Life and Letters of Fenton John Anthony Hort Vol. I

GvwWv 4 * i « NViVmVm «% « * - J< t v.v'v <'v.v v !v !GCC4%y<v<v4Vv4 V4 MV4 4 <V«A 4 4 &yAA£*AAA*AAAAAAA< H £<&«#&##£<>^HM LIFE AND LETTERS OF FENTON JOHN ANTHONY HORT Life and Letters of Fenton John Anthony Hort D.D., D.C.L., LL.D. SOMETIME HULSEAN PROFESSOR AND LADY MARGARET'S READER IN DIVINITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE BY HIS SON ARTHUR FENTON HORT LATE FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE A life devoted to truth is a life of vanities abased and ambitions forsworn.' — F. J. A. H. VOL. I ./" <>• Hotttiott MACMILLAN AND CO. Ltd. NEW YORK : MACMILLAN & CO. 1896 All rights reserz'td BX TO fflv Jftotfjer REVERENTLY OFFER THIS BOOK PREFACE The subject of this Memoir was little known outside the world of scholars and his work could ; published give but a partial view of the man, while in him the man was more even than the scholar. A scholar's life contains little of outward incident, and it has been my endeavour to tell the story of my father's life so far as possible in his own words. In all that he wrote his real self is shown, and nowhere more than in his letters. Hence this book may perhaps justify itself, if it enables the voice of a man who was interested in such a variety of subjects, and who spoke always with such 1 singular sincerity,' to reach beyond the limited circle of those who were privileged to know him in life. For the earlier years at least the epistolary material is enough, I think, to give a very fair portraiture. In later years his letters became inevitably fewer and shorter, but in all cases I have not scrupled to insert letters which, whatever their subjects, help to show what the writer was, as well as what he did and thought. I should add perhaps that in his letters he was wont to express his opinions with considerable freedom ; he would unburden himself to a viii FENTON JOHN ANTHONY HORT friend with a remarkable absence of the reserve which otherwise characterised his utterances. For this very- reason it would not be right to give to the world without a caution views which he never meant for his even of publication ; moreover, letters, undergraduate days, often show a maturity of thought and expres- sion which is apt to make one forget the writer's age. In the brief narrative which accompanies the selec- tion of correspondence, I have aimed generally at little more than filling up with necessary dates and facts the story presented in the letters. For obvious reasons a critical biography could not be part of my plan, and, if my narrative is more than necessarily jejune, it is because I have tried so far as possible to avoid a tone of eulogy which would have been very unfitting, and which my father would vehemently have deprecated— if indeed he would have approved of his life being written at all. I am conscious, however, that I have not succeeded in the balance I could altogether keeping ; wish that this were the only shortcoming in the execution of a task which has been one of considerable difficulty as well as of extreme delight. I have quoted freely from the words, written or printed, of others, especially in cases where I could claim no special knowledge, or where it was difficult for a son to adopt ' ' the necessary detachment of attitude. To all such, and to very many others, named or unnamed in these I am indebted pages, deeply ; especially to the Bishop of Durham, for the generous freedom which he has allowed me in the use of his PREFACE ix letters to Mrs. for invaluable of the ; Ellerton, help kind to Professor to his same ; Ryle, who, numerous other acts of devotion to my father's name, has added that of the and his counsel reading proofs giving me ; and above all, to one without whose constant aid I could not have attempted this book. I desire also to thank Miss J. Craig for clerical assist- ance, given in a manner and in a spirit on which my father himself would have bestowed the praise of ' guileless workmanship.' a t? u A. x*. rl. Harrow-on-the-Hill, November 1895. CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE Parentage and Childhood i 1828-1841. CHAPTER II Rugby . 18 1841-1846. Age 13-18. CHAPTER III Cambridge : Undergraduate Life ... 40 1846- 1850. Age 18-22. CHAPTER IV Cambridge: Graduate Life . .170 1851-1857. Age 22-29. CHAPTER V St. Ippolyts . -356 1857-1863. Age 29-35. CHAPTER I PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD 1828-1841 Fenton John Anthony Hort was born at Dublin the 23 rd of April 1828. His father, Fenton Hort, was the grandson of Josiah Hort, who is the earliest of the name of whom any record is preserved. Josiah's father lived at Marshfield, near Bath, but that is the solitary fact in his history handed down to his descendants. His son, of whom an account is given in the Dictionary ofNational Biography, was brought up as a Nonconformist, and 1 was a schoolfellow and lifelong friend of Isaac Watts, " who spoke of him as the first genius in the academy," viz. an academy for Nonconformist ministers to which they both belonged. Hort conformed after a time to the Church of England, and went to Clare College, in 1 he crossed to Ireland as Cambridge ; 709 chaplain to Earl Wharton, the Lord - Lieutenant. Lord Wharton's chaplain presently obtained a parish, whence he rose, through the deaneries of Cloyne and Ardagh, and two bishoprics, of Ferns and Leighlin, and of Kil- more and Ardagh, to be Archbishop of Tuam. He enjoyed some repute as a preacher, and a volume of his 1 See Milner's Life of Dr. Watts (Cambridge, 1834). VOL. I B 2 FENTON JOHN ANTHONY HORT chap. " " sermons on practical subjects went through several editions. He is said to have been the last magnate who ate his dinner from a wooden trencher. Dean Swift made a violent attack upon him in a satirical the rise of the was poem ; English clergyman apparently unpopular in Ireland, and he had to contend with much opposition. Swift, however, became afterwards so far friendly that he procured for Hort (or Horte, as he sometimes spelt his name) the publication of a satire on the prevalence of the game of quadrille in society. He was disabled from preaching by an overstrain of the voice some years before he became Archbishop. In the preface to his sermons he uses his own experience to " point a warning to all young preachers whose organs of speech are tender." The secret, he says, of public " speaking lies in finding out the right key." He depre- cates loudness and vehemence, and concludes with the " remark : Experience shows that a moderate Degree of Voice, with a proper and distinct Articulation, is better understood in all Parts of a Church than a Thunder of Lungs that is rarely distinct, and never agreeable to the Audience." The sermons themselves are in and indeed expressed simple dignified language ; the English is perhaps better than the divinity. The author shows an anxiety to interpret the Bible in a " manner agreeable to the Principles of Philosophy and Morality," and he displays some ingenuity in the for when he the doctrine of attempt ; instance, explains Original Sin by the suggestion that the tree of which " Adam ate contained in its juice a slow poison which, being incorporated with the Blood of our first Parents, might in a natural course be transfused through the Veins of all their Posterity, and carry with it irregular Desires and Passions, as well as Diseases and Death." i PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD 3 This somewhat startlingly literal exegesis is illustrated " by reference to a Tree in our American colonies (the Manchineel Tree) that bears a very beautiful apple, which yet has poisoned many." The author is perhaps more fortunate in his practical discourses, one of which is " entitled, Great knowledge no excuse for neglecting to hear sermons," while another contains a rather forcible " protest against duelling : I could therefore wish," he " concludes, that our gallant spirits would consider these Things when Affronts are broiling in their Stomachs, and their Blood is kindling to draw the Sword for an ill-chosen or ill-understood Word." The Archbishop died in 175 1. In his will he exhorted his children to carry out his intentions in their " obvious sense, without having recourse to law and the " of in case of he desires subtilty lawyers ; difficulty, " them to refer the question to the decision of persons of known probity and wisdom, this being not only the most Christian, but the most prudent and cheap and summary way of deciding all differences." He had married the Lady Elizabeth Fitzmaurice, of the Lord of their second daughter Kerry ; son, John, married the daughter of Sir Fitzgerald Aylmer, of Donadea, who belonged to a branch of the Butler two of the family ; moreover, Archbishop's daughters married into the Caldwell and Coghill families respec- tively, so that not many years after Josiah's migration the Horts had established a fair claim to be considered Irish. John Hort was appointed in 1767 Consul-General at Lisbon, and was made a baronet the same year. He was sent out by Lord Lansdowne as a trusted semi- political agent, and it appears that the Government and the English ambassador were often annoyed because 4 FENTON JOHN ANTHONY HORT chap.

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