead me into folly of any kind, but will rather prove a stimulus to future exertion. Of course I feel, and every one knows, that I am indebted to you for any honour I obtain, and this will be an additional excitement. I have now nearly regained my strength, and country air has done all the good that Dr. J. Johnstone promised. I regretted my illness principally because it removed me from school before I could express my warm gratitude to you and Mrs. Butler for all your kindness to me while under your care.
“With kindest remembrances to Mrs and Miss Butler and Tom, I remain your grateful and affectionate pupil, “BENJAMIN H. KENNEDY.
“P.S. — I will send copies of the prize compositions when printed and the Latin Ode by Marindin.”
The following note was appended to this letter by the late Professor Kennedy about a month before his death, nearly sixty-five years after the original letter was written: —
“I had sent from school a translation for the Porson Prize, and also a Latin Ode. Both were selected for the Prize, but the Porson Prize only was adjudged to me, because a grace had already been passed restricting the Browne medals to candidates in residence. My letter refers to these matters.”
FROM BARON MERIAN.
“July 3rd, 1823.
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“You have been unwell j it is not right. Every fair cause, every good and just thing, wants and finds your support. You cannot be spared in these times. Cambridge is deeply indebted to you. But is your life perhaps too full of agitation? Are your pursuits too numerous? Be not too eager; coolness and diet make long lives, and Nestor was more useful than Achilles. Your family, your friends, England cannot spare so much learning and so much sense and so much probity. Greet the stout and nuptial defender of the Greeks. How is his sister? Still incloistere dl.”
“Still incloistered “refers to Miss Hughes’s marriage with the Dean of Peterborough (Monk).
The affectionate pride which Dr. Butler took in his illustrious pupil will appear more fully later, when it will be seen how ardently desirous he was that none but Kennedy should succeed him, nor can I remember without pleasure how fully his sagacity was justified by the event.
Kennedy’s triumph in 1823 was only once surpassed in Dr. Butler’s time: I mean in 1831, when Brancker, while still in the sixth form at Shrewsbury — a boy in jacket and turn-down collars — came up to Oxford, where he was not yet entered, and took the Ireland Scholarship against the whole University, and among other candidates the still living and ever-youthful Mr. Gladstone. When Kennedy took the Porson, Cambridge changed her rules, so as to protect her resident alumni from being beaten by schoolboys, however brilliant. I have always heard, but must confess that I have not verified the statement, that Oxford did the like as regards the Ireland Scholarship on its being taken by Brancker. I believe, therefore, that Dr. Butler may claim to have been the only schoolmaster who ever compelled both Oxford and Cambridge to change their regulations in consequence of defeats inflicted upon them by his as yet non-resident pupils.
How warmly and generously Dr. Kennedy to the end of his life recognised the assistance rendered to his own great talents and exertions by his training under Dr. Butler will appear from the following letter (already partly quoted from in my Introduction) to the Rev. G. Sandford on the system at Shrewsbury during his own schooldays.
“May 5th, 1887.
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“Homer was always one lesson a week. Some Greek play was always in hand. Demosthenes was a favourite author of his, and we did some Thucydides, but not a great deal, and no Plato that I remember. In Latin Cicero, Virgil, and Horace were his favourite books, always to the fore.
“History and geography were never neglected. He had the upper fifth along with the sixth to most lessons. He was of course an excellent scholar, and no ordinary teacher, but his crowning merit was the establishment of an emulative system, in which talent and industry always gained their just recognition and reward in good examinations.
“This it was that made his school so successful and so great. Added to this he always advised and recommended private reading, and to my obedience to this oft-repeated recommendation it was that I owed my scholarship and my success at Cambridge, for I had read a great deal privately before I went to college — all Thucydides, all Tacitus, all Sophocles, and Aischylus, much Aristophanes, Pindar, Herodotus, Demosthenes, and Plato, besides Cicero.
“I think 1 have said all that I can say, and you may be sure that Dr. Butler had no pupil more appreciative of his merits, or more grateful for his teaching, or more anxious to follow his steps than I have been always.”
CORRESPONDENCE, AUGUST 17TH, 1823 — APRIL 19TH, 1824.
FROM THE REV. WILLIAM SHEPHERD.
“GATEACRE, NEAR LIVERPOOL, August 17th, 1823.
“MY DEAR SIR, — In making a trespass on your kindness I must beg you to pardon the liberty which I take, to which, however, I am emboldened by the recollection of friendly communications with which you have honoured and gratified me in former times.
“I have been requested by the congregation of Protestant dissenters meeting in Moseley Street, Manchester, to write an epitaph on their late minister, Mr. Hawkes. This epitaph, contrary to my advice, they will have in Latin. Well knowing how keenly these compositions are examined, I am anxious not to commit myself by any violation of taste or of grammar; and I wish to submit my labour to your critical judgement. To any communication you may please at your earliest leisure to make to me on the subject I shall pay the most deferential attention.
MS.
GULIELMI HAWKES
HUJUS ECCLESIAE
OLIM ANTISTITIS VIRI GRAVIS
LITER ARUMQVE SACRARUM
DOCTISSIMI QUI PRAECEPTA VIRTUTIS
QLLE ORATIONE
LUCULENTER EXPOSUIT
ACERRIMEQVE SUASIT
VITA ILLUSlRAVIT
“I am aware that ecclesia in the sense of a church (i e a building) is rather divinity than classical Latin, though it is so used in the Pandects. But is not templi too ambitious for a Presbyterian meeting-house? In fact, as you probably know, we attach no sacredness to our buildings. The essence of our system is the congregation (in this we differ from the Church of Ireland, where congregations are scarce articles), to which ecclesia, if admissible, will well apply. I have no books of topography or collection of epitaphs to which I can refer for authority.”
TO THE REV. W. SHEPHERD.
[About August 18th, 1823.]
“DEAR SIR, — If you use ‘ecclesia’ in theological Latin, you must use ‘ antistes’ in theological Latin, and as far as I know it is generally used for that abomination of your flock — a bishop. Therefore I object to ‘antistes.’ I object to ‘ecclesia,’ unless you mean to say that you are members of the Established Church — which you do not.
“Don’t mistake me — I do not mean to say that you, as a congregation of Christians, are not a Church in that sense; but if you were the Established Church in this country, and we were not, you would be right in using the word, and we should be wrong. I should say that I had no right to use the words ‘hujus ecclesiæ’ in writing the epitaph of a clergyman of the Church of England who officiated in an episcopal parish in Scotland or in Italy. You will tell me that an εκκλησία is an assembly, a congregation. So say I — but I say that the usage of εκκλησία in this country is to designate a church, not a meetinghouse, and I therefore object to ‘ecclesiæ.’ In my supposed case I should say ‘sacelli,’ but I hardly think you can in yours, because you have no consecration, and reject the idea of sacredness in connection with a building. What can you do? See, your detestable heresies exclude you from the use of the Latin tongue. I therefore say repent, repent, and be converted. If you won’t, what can you do but describe yourself by a periphrasis?
“I should say something of this sort: —
“‘ Legis divînæ per... annos In his ædibus interprets.’
“Or I should prefer: —
“‘Legis a Christo institute’
In his ædibus ministri.’
“I mention these forms not as those which I would recommend to your adoption, but as conveying a notion of my meaning. You will easily adopt better.
“‘Acerrime suasit.’ So says Paterculus (?). ‘Gravissime’ would perhaps be the phrase of Cicero, but you have had ‘ gravis’ already. I should prefer: —
“‘Is quee prsecepta virtutis In docendo laculenter exposuit Suis ipse moribus pulcherrime illustravit.’”
