Poetical Sketches of the Interior of Ceylon Benjamin Bailey (1791-1853), aged 26 years Framed colour portrait by an anonymous artist Courtesy: Keats catalogue, London Metropolitan Archives
"One of the noblest men alive at the present day" was John Keats's description of Bailey Poetical Sketches of the Interior of the Island of Ceylon
Benjamin Bailey's Original manuscript, 1841
Introduction: Rajpal K de Silva, 2011
Serendib Publications London 2011 Copyright:© Rajpal Kumar de Silva, 2011
ISBN 978-955-0810-00-0
Published by: Serendib Publications 3 Ingleby Court Compton Road London N21 3NT England
Typesetting / Printing Lazergraphic (Pvt) Ltd 14 Sulaiman Terrace Colombo 5 Sri Lanka
iv CONTENTS
Acknowledgements Foreword: Professor Emeritus Ashley Halpe Benjamin Bailey as a friend of John Keats: Professor Robert S White
Benjamin Bailey, (1791 — 1853) Preface The Manuscript Present publication Some useful sources Introduction Biography Bailey's personality Bailey and Keats Bailey's poetry Ecclesiastical appointments Courtship and marriage Later in France Bailey in Ceylon
Appendices I England during Bailey's era Early British Colonial rule in Ceylon II The Church Missionary Society, (CMS) CMS in Ceylon and Kottayam Comparative resumes of the two Baileys III Benjamin Bailey, Scrapbook Guide: Harvard University, USA IV Keats House Museum, Hampstead, London V St Peter's Church, Fort, Colombo: Bailey Memorials VI Six letters of Vetus in the Ceylon Times, 1852
Benjamin Bailey: Poetical Sketches of the Interior of the Island of Ceylon Part I -- Preface, Sonnets and Notes Part II -- Sonnets and Notes Part III -- Sonnets, Poems, Stanzas, Appendix and Notes
Notes Bibliography V Acknowledgements
Benjamin Bailey's manuscript of 1841 would probably have faded into oblivion had it not been for my chancing to pick it up in an antiquarian bookstore. Moreover, had it not been for my partner Mano Anandappa's typing skills, for which I owe her a huge debt of gratitude, this publication would not have got off the ground!
To Malaka Talwatte, for his ever-willing, cheerful help with his computer expertise in the initial setting out of the typed text, and the insertion of all the illustrations, (some of which he was responsible for), and, to Altaf Hussein, my saviour when burdened with computer problems, I can only express my sincere appreciation and thanks.
The staff of the Oriental section of the British Library, London, helped me in obtaining the publications and other material related to the two Benjamin Baileys, both born in 1791, both belonging to the Church Missionary Society (CMS), but confusingly wrongly catalogued! Kenneth Page, Interpretation Officer at Keats House Museum, Hampstead, London, was most helpful and directed me to the London Metropolitan Archives (LMA), where Deborah Jenkins, Deputy Head of Heritage Services and Howard Doble, chief archivist, readily agreed to provide me with all the relevant Bailey material held in the Keats Catalogue, while Tim Warrender paid personal attention to my requests and helped me with photographing many sensitive items from their collection. The Church of Ceylon Library and Archives, Colombo, and the Royal Asiatic Society, Colombo, both have information on Bailey which I have made use of. To all the kind and patient staff of these institutions I am deeply grateful.
Lelani Chinnadurai visited the UK's University of Birmingham's Cadbury Research Library, Special Collections, which houses the Church Missionary Society's Archives, at my request. I owe Lelani very special thanks for obtaining for me confirmation of the identities of the two Baileys, both missionaries sent out by the CMS, one to South India and the other to Ceylon.
Antony Anghie, at present visiting professor and lecturer on International Organisation at Harvard University, Massachusetts, USA, (permanently based at Utah University as Samuel D Thurman Professor of Law), offered to research the Benjamin Bailey Scrapbook Guide which is in the Harvard University Library; this contains a considerable amount of original Bailey material. For this entirely fortuitous opportunity for me to avail myself of Antony's generosity, which included photographing of items from Bailey's Scrapbook, I can but only offer him my most grateful thanks.The items used from Harvard are acknowledged individually.
vi Vijita Fernando, Laksiri Jayasuriya, Dassana Raffel, and Neloufer de Mel have all read my text and made valuable comments. May Yee has edited all of my writing suggesting several improvements. Professor Emeritus Ashley Halpe, Sahithyaratne, Kalakeerthi, Chevalier dans l'ordre des Palmes Academiques, has graciously written the Foreword while Professor Robert White, an expert on John Keats, the Romantic poet, suggests that Bailey had some influence on Keats's long poem Endymion. To all of them, I offer my most grateful thanks.
I acknowledge and am grateful for all the sources which I have been pleased to make use of to supplement my own research in the publication of Benjamin Bailey's manuscript.
Dammika Mallawaarachchi and Kaushal Dissanayake of Lazergraphic have been responsible for the final layout of the pages of the book, the printing and binding of which was undertaken by Saman Weerasinghe, owner of Lazergraphic. The excellent quality of the resulting book, I have no doubt, is due to the care and attention lavished on the work by Saman and his dedicated staff, to all of whom I say, "well done and thank you!"
R K de Silva 2011
vii Foreword
R K de Silva's serendipitous, to use his own word, discovery many years ago of POETICAL SKETCHES OF THE INTERIOR OF CEYLON brings us a valuable addition to the sparse colonial literature of this island, known to the world, as that title indicates, as "Ceylon" in those early days of the British Imperium. Always the thorough scholar and painstaking editor, Dr de Silva worked on this edition of the book for several years. He now follows his three brilliant pictorial volumes of images of Sri Lanka, Early Prints of Ceylon, Illustrations & Hews of Dutch Ceylon and 19th Century Newspaper Engravings with this edition of images of the country in a different medium: English verse.
The English writers of the late 18th century and early 19th century seized avidly, as we know, on the new territory for literature discovered by the move away from the Augustan formal garden, the world of polite manners and cultivated discourse, to the exploration of wild and sublime landscapes no less than wild and wonderful areas of human action and imagination, quarrying history and legend for subjects and locations. While Jane Austen depicted and delved into her world of 'country village, country town and country house' many of her contemporaries reached out to the expression of vagaries of character and social interaction; imaginations took wing with the music of the skylark and the nightingale equally with the life imagined in ancient art and sculpture and in ancient poetry and drama.
The Poetical Sketches of the Rev. Benjamin Bailey are those of an author responsive to tides in the English taste of his time, but not to those mentioned above. He was drawn, like some of the poets of the period, to the appreciation of, indeed delight, in solitude and the awed admiration of the sublime. The sketches are indeed of the interior as he takes us with him past (to retain his spellings, which are not those generally used today) the `Kandian Boundary', Warakapali' and the `Kadeganava Pass' to Kandy, to `Rambodde' and its waterfalls, IsIuwera Ellia', `Doombera', `Gampolla' and the river there, `Pedrotallagalla' the Peacock Mountain and `Hakgolle'. He has ranged widely over the central hills and has captured the ambiance, the feel of facets of the landscape, and the sounds of streams, torrents and waterfalls as he creates his "sketches", some of which, he reports, he put down on he spot he had come to. In one sketch he writes:
"I will not wait the trick of memory, But sitting here upon this pointed peak, This knoll of fragrant herbs, my soul will speak..." viii and again,
"On either side of this inviting plain Dark mountains rise and frowning forests grow:" and in another
"...Calls The loud torrent wrathfully: - and now it brawls So gently that it rolls, not roars, - a sweet And pleasant and deep melody..."
Thus these Poetical Sketches The Peotical Sketches of the Rev. Benjamin Bailey are one more example of the happier side of the colonial encounter and experience to put beside William Knighton's novel Forest Life in Ancient Ceylon, the poems of Rev. Senior and the like. The imaginations of these visitors to this country have been touched to life by our world, so new to them, just as the archaeological and ethnographic curiosities of the country and by the folklore, folktales and folk poems of the people, much like the antiquarian research and publications to be seen in Europe at this time.
From Dr de Silva's 'serendipitous' discovery of these Poetical Sketches thirty years ago to the present when this new edition of them is before us he has exercised the same meticulous care and scholarship that he brought to his three volumes of pictorial images of "Ceylon". This, like the earlier volumes, is brilliantly edited and laid out, with printing and binding of outstanding quality. Taken together, the four volumes constitute a remarkable window on the Sri Lanka of colonial times.
Ashley Halpe Emeritus Professor of English University of Peradeniya Sri Lanka
ix Benjamin Bailey as Friend of John Keats
Bailey and Keats encountered each other 'about the end of 1816, or the beginning of 1817'' through mutual friends, John Hamilton Reynolds and James Rice, who had shared poems and views on poetry with Bailey. The friendship quickly blossomed as they 'saw much of each other in London and Keats described his new friend as 'one of the noblest men alive at the present day'. During September of 1817, Keats stayed with Bailey in the latter's college accommodation at Oxford where he was a theology student. Here, amidst their excited discussions about poetry and sharing 'regularly a Boat on the Isis', Keats wrote the third book of Endymion and in Bailey's words they parted with 'much real regret & personal affection'. Given the circumstances, Keats must unavoidably have been influenced by Bailey in his writing of Endymion, though the facts of a source relationship can never be known. Later, to Keats's irritation, Leigh Hunt prided himself on his editorial deletions and even collaborative writing of the long poem, yet it is likely Bailey was in fact more influential in its actual composition. As we shall see the friendship did not endure but it was important to both.
While they were close they were very close in the creative period of mid-1817, and precious testimony comes in Keats's letters to Bailey. He has remained, of course, one of the greatest letter writers in history, showing a touching and acute solicitude towards the particular reader he was addressing, and the ten or so letters to Bailey which survive are wonderful examples of this preternatural skill. Ironically, given the way their own friendship later changed in its temper, Keats's repeated refrain to Bailey is a regretful observation of the falling out of friends in their circle.
Mysteries about Keats's life abound, and one surfaces in his letters to Bailey. He tantalisingly confides that he is taking mercury for some unspecified problem - 'The little Mercury I have taken has corrected the Poison and improved my Health' [KC, 1, 17112 which biographer Robert Gittings and others have speculated refers to venereal disease.3 Mercury was admittedly the usual remedy for syphilis, but on the other hand, under its various preparations it was thought to cure almost anything and was widely used as antibacterial, laxative, antiseptic, and other functions. Keats's own medical
Letter, Bailey to Milnes, 7 May 1849, The Keats Circle: letter and papers 1816 - 1878, ed. Hyder Edward Rollins (Camb. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1948, in two vols.), 2, 267 2 The Letters of John Keats 1814 - 1821, ed. Hyder Edward Rollins (Camb. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press,1976, in two vols.),1,171 3. Robert Gittings, John Keats (London: Heinemann,1968), Appendix 3. Amy Lovell suggested the complaint was syphilis, Gittings gonorrhoea
X lecturer at Guy's Hospital was known as 'Calomel Curry' for his assiduous over- prescriptions for almost any complaint (calomel was mercurous chloride). Even one of Jane Austen's relatives took mercury in some form for minor causes: 'Harriet's headaches are abated, & Sir Everard is satisfied with the effect of the Mercury'.4 At that time and even up to the 1950s (to our eyes perhaps alarmingly) it was used in beauty creams, and also in hat-making where mercury was later isolated as the ingredient that caused the condition of being 'mad as a hatter'. Given Keats's natural reticence and the priestly vocation of his correspondent, I am inclined (though without complete conviction) to suggest the explanation is in reference to hangovers after the more innocent, youthful over-indulgence of alcohol, especially since the Oxford English Dictionary cites `drunkenness' as a dominant contemporary meaning of 'beastliness'. This provides a characteristic Keatsian pun on 'spirits' in `—the Man who thinks much of his fellows can never be in Spirits--when I am not suffering for vicious beastliness I am the greater part of the week in spirits'. Leaving such speculations aside, more generally Keats did feel comfortable enough to open up to Bailey more than to others on the intimate subject of his awkwardness with women:
I am certain I have not a right feeling towards Women ... When I am among Women I have evil thoughts, malice spleen — I cannot speak or be silent — I am full of Suspicions and therefore listen to no thing — I am in a hurry to be gone ... [JK, 1, 341]
Though continuing to write to each other after the Oxford days, Keats and Bailey did not meet often thereafter, although Bailey remained to the end of his days loyal to the memory of Keats, contributing generous eulogies as well as invaluable information to Milnes's project to write a biography of Keats long after his death. However, the actual friendship seemed to sputter out in 1819 when Bailey became engaged to the daughter of Bishop Gleig. This caused bad blood between the circle of poetic friends since it was seen as a betrayal of Bailey's public courtship of Reynolds' sister Marianne. Keats thought the precipitate (and professionally expedient) engagement 'can have no excuse — except that of a Ploughman who wants a wife', and although he wrote congratulating Bailey his sentiments were couched in terms that were, for Keats, quite chilly and obligatory. The last letter to Bailey that we have, dated 14 August 1819 which was four months after the marriage, apologises for not visiting the newly-weds on his way back from Scotland, and ends 'Present my Respects to Mrs Bailey. This sounds oddly to me, and I dare say I do it awkwardly enough: but I suppose by this time it is nothing new to you'. [JK, 2, 140]
4 Oxford English Dictionary quotes Jane Austen's Letters (1817)
xi Despite this immediate occasion for the rupture, deeper reasons, I believe, made it inevitable, during times when religion was more important than it is considered today. Bailey was a staunch Anglican and studying for a career in the church, and he was to become a country parson and eventually Archdeacon of Ceylon. Keats, meanwhile, came from a dissenting, nonconformist family and gradually came to share the atheism of his friends Leigh Hunt, William Hazlitt, and Percy Shelley, much to the chagrin of his artist friend Benjamin Haydon and perhaps the later Reverend Bailey. Religion was a significant issue since when Keats was dying in Rome he was deeply irritated by the continued attempts of his well-meaning but insensitive companion, Severn, to bring him to a deathbed conversion to religion, and he would probably have been equally mortified by Bailey's wish after the poet's death: 'We must leave his spirit in the
Undoubtedly Bailey stimulated, or provoked, Keats into thinking about the large religious questions even if he approached them from different assumptions and came to different conclusions. It was Bailey's question regarding human suffering, 'Why should Woman suffer? Aye, Why should she?' that continued to haunt Keats's imagination through to his later writing in The Fall of Hyperion, but again he makes no concessions to standard religious answers concerning God's mysterious ways, and instead with defiant humanism focuses on the inexplicable perplexities of the here and now. No mention of an Almighty in his expression of values, 'Scenery is fine — but human nature is finer —', and he follows up almost apologetically: You know my ideas about Religion — I do not think myself more in the right than other people and that nothing in this world is proveable. I wish I could enter into all your feelings on the subject for one short 10 Minutes and give you a Page or two to your liking... [KC.1, 242] X11 The potentially treacherous area of religious difference does look like something that would eventually have eroded their closeness, even if, as young men still intellectually maturing, Keats and Bailey seem to have found these differences creative rather than disabling, during the relatively brief but mutually influential and affectionate time of their friendship.
Robert S White Professor of English The University of Western Australia
Author of John Keats: A Literary Life (2010) BENJAMIN BAILEY: PREFACE
It must have been over 30 years ago that I was rummaging in the basement of the antiquarian book dealer, Maggs Brothers' book-store, in London's Grosvenor Square, when, every book collector's dream, a serendipitous moment, presented itself to me. There, amongst a pile, was a half-damaged brown leather 'spine' which read in clear gold lettering, POETICAL SKETCHES OF THE INTERIOR OF CEYLON!
Nevertheless, it is only recently that I have completed transcribing this near-400-page, closely hand-written 1840s volume of sonnets and notes into a printable form. The author, Reverend Benjamin Bailey, D.D., has dedicated his work to,
Jessy Bailey With the best and dearest affection of her Father, The Author
Colombo, July 1839
The Manuscript
Benjamin Bailey's manuscript, until now never published in its entirety, consists of three Parts of Sonnets with their accompanying Notes and an Appendix. The undated Title page is followed by a Preface dated April 1839. The next eight pages comprise Bailey's `Index' which gives the total contents of his manuscript. The list of 'Contents' in the 1841 published version of Part I does not tally with Bailey's 'Index' in his original manuscript.
1 -- the discrepancy is due to the addition of an extra sonnet titled After Sunset (no.31) in the printed edition. I have retained his original Index in order not to distort the numbering of the Notes in relation to the Sonnets. Also, I have added Bailey's 'Conclusion' at the end of the Notes to Part I (which is not included in the manuscript). I have checked the printed publication of Part I thoroughly against the manuscript and have retained such strange words as `ruinished', 'rapine', `penions', `exquisitively', and several others, allowing Bailey his poetic licence!
•••-, • • r"..46 ••■••••-••••••
•••-•4.4.7.6,9 .44;
.•■•••••." - •
Sonnets and Notes in Bailey's manuscript
Preceding Part I of some 50 Sonnets and their accompanying Notes are 7 nine-line stanzas written in 1834, dedicated
"To with no mention of a name.
This prelude to Bailey's Poetical Sketches... is surely addressed to his wife Hamilton, who passed away soon after the couple's arrival in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) in 1832. "This, the first product of my stronger mind, When I emerge from my deep solitude, I dedicate to Thee! Thou wert not blind To Nature, which with rapt thou hast viewed; ..." And again, "And I was left to struggle with my grief, Heart-broken, lonely, desolate..." In these few verses, written seven years before the publication of Part I of his Poetical Sketches of the Interior of Ceylon in 1841, Bailey reminisces, and reflects expressesing his feelings and emotions; his love of the natural beauties of this island and in his grief the solace he derived from them, as well as his total belief in his God, the Almighty, becomes patently obvious throughout his writing. The manuscript contains nearly 200 sonnets, the quality of which, I shall leave the reader to judge. The sonnets, once again express Bailey's delight of the vistas, scenery, and natural beauties that he encounters and experiences throughout his travels in the interior of the island, especially in the years 1834 to 1838. Bailey writes: "And connected with some personal feelings and the deep grief which had then over-clouded my mind for two entire years...to me it was an almost unhoped, certainly an unlooked for, relief from the overwhelming and intense suffering. I found nature once more speak to me with her accustomed voice of soothing and of comfort...it was almost a second youth to a man in middle life, bursting from the cloud of his sorrow..."*
At the end of the section on Sonnets in Part III, several pages of Stanzas and Poems are devoted, once again, to emotional recollections of his wife. Here are two verses (of five) entitled, For a Sketch.
"With pleasant flowers I plant thy Tomb To dissipate the deepening gloom, Which gathers round my broken heart, Oft as I visit where Thou art". and three verses later,
"Here resteth all of thee that Death Had power to take with thy sweet breath; I would my dust were here, and I Now shared thine immortality".
Part HI concludes with an Epitaph to his wife Hamilton which is engraved on her monument at St Peter's Church, Colombo. The Notes section of 120 pages provides explanatory extensions to the sonnets. In addition, there are many pages devoted to Buddhism, Processions, Kataragamdeviyo, and some other subjects. During Bailey's tenure of 20 years in Sri Lanka there were several rebellions or uprisings against British colonial rule, resulting in courts martial with jail sentences and death penalties being inflicted on some of the accused. Bailey describes a trial and the result of one of these trials in both his sonnets and his notes.t *Note XXX, Part III 'see Appendix 1 and pages 161, 199
3 The manuscript concludes with an Appendix of 26 pages, comprising "A Translation of the Nidhanapatta or the history of the last incarnation of Bosatano and of his assumption of Buddhaship under the title of Goutama Buddha, the fourth Buddha of the present or Mahabadra Calpa"
Some pages of the 'laid' paper of the original manuscript bear water-marks; p.227 exhibits a cross and a woman with a sceptre; p.279, E SMITH, 1832; p.271, J GATER, 1832; p.270, 1831
Present Publication
In this new publication, I have kept to almost the same page-size of Bailey's original manuscript* His Index has been reproduced, not in full, as at the beginning of his manuscript, but as the 'Contents', preceding each of the three Parts of the present publication. The three undated Title pages relating to each of the Parts are placed at the beginning of each section of Sonnets, in keeping with the manuscript.
The layout has been altered so that each page now accommodates two Sonnets, instead of one per page, as in the manuscript; additionally, Bailey's Notes have been inserted at the end of each relevant Part of the Sonnets, while in the manuscript the notes to all three sections of sonnets are placed together at the end. I have retained the minor inconsistencies in the spelling of certain words, and Bailey's quaint place-names as they appeared in the original text.
Part I of the original manuscript consisting of nearly 100 pages, was published by the Herald Press in Colombo in 1841. This volume (approximately A5 in size), included a Preface, 52 pages of Sonnets and 35 pages of Notes. Another Preface dated April 1839 which is in the original manuscript, is included in the present publication, but was not in Part I of the older published version.
Previous to this, some of the sonnets appeared in The Ceylon Magazine from September 1840 to August 1841. The Royal Asiatic Society in Colombo has a bound volume of Part I of Poetical Sketches ... The British Library too has a printed octavo of Part I of Poetical Sketches of the Interior of the Island of Ceylon. It was bound in 1920 in London and has a marbled board cover with a leather spine inscribed POETICAL SKETCHES..., in gold lettering.
*The size of the manuscript is 24.5 x 20.5 ems 4 The rest of the manuscript consisting of a further two Parts of Sonnets and Notes, together with an Appendix has remained unpublished until now.
Some Useful Sources
In researching Benjamin Bailey (1791 — 1853) the most satisfying 'find' was the material relating to him in the Keats catalogue at the London Metropolitan Archives. The portraits in colour of Bailey as a young man, his prolific writings in his own hand, with his signature or initials often attached to his prose or verse, gave me the most exciting information about Bailey's life in his youth. During this period Bailey probably comes into prominence through his friendship with John Keats (1795 — 1821) the Romantic poet, and his association with the Reynolds'* family and their circle of friends. I have made use of numerous sources for tracing Bailey's personal history. The following is a summarized list of some of the sources: the Bibliography provides more detailed information.
1. The London Metropolitan Archives (LMA)
A complete list of relevant Bailey items together with illustrations, is given in the Bibliography.
2. The British Library (BL)
A total of 24 items are catalogued under 'Benjamin Bailey'. However, there is evidence that there were two persons with the name Benjamin Bailey, both born in 1791, and both belonging to the Church Missionary Society (CMS). One of the Baileys worked in Ceylon from 1832 until he returned to England in 1852 and died there in 1853 at the age of 62. He was the author of Poetical Sketches of the Interior of the Island of Ceylon, Poetical Sketches of the South of France and many other works.
The other Benjamin Bailey went to Kerala, India, with the CMS in 1816. He was appointed the first Principal of the CMS College in Kottayam, Kerala, in 1817. During his 34-year stay, he translated several biblical works into Malayalam and compiled an English — Malayalam dictionary. He returned to England in 1850 and held the appointment as Rector of Sheinton, Salop, and Rural Dean, until his death in 1871, aged 80 years.
*John Hamilton Reynolds — see the section in `Introduction' on 'Bailey and Keats' 5 3. The Church Missionary Society (CMS), England.
Their archives held at the Birmingham University Library, Special Collections department provides brief but adequate and accurate information about the Kottayam Bailey (1791 — 1871). However, there is no mention of the Benjamin Bailey Foundation (traceable on the internet and on You - Tube), which celebrated its 175th anniversary in 1992, and currently operates a college of education. There is very little evidence of the Colombo Bailey (1791 — 1853) in the CMS records. His career is not documented at all and his name does not appear in the Clerical and Lay Missionaries register.
Both Baileys appear to have been remarkable men with an extraordinary capacity for an output of writings, both related and unrelated to their missionary work.*
In view of the present findings the BL catalogue has now been amended.
4. Benjamin Bailey's Scrapbook at the Houghton Library, Harvard University, USA. The scrapbook was formerly owned by one of Bailey's grandsons, Henry J S Bailey (died 1936). It is a scrapbook (1817 — 1849) of letters and compositions by and about Bailey which complements the earlier period of his life housed in the LMA. Extensive details about this scrapbook are provided by Hyder E
5. The Church of Ceylon, Library and Archives, Colombo, which provided copies of The Ceylon Churchman (1942) and A History of the Diocese of Colombo — A Centenary Volume, (1946)
*For further details and a comparative assessment of the two Baileys see Appendix II. This also includes each Bailey's publications listed in the BL; also includes an account of the CMS in Ceylon and Kottayam and comparative resumes of the two Baileys t see Appendix III — Benjamin Bailey (1791 — 1853), Scrapbook: Guide, Harvard University, USA
6 6. The Ceylon Almanac for 1849 notes that Archdeacon Benjamin Bailey was absent on leave on half salary of £400; the 1852 Almanac shows that Bailey was on a salary of £800 and that he and Rev. J B H Bailey* had also been officiating Clergymen to the troops at 100 per annum; the 1853 Almanac states that Rev. J Wise was acting minister at St Peter's church implying that Bailey was no longer in Ceylon.
A complete list of the material relevant to Benjamin Bailey (1791 — 1853) used in the Preface and Introduction is given in the Bibliography.
*Joseph Bailey (1797 —1841), died aged 44 and is buried in the CMS Churchyard at Kotte, near Colombo. He was Chairman and Cash Secretary to the Bible Association and CMS and no relation to Benjamin Bailey
7 BENJAMIN BAILEY: INTRODUCTION
Biography
Benjamin Bailey was born on 5 June 1791 and christened on 8 June at Spilsby, and brought up at Thorney, seven miles north of Peterborough, in then Lincolnshire (now Cambridgeshire); little is known of his parents and childhood; his mother's name was Elizabeth and he had a brother, Edward. His father, John, died in 1822.
Map of Thorney, Lincolnshire, England
Bailey entered Magdalen Hall, Oxford, on 19 October 1816 as a mature student of twenty-five, following his earlier matriculation. He read for Holy Orders and began training for the Church.
8 Bailey's personality
According to Joseph Severn* (who nursed the ailing John Keats in his final three months), Benjamin Bailey was 'rather stern', a characterisation that most subsequent biographers have echoed, usually referring to him as 'stuffy' and 'pompous'. This is not so surprising. since with his big rectangular head, and pursed, opinionated mouth, he could seem severe and orthodox. Rev. Bailey was 'fully and gravely determined to his sacred profession,' passionately interested in theology and philosophy — especially works by Joseph Butler. He was an ardent admirer of Dante, Milton, and Wordsworth, of whose works he had an impressive understanding. In other respects, though, Bailey was far from forbidding. He was seen as a concerned friend. His imperious manner disguised a compulsive emotionalism — something which made him large-hearted at best, tactless at worst, and which attracted him to the free spirits who made up Keats's set.
Bailey once wrote of Severn's portrait of Keats (now in the National Portrait Gallery, London); "admirable as it is, it does not convey to my mind and memory the peculiar sweetness of expression of John Keats during the -- alas!-- short period of my personal intercourse with him.t
Another comment is that Bailey had abominable, undecipherable handwriting! — there being much comment and mention of this on numerous occasions.
Courtesy: MS Eng 1461, Houghton Library, Harvard University The 400 page manuscript, in my possession, contains sonnets and notes in neat, legible calligraphy obviously transcribed by someone else, possibly his daughter Janet, with whom Bailey later lived while in Ceylon. Keats in a letter written to Bailey in Oxford on 30 October 1817, remarks on his 'villainous handwriting ...' "I shall be able, by a little perseverance to read your letters off hand." *Joseph Severn (1793 — 1879) accompanied John Keats to Rome, sailing from England on 17 September 1820 and arriving there on 15 November. Keats died three months later. After Keats's death, Severn became a respected and successful artist and lived in Rome to an old age. Severn drew a self-portrait after Keats's death when he was 29 years old. The Keats — Shelley House in the Piazza di Spagna , Rome, contains a lock of Keats's hair, original letters and other mementos. He is buried next to Keats in the Protestant Cemetery (see Note 1) t Adapted from Keats, Andrew Motion, 1997 and John Keats, A Life, Stephen Coote, 1995 9 Bailey wrote to John Taylor* on 9 April 1818: "I wrote the slovenly scrawl on Sunday eve at the suggestion of my friend,..." And again on 12 February 1821: "My dear Sir, It is long since I have written to you, or have had the pleasure of hearing from you. Your last friendly letter now lies before me, and bears, I am ashamed to confess, so early a date as the 14th August. But I have been troubled by domestic affliction and indisposition since that date, and have been indisposed to write more letters than necessity called for. I lost a child in the Autumn, just when it had lived long enough to wind itself around one's affections. And I have myself been very unwell, with small intermission, almost ever since. But I have at last applied to a Physician, and am daily gaining strength. What afflicts me most is that I may not read so closely as I desire. I hope poor Keats' health is recovered ..." Another letter was written by Bailey to Taylor dated 16 February 1821 from Dallington, Northamptonshire, addressed to 93 Fleet Street, London. He wrote: "I am deeply affected with your communication respecting poor Keats. `The flower in ripened bloom unmatched, must fall the earliest prey.' "
Bailey wrote to Richard Monckton Milnest on 16 October 1848 — from Colombo, Ceylon Bailey's hand is exceptionally villainous in this letter — Milnes wrote to Mrs Charles J MacCarthy I of Ceylon, ... "By the same post as yours came a long interesting letter about Keats from Archdeacon Bailey. I know people cannot always be judged of by their letters, ... but he ought to be a good, genial man, with interest in books and art." In this same letter to Milnes, Bailey wrote ..."I meditate drawing up a paper for your information, and if needful for your use in a future edition, upon poor Keats: and I will borrow my daughter's band to copy my Kalligraphy, to which, among my 'good works,' I see you have given your imprimatur, on the authority of poor Keats 30 years ago. It required not that attestation of its badness: and I fear that 'years which bring the philosophic mind' will not have mended my handwriting..."
*John Taylor (c.1781 — 1864), Keats's friend and publisher. His family paid for Keats's journey to Italy tR M Milnes (1809 — 85), 1" Baron Houghton, English Poet and Politician. Born in London, educated privately and entered Trinity College, Cambridge in 1827. M.P. for Pontefract from 1837 to 1863. 'His literary career was industrious and cultivated...and his poetry meditative and delicate'..In 1878 he wrote Life and Letters of Keats Sir Charles J McCarthy was an intimate friend of Milnes; late in 1847 he went to Ceylon as Auditor, Accountant-General and Comptroller of Revenue. Milnes was responsible for his appointment in 1849 as Governor of Ceylon 10 He continues: "I have gone through much of deep sorrow & trial, and have lived in Scotland, France and finally here, whither I came on the Bishop of London's very kind recommendation 17 years ago, and almost immediately after my landing here lost such a beloved wife... I am about to leave Colombo for a considerable time, but not Ceylon. I require rest... to recover from the effects of severe illness all last year, and serious attacks for the last 4 years. My two surviving children, a son and a daughter whom I sent home for education, have returned to me. My son *...is now in the civil service in Ceylon, as likewise my son in law Mr Mitford.t I am going to live with my daughter and my grandchildren: and Mr Mitford's station is under the shadow of the far-famed Adam's Peak (upon whose summit I spent half a day and a night 13 years ago) — a country in which poor Keats would have gloried. ...Though a Churchman of the old school, most of my dearest friends in life have been Whigs and Liberals. Kenyon is such. Keats eminently so. And my dear old friend, the only literary man I have known here, and a dear old man with whom I was very intimate, the late Sir Wm Rough §... was one of the old Whigs... So, I hope you will not put me down as one of the bigoted Parsons, though loving the Church and old Tory politics as most of my order..."
A letter of 7 May 1849, Ratnapoora, Island of Ceylon, from Bailey to Milnes was written by Bailey's daughter, Janet (Mrs Edward L Mitford), with some revisions in his own hand.
In another letter to Milnes, dated 11 May 1849 from Colombo, Bailey writes "... and thinking it a good opportunity of sending you this paper I set to work to draw it up: and my daughter copied it sheet by sheet as I wrote it."
*Bailey's son John, who was Principal Assistant Colonial Secretary, married a daughter of Sir Henry Ward, Governor, and the couple resided in Queen's House tEdward Ledwick Mitford, born 1811; appointed Writer in November 1844; assistant Government Agent , Ratnapura (1847 — 52). Retired from the Ceylon Civil Service in 1867 while G. A. of the N.W. province, on a pension of £505.9s.4d per annum. Married Bailey's daughter Janet at St Peter's Church on 7 April 1844. Their day-old child died in 1851; nevertheless they had five sons and four daughters and 30 odd grand-children. Janet died in July 1896 and Mitford re-married in October 1896 at the age of 86! He died shortly after his 100th birthday Vohn Kenyon (1784 — 1856), poet and philanthropist §Sir William Rough was born in 1774 and educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge; he was called to the Bar in 1801. He was Chief Justice of Ceylon, and, author of Poem, Miscellaneous and Fugitive, (1819). He died at Nuwara Eliya in 1838, aged 54. His memorial, erected by his children is at the Old Cemetery at Nuwara Eliya 11 Bailey and Keats
By early 1814 Bailey had become close friends with James Rice* and John Hamilton Reynolds.t Through Rice, both of them became intimately associated with the three daughters Mary, Sarah and Thomasine of William Leigh who lived in Salcombe Regis near Sidmouth. During March 1815 the three friends wrote numerous poems to the girls, including Poems by Two Friends given to Thomasine Leigh on 25 December 1816 by Bailey and Reynolds and now held in the London Metropolitan Archives in a bound volume of 211 pages, 24 x 19cms; on the fly-leaf is an inscription which reads:
"Thomazine Leigh, from BBailey, Magdalen Hall, Oxon with something of regard and more of affection."
Poems by Two Friends
(Courtesy: London Metropolitan Archives)
*James Rice (1791 -- 1832) was the consumptive son of an attorney, and training to be a lawyer himself — went into partnership with his father and had offices in Poland Street, London. Died in 1832 aged 40. tJohn Hamilton Reynolds was the son of a schoolmaster teaching at Christ's Hospital and lived with his parents and three sisters in Conduit Street in Holborn. Even as a boy at St Paul's school he had shown precocious talent. He joined the Zetosphian Society (see bibliography) — a group of friends which included Bailey and Reynolds — that met regularly to discuss social and literary matters and had published reviews of books and plays in the liberal Sunday paper The Champion. He was one year older than Keats
(ln the commonplace books held by the Keats House Museum there are 9 poems by Rice and Reynolds) . 12 In the Spring of 1817 Reynolds introduced Bailey to Keats who saw him again in late summer and invited him to Oxford. Earlier, Bailey had become a frequent visitor to the Reynolds' household and the suitor of Marianne, one of the three sisters, who now rejected him. In early September, Bailey and Keats travelled to Oxford together by coach arriving outside the Mitre Hotel, in the High Street; from there it was a short walk to Bailey's rooms overlooking the main quadrangle of Magdalen Hall — a small group of mediaeval buildings.
Throughout September that year, Keats lived in Bailey's college quarters where, he composed the 3rd book of Endymion, which poem begins with:
`A thing of beauty is a joy forever! Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but it will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing'
This was an idyllic period in many ways, and Bailey remembered it with great affection. "He wrote, and I read" Bailey recalled, "Sometimes at the same table and sometimes at separate desks and tables, from breakfast to the time of our going out for exercise - generally two or three o'clock..." Such reading and conversation were of the utmost importance, and to Bailey there fell the privilege of encouraging Keats towards a greater maturity.
Bailey was a sincere believer and was giving himself a sound preparation for his vocation in the church. Inevitably, he tried to influence Keats in the direction of his own faith... which was a solution to the problem of evil, and it was this concept that he tried to implant in Keats's mind. Bailey was pleased by the result, "he promised me and I believe he kept his promise, that he would never scoff at religion".*
"The two young men walked and boated together; they read and criticised Wordsworth, Chatterton, and Milton." During the last few days that Bailey and Keats spent together, they visited Stratford-upon-Avon to pay homage to the presiding genius of their friendship. Bailey parted from Keats with 'much real regret and personal affection,' and saw him only infrequently thereafter, in London. They corresponded, however, and ten letters that Keats wrote to Bailey from 8 October 1817, to 14 August 1819, have been preserved.
*From John Keats, A Life, Stephen Coote, 1995 13 One of these letters (letter 55 reproduced in Rollins, Vol.1) was written by Keats to Bailey on 23 June 1818, addressed to Magdalen Hall, "I was at Hunt's the other day, and he surprised me with a real authenticated Lock of Milton's Hair.* I know you would like what I wrote thereon — so here it is — as they say of a sheep in a Nursery Book, An Ode on seeing a Lock of Milton's Hair..."
On 14 August 1819, Keats wrote: "We removed to Winchester for the convenience of a Library and find it an exceeding pleasant Town, enriched with a beautiful Cathedral and surrounded by a fresh-looking country... since that you have been married and in congratulating you I wish you every continuance of them..." signed, ever your sincere friend, John Keats (letters of John Keats , Rollins, vol. 2, no.181)
Letter 112 bailey tc Taylor, 93 Fleet Street, 16 March, 1821 from Dallington "My dear Sir I was very much shocked at seeing poor Keats's death in the newspaper..."
(Biographical Sketches —see pp. xlii — xliv ; Rollins)
Bailey wrote to R M Milnes referring to Keats, 16 October 1848, from Colombo:
"I am that Mr Bailey of whom you say 'brothers they were in affection and in thought - brothers also in destiny'. Mr Bailey died soon after Keats. My destiny had indeed let me out of the circle of my former friends..." (this erroneous information was published by Milnes with regard to Bailey's death which occurred only in 1853).
Bailey again wrote about Keats — "his manliness was a principal feature of his character. His integrity and good sense were not inferior. Socially, he was the most lovable creature, in the proper sense of that word as distinguished from amiable, I think I ever knew as a man. After, he had abundantly more of the poetical character, a hundred times told, than I ever knew in any individual...
*On Hunt's collections of locks of hair, see T R Leigh-Hunt, The John Keats Memorial Volume (1921), pp107 — 109. The collection is now in the library of the University of Texas. Keats saw it on 21 January 1818 14 "You are perfectly at liberty to insert the inclosed letter in a future edition, and make what use you please of it. He concluded, and wrote the larger part, I think the whole of the third book, in his month's visit to me at Oxford, and therefore sent me the opening of the fourth."
Bailey writes in the same letter, a postscript: "There is another person in Ceylon, neither of 'kin or kind' to me, Rev. B. Bailey, though not of my ugly Jewish name. Be so good therefore as, when you write to me, which I assure myself you will, address me as Archdeacon Bailey, Colombo, Ceylon, Whence letters will be forwarded to me, wherever I may be..."
(The Ceylon Almanacs for 1833 and 1834 show that the Ceylon Mission of the Church Missionary Society, (CMS), established in 1818, had a Rev J Bailey* as its Chairman and Secretary. He was also Cash Secretary to the Bible Association and to the CMS. The same Almanacs give Rev. B Bailey as Senior Colonial Chaplain, whose salary in 1837 was £900 per annum)
(From Rollins Vol. 1 — Letters, 1958) `One of the noblest men alive at the present day' was Keats' description of Bailey in January 1818. (The best account yet written of Bailey, as of Haydon, Reynolds and Rice is that in Willard B Pope's admirable but unfortunately unpublished Harvard dissertation, 1932. (See Note 2)
Bailey wrote to R M Milnes on 7 May 1849, from Ratnapura, Ceylon. The letter was written by Bailey's daughter Janet (Mrs Edward L Mitford) with some revisions in Bailey's own hand. "Early in 1817 Keats' first volume of poems was published by Oilier, which was sent to me. It required no more to satisfy me, that he was indeed a Poet of rare and original genius. On my first visit to London... after the publication of this volume...I was introduced to him. I was delighted with the naturalness and simplicity of his character, and was at once drawn to him by his winning and indeed affectionate manner towards those with whom he was himself pleased. Bailey further reminisces that Keats left Oxford at the end of September 1817 after completing the third Book of Endymion. "I have indeed something to say upon the treatment Keats experienced at the hands of Scotch critics...who, though they would be esteemed as scholars and men of taste, proved themselves in poor Keats' case, as eminently deficient in pure taste as undoubtedly were in good feeling"
*Joseph Bailey (1797 — 1841) died aged 44 and is buried in the CMS Churchyard at Kotte, Colombo 15 Earlier - May, June 1818 - Bailey had defended Keats in an Oxford Newspaper and had made valiant efforts to answer his critics in some Edinburgh magazines. (See Note 3) Bailey later writing to John Taylor on 13 August 1849, from Ceylon:
"My dear Friend, It is a very long time since you and I exchanged a letter, ...Especially since the publication of Mr Monckton Milnes 'Life & Letters' of poor dear John Keats — in which I am so unceremoniously sent to my account before my time...I was rather amused with the account of my own death... May I once more ask, if you have a spare copy of my book on the Parables,* in which my objection is noticed in full, and which I see no reason to withdraw... all I can do in return is to request your acceptance...of a little book of mine intitled The Churchman's Manual ...It is chiefly curious as a beautiful specimen of printing at Bp's College, Calcutta where this edition was printed... I have now been a widower for 17 '/2 years of the 18 years since I left Portsmouth for India. I have 3 grandchildren, and am now on leave of 18 months for my health which of late has suffered a great deal. I would retire from my Chaplaincy if I could get a decent provision, for which I must yet wait. I am Archdeacon, but without any emolument... Farewell, my dear friend, and believe me Ever Yours B Bailey."
Bailey wrote the verse below to mock Milnes' disinformation about his alleged death, in Milnes' first biography of John Keats; it was originally attached to a letter probably written in 1848:
"Dicky Milnes — Dicky Milnes! Why what the deuce could ail ye When you wrote the life of Keats — to write the death of Bailey - The poet sleeps — oh! Let him sleep — within the silent tomb-o But Parson Bailey lives, and kicks — Archdeacon of Colombo —"
* Exposition of the Parables of Our Lord, 1828 16 Bailey's Poetry
"Without any poetic inspiration at all, he wrote and published a good deal of verse, an early instance being a sonnet `To Milton' in The Champion, 30 June 1816, and he willed `my volumes of manuscript poems' to his daughter Janet (Mrs Edward Ledwick Mitford). His publications, indeed, were fairly extensive..."
Bailey wrote some sonnets in 1827, one of them being 'On a portrait of Wordsworth.'
In 1835 Bailey had printed at the Weslyan Mission Press, Colombo, a small pamphlet containing verses by Serjeant Rough, Senior Puisne Justice of Ceylon, and four sonnets and two small pieces by himself. Bailey's poetry was not thought much of by local critics, and this annoyed him!
In a haphazard scrapbook,* now at Harvard, he pasted various interesting notes, poems, letters; and among his more or less celebrated correspondence, in addition to Keats were Sir William Rough (died 1838), ...John Cook (1771-1824), Professor of Hebrew at St Andrews, Michael Russell (1781-1848), Bishop of Glasgow and Galloway, Herbert Marsh (1757-1834), Bishop of Peterborough, Michael H T Luscombe (1776 -1846), Continental Bishop of the Scots Episcopal Church, Joanna Baillie (1762-1861) and Maria Jane Jewsbury (1800-1833) and her husband William K Fletcher who visited him in January-February 1833." "Bailey possessed a considerable skill for light verse, although, as he admitted, none for serious poetry. From 1829 until 1852 the recorded output of his writings — whether religious, translations, poetical or prose was prolific by any standards. His unfortunate death at the age of 62 no doubt deprived not only the Church but also the general reading public of an outstanding intellectual."
On 21 April 1837, Bailey wrote Stanzas to my Daughter on her Birthday, published as an octavo in Colombo by the Wesleyan Mission Press in 1837. The first stanza reads:
My Child, my Daughter! now thy fifteenth year Proclaims thee on the verge of womanhood: I think on thee with fondness and with fear; And I do see thee when beside me stood The infant form which thou hast ceased to wear Thy leaves expanding from the tender bud, Blest as the blooming trees of Paradise Be thou — a fair tree pointing to the skies
*see Appendix III for Benjamin Bailey's Scrapbook Guide 17 Besides this there are 19 other eight line stanzas, the last being:
Yes, if God will it, we may meet again; And thou wilt be to me a gentle friend: Our years of separation and of pain Thy filial love will soothe, and gently blend Thy sympathies with mine, and make one chain Of fond remembrance, which will heaven-ward tend, Even to thy sainted mother, whose meek brow May yet viewlessly be bending o'er thee now.
There are also six pages of closely written notes on most of the stanzas.
Additionally, there is a sonnet dated 4 May 1837, from Colombo, Ceylon
`To my mother (in her LXXXVIIIth Year)
Whether thy mild and venerable brow, -- Which the still wings of almost ninety years Have swept, nor effaced the characters Of woman's tenderness, -- be beaming now, As the pale star of eve; or whether thou Art a blest spirit, freed from human fears And this world's sorrow, with thy sainted peers, -- My lot forbids me, thus remote, to know But I have loved thee, with the strength of truth, From boyhood until now, and thine old age Have honoured and revered, and still would soothe: Ah! If not yet thine earthly pilgrimage Be ended, I would blend upon this page Thy evening light with my Child's morn of youth."
Stanza XV in Part III of Poetical Sketches of the Interior of Ceylon is the Epitaph to Bailey's wife which is engraved on her monument at St Peter's Church, Colombo.
18 Ecclesiastical Appointments
In October 1817, Bailey was rejected for a post of curate in Lincoln, England, where he had confidently expected to have been selected. Keats wrote a long letter about the `injustices'... "there is something so nauseous in self-willed yawning impudence in shape of conscience — it sinks the Bishop of Lincoln into a smashed frog putrifying, that a rebel against common decency should escape Pillory!"*
Bailey wrote to John Taylor at New Bond Street, from Oxford, 9 April 1818 "My dear Sir I wrote the slovenly scrawl on Sunday Eve at the suggestion of my friend, Gleig...I shall be in London at the end of the month ...for a very few days. If I can get a Curacy & Title in the Diocese of Carlisle before July or August, the Bishop of C (Samuel Goodenough, 1743 — 1827) has promised to ordain me. Could you serve me at all in this? I know your will is good towards me ..." In the same letter is mentioned the review in the Champion, 22 March 1818, of an article, A Discourse Inscribed to the Memory of the Princess Charlotte Augusta by an Undergraduate of the University of Oxford ... "The writer of this sermon is evidently an amiable man, not only well read in the best of our divinity, but intimately conversant with our poets; a zealous lover of truth, with a poetical imagination, and an enthusiastic spirit. This is easily enough discoverable. His theological and poetic knowledge is impressed, somewhat too strongly perhaps, on every page; his imagination sometimes leads him into the mystical: and his keen search after truth into the abstract and metaphysical. This last is the greatest objection we have to the work..."
Bailey wrote again to Taylor, 20 May 1818, from Oxford: "... Well — I have written two long essays, one upon Moral Principles, the other upon the 'relative state of man and woman' which is the longest and best. I am upon the 3rd which is an inquiry into What is Power. This and one upon The Unity of Nations — are my greatest speculations... The Insufficiency of Language -- and considerations previous to reading an author, I have thought of following -- & to end the whole of this eventful history with my first essay on Paradise Regained, rewritten, -- and at last an essay upon Keats' poetry alone ..." In the same letter, Bailey writes, "I am next to a certainty, likely to be ordained next month or early in August by the Bishop of Carlisle. He has written very handsomely of me to Bishop Gleig, both from the report of his son here, and my own interview with him." Benjamin Bailey was ordained deacon in Carlisle at the end of 1817 during which period he met the Gleigs, the family of the Bishop of Stirling.
*Andrew Motion, Keats, 1997 19 Keats wrote to Bailey on 28 October 1817 — addressed to Magdalen Hall, Oxford:
"My dear Bailey, So you have got a Curacy! Good — but I suppose you will be obliged to stop among your Oxford favourites during term-time — never mind. When do you p(r)each your first sermon tell me — for I shall propose to the two R s* to hear it so don't look into any of the old corner oaken pews for fear of being put out by us — Poor Johnny Martin cant be there I hope Glegt came soon after I left. I don't suppose I've w(r)itten as many Lines as you have read Volumes or at least Chapters since I saw you..."
Keats and Brown arrived in Carlisle walking via Wigton with its ancient red castle 'a little weary in the thighs and a little blistered.' Moreover their hopes of meeting Bailey were dashed. Although their friend was due to be ordained deacon by the Bishop shortly in the Cathedral, he had not yet arrived. (He was in London trying to persuade Taylor to publish some of his religious meditations, and leaving a copy of Livy's Roman Histolyt for Keats to collect on his return) It was the last of a series of missed opportunities; the two men never saw each other again. (Keats and Brown then caught the coach to Dumfries)
Bailey writes to Taylor from Court Square, Carlisle, 29 August 1818 "Dear Mr Taylor, I have long intended writing you, but you know what it is to put off from day to day ...You of course know I am ordained, and a poor northern Curate — I have travelled a vast deal since I was in London. I have been up into Scotland to visit Bishop Gleig, about 35 miles north of Edinburgh. And I preached my maiden sermon in the Bishop's Chapel. It is a glorious country. Stirling is but on the edge of the Highlands, but the valley is the richest in Scotland. The Grampians are in view... same letter: "...I draw large congregations to my little church at present and have been fortunate enough to gain the goodwill of the people, and am aiming to humanize a set of boors, who are sadly ignorant. Time will show whether it be novelty only that draws them - very likely. I live at Carlisle — about 51/2 miles from my Cure ..."
*presumably Rice and Reynolds. Bailey's first curacy was at Carlisle tBailey's new room-mate at Magdalen Hall was the son of the influential Primate of the Scottish Episcopalian Church - and Bailey cultivated his affection. George Robert Gleig (1796 - 1888), later Bailey's brother-in-law, student at Magdalen Hall, Oxford , novelist, historian, inspector-general of military schools (1846 - 1857), and chaplain-general of the forces (1844 -1875). His History of England was once read in Ceylon schools. this autographed copy dated July 1818, sent by Bailey to Keats is now in the LMA (See Note 4)
20 Courtship and Marriage
Although Bailey had earlier engaged in a protracted courtship of Marianne Reynolds, early in 1819, he became engaged to Hamilton Gleig, daughter of George Gleig, Bishop of Brechin and Primus of the Scots Episcopal Church, and sister of G R Gleig, Bailey's room-mate at Oxford, and later Chaplain General of the Forces. As a result, the Reynolds family quarrelled with him, Rice abandoned Bailey altogether, while Keats decided that "his so quickly taking to Miss Gleig can have no excuse — except that of a Ploughman who wants a wife"*
On 20 April 1819 he married Hamilton Gleig in Stirling, Scotland. Bailey became Vicar of Dallington in Northamptonshire on 21 December 1819, "which living he held about 3 years (until end of 1822). During the whole of that period he conducted himself to my entire satisfaction..." (Herbert Marsh, Bishop of Peterborough); then at Gayhurst and Stoke Goldington near Olney and Burton-on-Trent at unspecified dates and apparently at Townfield, Scotland, in 1827.
Bailey wrote to R M Milnes, on 11 September 1849 from Ratnapoora, Ceylon, thanking him for 'the valuable present of your 4 Volumes of Poems'. "I am much obliged to you for them and am sure that I shall derive much pleasure from them." He mentions having "read 'your palm leaves' which have been recently ordered for the Colombo United Service Libry — a very good one...1 observe you have visited Olney ...and have fitly memorialised it. I was once Rector of Gayhurst and Stoke Goldington, close by..."
Later in France
In the summer of 1827 Mrs Bailey's health deteriorated and with the help of Bishops Gleig and Luscombe,t Bailey secured an appointment in a small church in Marseilles where the congregation seldom exceeded twelve. However Mrs Bailey's ill-health continued to deteriorate and they returned to England at the end of 1829. `During these years he wrote some bad verse: and indifferent prose, but, in spite of (or possibly because of) his fine education, the list of his publications before and after 1831 contains nothing that the world has not willingly let die...'
Meanwhile Bailey had lost touch with Keats
*Stephen Coote in John Keats, A Life writes that Bailey had been turned down by Marianne Reynolds tMichael Henry Thornhill Luscombe (1776 — 1846), continental Bishop of the Scottish Episcopal Church and Chaplain (1825 — 46) at the Paris Embassy tOne example of this 'bad verse' would be Poetical Sketches of the South of France published in 1831 21 Bailey in Ceylon
In 1829 the Bishop of London (Charles James Blomfield (1786-1857) arranged for Benjamin Bailey's migration to Ceylon. Very soon after his arrival in Colombo to take up his position as Senior Colonial Chaplain his wife Hamilton Bailey passed away on 31 March 1832.
Benjamin Bailey spent 20 years (from 1832 to 1852) as a member of the Ecclesiastical establishment in Ceylon. His wife's untimely death, the island's considerable unrest, regular upheavals, and sporadic rebellions in the indigenous population during this period of British colonial rule, I believe, is reflected in Bailey's Poetry and his Notes. His unremitting religious convictions and principles caused sufficient disfavour with the British administration in Ceylon to lead to his eventual recall to England.
A memorial erected at St Peter's Church*, Fort reads: `In memory of HAMILTON, wife of Reverend B BAILEY, M A, Senior Colonial Chaplain of the Island of Ceylon, and only daughter of the Right Reverend GEORGE GLEIG, LL D, FRSE &c, Senior Bishop of the Scottish Episcopal Church. Born at Stirling, N B on the 19th April 1793 and died at Colombo, Island of Ceylon on the 31st March, 1832'
`This mortal must put on immortality.' (1 Cor xv53) Erected by her sorrowing husband.
(The two versions in Bailey's handwriting are by courtesy of MS Eng 1461, Houghton Library, Harvard University) *see Appendix V
22 "Where from their suffering saint's repose, thou art For ever blessing and for ever blest; Here pain and sorrow wrung thy gentle heart, There is thy proper sphere thou art at rest.
Most loved, most loving, and most lovable, To whom a purer happier world is given; A broken heart can only say Farewell, Farewell, Farewell, until we met in heaven."*
Bailey resided in suburban Colombo and in 1833 he had as his guest Rev. W K Fletcher, Chaplain of the East India Company's service, and his wife, Maria Jane, whose maiden name was Jewsbury. Mrs Fletcher found Ceylon very attractive, and wrote what A M Ferguson' describes as 'perhaps the most exquisite poem that has been penned respecting Ceylon.' One of the verses runs as follows: `Books for tomorrow: this calm bower (Yet mind and learning know the spot) Suggests to me the primal hour When goodness was, and sin was not'
`Mind and learning' is supposed to refer to Bailey, who has been immortalised by another Ceylon poet, William Skeen in the following lines: `When of the excellent of earth Loved Twistleton of sterling worth And Bailey, theologian sound A scholar and divine profound'
*These two verses titled 'Epitaph' are at the end of Part III of Bailey's Sonnets tAlastair Mackenzie Ferguson, born in Scotland in 1816, arrived at the Colombo 'roadstead' in 1837. He spent 1841 - 46 in the Jaffna peninsula in the Survey department and also as a Police Magistrate. The Colombo Observer was started in 1834 by the Colombo Merchants as a means for public criticism of the Government of Sir Robert Wilmot-Horton who had established an official paper the Colombo Journal which later became the Government Gazette .The merchants sold the Observer to Dr Christopher Elliott, who was its editor until he appointed Ferguson in 1846 to take charge of the paper. Ferguson had been a regular contributor in both prose and verse from the day he arrived in the island. Dr Elliott was appointed the first Principal Medical Officer in 1869, at which stage he sold the Observer to Ferguson. In 1867 the paper changed its name to the Ceylon Observer. Ferguson continued to edit the paper until he vacated his chair in the Observer office in 1879. He died in 1892, aged 79 years His son, also A M Ferguson, owned Abbotsford Estate, Dimbula, while another son Donald W was well known as a writer on antiquarian and literary sublects William Skeen was the first professional Government Printer of Ceylon, and the author of Adam's Peak and other poems
23 A M Ferguson also wrote: "To his hospitable reception in his home of 'mind and learning' at Kollupitiya, of Mrs Fletcher, wife of a Bombay Chaplain, but better known as the poetess Miss Jewsbury, Ceylon owes the most beautiful of verses which were ever written in the island, or respecting it." The verses referred to above are those entitled The Eden of the Eastern Wave. Mrs Fletcher, a victim of cholera, lies buried in the cemetery of Pune, India.
On retirement of the first Archdeacon of Colombo, Dr Twistleton, the claim of Reverend Bailey to succeed him was passed over in favour of the Reverend J M S Glennie. The reasons for this are not known, but they could not have had anything to do with his intellectual qualifications for the office, which were far superior to those of his predecessor. "A man of quick temper, Mr Bailey, in his disappointment...descended to personal recrimination. According to A M Ferguson, Chaplain Bailey's loud scoldings of Archdeacon Glennie in the vestry of St Peter's church before they conducted services was a public scandal...Glennie bore with what he probably felt he deserved, for he was notoriously devoted to such secular pursuits as coffee planting" Following Glennie's death, Bailey was appointed the third Archdeacon of Colombo in 1847, the year he obtained his Doctor of Divinity degree. Bailey did not find much favour as Colonial Chaplain. He was a High Churchman and his services were not popular — even the Governor's wife Mrs Stewart Mackenzie preferring to attend the evangelical services conducted elsewhere, 'to the intense and publicly expressed horror of the Chaplain of S Peter's.' It was only to be expected that a man so full of learning as Bailey should have preached sermons of outstanding merit. One such at the Ordination of two candidates for the priesthood held in St Peter's, Fort, he later had printed with copious notes running into 108 pages!
Bailey was a man of very decided views and this created numerous differences of opinion with the other senior members of the clergy; he also had differences with Bishop Chapman, and to have acted in such a manner as to leave the Bishop no alternative but to represent matters to the Secretary of State, with the result that Bailey was asked to make an apology, which he did with no good grace! "The connection of the Ceylon government with Buddhism had excited the strong disapproval of many civil servants. In 1847, this connection was officially severed by Lord Torrington under orders from England, but in the early fifties Sir George Anderson tried to revive it. There was a storm of indignation, and Archdeacon Bailey wrote a series of articles to the press.*
*see Appendix VI -- six letters of Vetus to the Ceylon Times, 1852; this newspaper ran into financial difficulties and was bought by John Capper c.1858 and renamed The Times of Ceylon, which name it retains to this day (BL.8022 cc20) 24 The Governor was enraged and reported the Archdeacon as insubordinate, in that he, being a paid servant of the government, had written opposing a government measure. Without being given an opportunity of explaining his conduct, Archdeacon Bailey was called upon to retire. He did so on 1st September 1852, on a pension of £280 per annum, and three days later he sailed for England from Galle in the south. (There was no harbour yet in Colombo -- only a `roadstead'; the foundation stone for the present 'breakwater' was laid by the Prince of Wales in 1876 during his visit to Ceylon)
"His pension is said to have represented to the archdeacon a bare pittance, which is not surprising considering he had drawn a salary of £2000 a year. He endeavoured in England to obtain redress, but the effect of this unjust treatment on a man of his age and sensitive feelings was to bring on a painful illness, which closed his sufferings six months after his return. He died in Nottingham Place, Marylebone, London on 25 June, 1853"*
A tablet has been erected by his friends to his memory in St Peter's church, Fort; it speaks of his 'sincere piety, his high literary attainments, and the uncompromising truthfulness of his character.
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Bailey's memorial stone from St Peter 's Church, Fort, Colombo
* Extract from A History of the Diocese of Colombo, 1946 75
Benjamin Bailey - The Salvation of the righteous is of the Lord - Psalm xxxvii, 39
"To the memory of the Venerable BENJAMIN BAILEY D D, Archdeacon of Colombo, who ministered for more than 20 years as Senior Colonial Chaplain in this Church, this tablet is erected by his friends, who held in deserved respect his sincere piety, his high literary attainments, and the uncompromising truthfulness and sincerity of his character. He was born at Thorney Abbey, Cambridgeshire, on the 5 June, 1791, and died in London on the 25 June, 1853."
CERTIFIED COPY OF AN ENTRY OF DEATH nrvEnt AT THO GENERAL REGISTER OFFICE • Appixannn Number 3473859-1 REGISTRATION DISTRICT MARYLEBONE 1853 DEATH in the Sub-disnict n The Rectory thy County of Midair:rim
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Copy of Benjamin Bailey's death certificate obtained from the General Register Office, England
26 APPENDICES
Appendix I England during Bailey's era Early British Colonial Rule in Ceylon Rebellions and Insurrections
Appenix II The Church Missionary Society (CMS) CMS in Ceylon & Kottayam Comparative resumes of the two Baileys
Appendix III Benjamin Bailey (1791-1853) Scrapbook Guide: Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA
Appendix IV Keats House Museum, London, England Benjamin Bailey memorabilia; archives at LMA
Appendix V St Peter's Church, Fort, Colombo Hamilton and Benjamin Bailey's Memorials
Appendix VI Six letters of Vetus in Ceylon Times, 1852
27 Appendix I
In 1660, over a century before Bailey's birth, the Restoration heralded a major reconstruction of English society. King, Parliament and Law replaced the power of military dictatorship. Ecclesiastically, it restored the bishops, the prayer book and Anglicanism; and, the nobles and gentry to their hereditary place as leaders of local and ,national life. The parish church was under the patronage of these 'ladies and gentlemen', and the congregation — the farmers and labourers of the village — were their dependents.
England during Bailey's era. (1793 — 1832) and (1832 — 1867)
King George III ( 1760 — 1820) The Napoleonic wars (1793 — 1815) King George IV (1820 -- 30) Queen Victoria (1837 — 1901)
The wars with France (1793 to 1815) formed the worst possible environment for social and industrial changes then in rapid progress. Trade declined, consumer prices rose and the gap between rich and poor increased disturbing the social fabric. Working class discontent grew out of real suffering. From 1801 to 1831 the UK population grew from 11 to 16.5 million creating more poverty and social unrest. In 1830 just before the Great Reform Bill, starving field labourers rioted — a few were hanged and 420 were torn from their families and deported to Australia as convicts. In the post-war period from 1830 onwards, there was much emigration to Canada, Australia and New Zealand forming the British Commonwealth of Nations. During this period, neither the State nor the Church cared for the poor, as a result of which, the Evangelical Church enlarged; Whig or Tory aristocracy influence declined and the public 'mind' became more active and independent. The factory system grew, women workers increased in numbers, the economy improved and society became more prosperous. Oxford and Cambridge Universities were devoted to classical scholarship and theology. But London University (1827) admitted secularists and non-conformists who were excluded from Oxford and Cambridge. Other significant events during this period were the abolition of the slave trade in 1803 (at a cost of 20 million pounds to the British taxpayer) and the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1831, the year that William Wilberforce died. His methods of tactful agitation were later 'imitated by the myriad leagues and societies — political, religious, philanthropic and cultural — which have ever since been the arteries of English life.' 28 Public discussion and public agitation of every kind of question became the habit of the English people, very largely in imitation of Wilberforce's successful campaigns.
1832 to 1867 The interval between the Great Reform Bill of 1832 and the end of the 19th century was the Victorian Age.. A sequel to 1832 was the Municipal Reform Bill of 1835; this emphasized and increased the differentiation between the social life of town and country. Additionally, economic forces gave rise to two contrasted social systems — the aristocratic England of the rural districts and the democratic England of the great cities. The Counties and market towns were ruled by country gentlemen to whom all classes bowed. Cities, on the other hand, were governed by a different middle or working class with different social values which tended to be more 'democratic'.
Economic improvement and the progress of locomotion created new city societies which kept encroaching on the old society of the country. The census of 1851 showed that 50% of the island's population was urban. But, as a result, overcrowding, bad housing and poor sanitation prevailed. It took 20 years after the Public Health Act of 1848 for real reform to take place.
The Marriage Act of 1836 enabled persons to be legally married by a Civil Registrar (also of Births and Deaths) and not necessarily by a parson. In the 1850s Police forces were established in all Counties. Between the Reform Bills (1832 / 1867) came the 'Age of Coal and Iron' and the `Railway Age' which created a network of railroads thereby decreasing the volume of canal traffic and stage-coaches. By the 1850s an electric telegraph system had been developed and the penny post was operating.
The Ten Hours Bill of 1847 improved factory working conditions for women and children as did the Chimney Sweeps Act of 1864.
Later, with the publication of works such as Dickens' Oliver Twist; Charles Kingsley's WaterBabies; Gulliver, Robinson Crusoe; Grimm's and Andersen's Fairy Tales and Alice in 1865, there was increased sympathy for children; nevertheless, it was still the streets of the slums that were the only playground for the majority of city children. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children was founded only in 1884. Disraeli's famous saying that England was divided into two nations, the rich and the poor had much truth in it! Nevertheless, industrial change had also increased the number of middle classes to varying levels of wealth and it had raised the standard of living of the better-to-do working classes like engineers, far above that of the unskilled labourer and slum dweller.
29 In the 1850s and 1860s the wage-earners lot improved considerably due to trade union action, together with the growth of the co-operative movement which improved social integration, education, and taught the working classes business habits and mutual self- help. *
During Bailey's (and Keats's) time in Oxford, leading articles in the Examiner offered a picture of a nation suffering at the hands of a vindictive government. The iniquities of the spy system disturbed the lives of many. The second suspension of habeas corpus sent `an awful groan, from one corner of Britain to another'. State trials multiplied, collapsed, and invited ridicule and opprobrium in equal measure. Week after week, the Examiner poured scorn on the corruption it exposed, castigated the government ministers and lamented 'the extraordinary, degrading, and slavish situation in which they have placed us' (at the opening of the 3rd book of Endymion, Keats makes clear that this is the background against which he is writing; he thought that Blackwood's and the Quarterly acted in a way comparable to the worst abuses of power and religion. He thought that the country's intellectual life was being progressively emasculated by the insidious grip the Tory party had over the media; the repression in Regency England is chillingly rammed home, and with it, the moral corruption that inevitably ensued).
Early British Colonial Ceylon 1796 to1852
From the 1650s the Dutch had control of the maritime provinces of Ceylon for nearly 140 years. In 1796 the Dutch capitulated to the British who now took over the administration of the coastal regions of the island. The affairs of the central parts of the country were still controlled and administered by the King of Kandy. Following an abortive attack on the hill Capital in 1803, the British invaded and finally captured Kandy in 1815; from then on the British had complete control of the entire island until the granting of Independence on 4 February 1948.
During Benjamin Bailey's 20-year tenure in Ceylon, from 1832 to 1852, there was much unrest and many upheavals especially in the Kandyan and Uva provinces. The British had dismantled the traditional Sinhala systems of administering civil society and brought in their own guidelines, vastly different to the prevailing ones. The Civil Service, the Judiciary, Christianity, proselytisation and church building, registration of births, marriages and deaths, coffee and cinnamon plantations, road building and several other projects had all been in harness for a while.
*Adapted from G M Trevelyan's English Social History, 1986, Penguin 30 Two years after the ceding of the Kandyan kingdom to the British, there was considerable unrest in the Sinhala populace especially in the Kandyan and Uva provinces which erupted in the rebellion of 1817-18. This was put down by the British with great destruction of peasant lands, and their possessions, execution of several Kandyan chiefs, retrieval of the Tooth Relic and the deportation of Headmen and other culprits to Mauritius. Although the rebellion had been quelled, unrest continued to simmer with sporadic disturbances occurring over a period of nearly 30 years, especially in the Kandyan and Uva provinces. The circumstances that culminated in the rebellion of 1847- 48 were rather different to the previous uprisings. Unlike the earlier rebellions, the eruptions in 1847- 48 were not confined to the Kandyan provinces, but included Colombo and several other glow' country coastal areas. In addition, it included a large cross-section of people including the peasantry, headmen, local Chiefs, bhikkus, and urban dwellers. In addition to the economic reasons, there was now a widespread anti-British feeling. The financial crisis in Britain in 1845-46 severely affected the colonial economy between 1847- 48. The remedial measures adopted by the colonial British government heaped further burdens on especially the poor, e.g., the oppressive levy of taxes on guns, dogs, carts, carriages, boats, and shops — measures that caused much resentment among the peasantry and small proprietors. "However, the measure that aroused the most popular discontent was the Road Ordinance by which all males (except monks), between 18 and 55 years of age had to either pay a commutation tax of 3 shillings a year or do free manual work on the roads annually for 6 days... Another source of grievance was that people were forced into either paying a poll tax or doing unpaid hard labour on roads."* A petition was presented to the Governor requesting repeal of the taxes; but this produced a most unfavourable response from the Government. Meanwhile, demonstrations against the taxes occurred in the Kandyan districts, and the Badulla and Kegalle regions. The actual rebellion began on 6 July 1848 when 3,000 persons demonstrated against the taxes outside the Kandy kachcheri. The Government Agent called in the troops to assist the police and the crowd was soon dispersed. The grievances continued to produce disturbances, with events coming to a head on 28 July when the rebels attacked official buildings such as the magistrate's residence, jail, rest-house, coffee stores, Baptist chapel and officials' houses. Martial law was declared in the Kandy district on 29 July and extended to the Seven Korales. The rebellion had spread to Kurunegala where a crowd of about 4,000 attacked official buildings and foreigners' houses, — the kachcheri, and court were sacked, the records burnt, and prisoners freed from the jail. All these incidents were dealt with swiftly and in a very heavy-handed manner, using troops and reinforcements from India. The repression and reprisals were inappropriately severe; people were summarily tried by courts martial and shot — one of whom was a Buddhist monk. *Kumari Jayawardena, Perpetual Ferment, 2010, Social Scientists Association, Colombo 31 Skirmish between the British troops and the Kandyan insurgents
Attack on the Wariyapola store
32 Kadapola Unanse, the rebel Buddhist Gongalagoda Banda, the Kandyan pretender monk shot at Kandy
The Colombo Observer led a campaign against the Governor, Lord Torrington, on whose orders much destruction and confiscation of property, death and banishment had ensued in quelling the rebellion. The Ceylon Government's policies became the subject of discussion by a British Parliamentary Committee of Enquiry resulting in the recall, in 1850, of Torrington and Emerson Tennent, the Colonial Secretary. By the 1850s , the economic and political situation had improved considerably; the 1848 rebellion was the last uprising against British rule in the 19th century.
WARIYAPOLA REBELS DISPERSED HERE BY TROOPS UNDER CAPT. LILLIE, C.H.R 29 JULY 1848
33 British Governors
Frederick North 1798 — 1805 Lord Torrington 1847 -- 50 Thomas Maitland 1805 — 12 George Anderson 1850 -- 55 Robert Brownrigg 1812 —22 Henry Ward 1855 -- 60 Edward Paget 1822 — 24 Edward Barnes 1824 — 31 Kandyan Kings Robert Wilmot-Horton 1831 -- 37 Stewart Mackenzie 1837 — 41 Rajadhi Rajasingha 1782 -- 98 Colin Campbell 1841 — 46 SriWickrama Rajasingha 1798 -- 1815
Major Davey's tree
Major Davie's tree was the scene of a dreadful massacre of British soldiers in 1803. This tree stood for 100 years at the premises, overlooking the Mahaveli river, now owned by the Ceylon Tobacco Company, before being replaced by a memorial stone bearing the inscription; 1803 Sunday, June 20th DAVIE"S TREE
Illustrations from:* 1. Illustrated London News (ILN), 25 November 1848 2. ILN, 17 August 1850 3. and 4. ILN, 7 June 1851 K de Silva, 19th Century Newspaper Engravings of Ceylon - Sri Lanka,1998 34 Appendix II
Church Missionary Society (CMS), England
The CMS came into being on 12 April 1799 at a public meeting held at the Castle and Falcon Inn in Aldersgate, London. In 2007 the CMS moved its administration offices to Crowther Centre for Mission Education in East Oxford. The Mission Archive is now housed in the University of Birmingham library — Special Collection. The Register of Missionaries, 1804 — 1904, has only one Benjamin Bailey, (1791 — 1871). Another Benjamin Bailey (son of the Kerala Bailey) compiled the second edition of the Missionary Register. He was a clerk at Church Mission House. Only one document — a letter dated 1849, signed, 'Bailey, Archdeacon, Colombo', is available pertaining to Bailey (1791 — 1853).
CMS in Ceylon*
Four Missionaries first arrived in the island in 1 8 1 8 . They were: Samuel Lambrick, who settled in Kotte, near Colombo Robert Mayor and Benjamin Ward, who began the work at Baddegama Joseph Knight, worked with the Tamil peoples at Nellore in the Jaffna Peninsula
The missionaries began by setting up printing presses at Kotte and Jaffna and setting up schools of which the most notable were at Chundikuli (later known as St John's College, Jaffna); at Kandy in 1857, which became Trinity College in 1872. The first two Singhalese clergy were ordained in 1839; in 1845 Ceylon was granted its own Bishop — previously having been part of the diocese of Madras. In 1850, Government withdrew its ecclesiastical subsidies. From 1910 onwards the missionaries were faced with financial difficulties and retrenchment. Staff numbers were reduced and the responsibility for maintaining the schools system was gradually handed over to the diocese. In the mid-1920s there was a definite policy concentrating on the education of future leaders of the Church of Ceylon. By 1941, the vernacular and Anglo- vernacular schools had been transferred to the dioceses leaving four English schools - CMS Ladies College, Colombo, founded in 1900, Chundikuli College for girls in Jaffna, Trinity College, Kandy and St John's College, Jaffna, for boys.
*information from the CMS Archives
35 In 1951, when the Government brought in its free education scheme, some of these schools, e.g., Ladies College opted out and became Independent fee levying schools. Benjamin Bailey (1791 — 1853) arrived in Ceylon in 1832 as Senior Colonial Chaplain. He left the island in 1852 and passed away in England in 1853
Summaries of the two Benjamin Baileys
Benjamin Bailey: 1791 — 1853 5 June 1791: Born in Thorney, Lincolnshire, England 1811 — 12: A 430 page bound volume in Bailey's hand-writing on diverse topics in Keats's catalogue at the LMA 1814: Became close friends with James Rice and J H Reynolds and associated with the three daughters of William Leigh at 'Wentworth Place' July 1814: Earliest letter to Thomasine Leigh 25 December 1816: `Poems by Two Friends' 1816: Entered Magdalen Hall, Oxford 1817, Spring: Introduced to John Keats who stayed with Bailey during part of the summer when he completed the third part of his poem Endymion July 1818: Deacon at Carlisle 1819: At Dallington, Northamptonshire; April 1819, married Hamilton Gleig 1821, Autumn: Lost a child 1822 — 1826: In Gayhurst and Stoke Goldeston near Olney. Later at Townfield, Scotland August 1827 to April 1829: In a Marseille parish due to wife's illness 1832: Posted to Ceylon as Senior Colonial Chaplain Wife died in March 1832 in Colombo 1841: Published Part I of Poetical Sketches of the Interior of Ceylon 1846: Appointed 3rd Archdeacon, Colombo 1852: Compulsorily retired and returned to England 25 June 1853: Died in London
This Bailey is well documented in the British Library (BL) and also in the London Metropolitan Archives (LMA) as part of the. John Keats Catalogue. The BL has the 10 items listed below, with different shelf-marks dating from 1831 to 1852 — all relating to Bailey's stay in Ceylon, except Poetical Sketches of the South of France, 1831
36 1833: 'Subjection to Superiors', a sermon preached at Colombo... subsequent to the event of the sentence of the Court martial ... 1835: A letter to the Editor of the Colombo Observer: on temperance societies etc,... 1835: Lines addressed to William Wordsworth by Sir William Rough and Benjamin Bailey 1837: 'Stanzas to my daughter on her Birthday' 1838: The Righteous Judge, a funeral sermon preached on the death of Sir William Rough 1841: A Churchmen's creed respecting the Divinity of Christ A sermon preached on Christmas day 1841: Poetical Sketches of the Interior of the Island of Ceylon; Part I printed in 1841 1843: Appendix to the Duties of the Christian Ministry... 1844: The Duties of the Christian Ministry ... 1852: Six letters of Vetus to the Editor of the Ceylon Times - on the reconnection of the government with the Buddhist idolatry
Benjamin Bailey: 1791 —1871
1791: Born / christened 9 March 1791 in Dewesbury, Yorkshire, England. Mother, Hannah 1812 — 14: Trained under Rev.T Scott for the clergy 1815: Ordained and obtained a Curacy at Harewood, Yorkshire 1816: Sent by CMS to Kottayam* together with his wife Elizabeth, who was the first to assist native Syrian Christian girls to an English education March 1817-- Dec 1818: First Principal of CMS College, Kottayam.t He was succeeded by Joseph Fenn who was a lawyer turned missionary. In 1857 the College was affiliated to Madras University and is now affiliated to Mahatma Gandhi University
*is one of the 14 districts in the State of Kerala; Kottayam literally means the interior of a fort — kotta and allam tfounded by the CMS of England is the oldest institution of higher education in South India
37 1821: Founded the CMS Press — known as the father of printing in Travancore. 'He was a missionary with a vision, prudent and far- sighted, a scholar, architect and engineer' 1842: Translated New Testament to Malayalam which was published by the CMS Press 1831 — 34: On leave in England 1834: Returned to Kerala July 1842: As an architect and engineer, he designed and built Holy Trinity Church, Kottayam, which was consecrated in July 1842. Bailey was its first Bishop. Now known as the Church of South India 1842: Translated Bible into Malayalam which was published by the CMS Press 1846• Printed and Published an English — Malayalam Dictionary Retired due to ill-health and returned to England Wife died in Salop, Shropshire Elected Hon. Life Governor of the CMS, Rector of Sheinton, Salop 1856 — 71: Curacy at Sheinton, Salop 1862 — 71: Rural Dean of Condover, Salop 3 April 1871: Died in Shropshire
The BL has 13 items related to the above Bailey, also catalogued together under `Benjamin Bailey' i.e., together with Benjamin Bailey (1791-1853)
In 2002, Stephen Neill wrote, in A History of Christianity in India, 1707-1858.
"In 1816, Benjamin Bailey and his wife joined the mission. The buildings of the College were going up. It was reported that there were 25 pupils. Plans were put in hand for taking up as soon as possible the work of translating the Bible into Malayalam... The translation of the Bible into Malayalam was from the start a major concern of the missionaries. This proved to be a work of much greater difficulty than expected. Neither grammar nor dictionary was available...at the time there was no standard Malayalam prose; into what kind of Malayalam should the Scriptures be translated?...
...in 1829 5,000 copies of the New Testament were printed...The Bailey version is vulnerable to criticism on a variety of grounds. Too close an adherence to the Greek original at times distorts the Malayalam idiom. An excess of Sanskrit words makes the book difficult reading...Elegance of diction is sadly lacking. But the 5,000 copies were sold in a surprisingly short space of time, and the sales continued..." 38 In 1951, when the Government brought in its free education scheme, some of these schools, e.g., Ladies College opted out and became Independent fee levying schools. Benjamin Bailey (1791 — 1853) arrived in Ceylon in 1832 as Senior Colonial Chaplain. He left the island in 1852 and passed away in England in 1853
Summaries of the two Benjamin Baileys
Benjamin Bailey: 1791 — 1853 5 June 1791: Born in Thomey, Lincolnshire, England 1811 — 12: A 430 page bound volume in Bailey's hand-writing on diverse topics in Keats's catalogue at the LMA 1814: Became close friends with James Rice and J H Reynolds and associated with the three daughters of William Leigh at 'Wentworth Place' July 1814: Earliest letter to Thomasine Leigh 25 December 1816: 'Poems by Two Friends' 1816: Entered Magdalen Hall, Oxford 1817, Spring: Introduced to John Keats who stayed with Bailey during part of the summer when he completed the third part of his poem Endymion July 1818: Deacon at Carlisle 1.819: At Dallington, Northamptonshire; April 1819, married Hamilton Gleig 1821, Autumn: Lost a child 1822 — 1826: In Gayhurst and Stoke Goldeston near Olney. Later at Townfield, Scotland August 1827 to April 1829: In a Marseille parish due to wife's illness 1832: Posted to Ceylon as Senior Colonial Chaplain Wife died in March 1832 in Colombo 1841: Published Part I of Poetical Sketches of the Interior of Ceylon 1846: Appointed 3rd Archdeacon, Colombo 1852: Compulsorily retired and returned to England 25 June 1853: Died in London
This Bailey is well documented in the British Library (BL) and also in the London Metropolitan Archives (LMA) as part of the. John Keats Catalogue. The BL has the 10 items listed below, with different shelf-marks dating from 1831 to 1852 — all relating to Bailey's stay in Ceylon, except Poetical Sketches of the South of France, 1831 36
1833: 'Subjection to Superiors', a sermon preached at Colombo... subsequent to the event of the sentence of the Court martial ... 1835: A letter to the Editor of the Colombo Observer: on temperance societies etc,... 1835: Lines addressed to William Wordsworth by Sir William Rough and Benjamin Bailey 1837: 'Stanzas to my daughter on her Birthday' 1838: The Righteous Judge, a funeral sermon preached on the death of Sir William Rough 1841: A Churchmen's creed respecting the Divinity of Christ • A sermon preached on Christmas day 1841: Poetical Sketches of the Interior of the Island of Ceylon; Part I printed in 1841 1843: Appendix to the Duties of the Christian Ministry... 1844: The Duties of the Christian Ministry ... 1852: Six letters of Vetus to the Editor of the Ceylon Times - on the reconnection of the government with the Buddhist idolatry
Benjamin Bailey: 1791 —1871
1791: Born / christened 9 March 1791 in Dewesbury, Yorkshire, England. Mother, Hannah 1812 — 14: Trained under Rev.T Scott for the clergy 1815: Ordained and obtained a Curacy at Harewood, Yorkshire 1816: Sent by CMS to Kottayam* together with his wife Elizabeth, who was the first to assist native Syrian Christian girls to an English education March 1817-- Dec 1818: First Principal of CMS College, Kottayam.t He was succeeded by Joseph Fenn who was a lawyer turned missionary. In 1857 the College was affiliated to Madras University and is now affiliated to Mahatma Gandhi University
*is one of the 14 districts in the State of Kerala; Kottayam literally means the interior of a fort — kotta and allam tfounded by the CMS of England is the oldest institution of higher education in South India
37
1821: Founded the CMS Press — known as the father of printing in Travancore. 'He was a missionary with a vision, prudent and far- sighted, a scholar, architect and engineer' 1842: Translated New Testament to Malayalam which was published by the CMS Press 1831 — 34: On leave in England 1834: Returned to Kerala July 1842: As an architect and engineer, he designed and built Holy Trinity Church, Kottayam, which was consecrated in July 1842. Bailey was its first Bishop. Now known as the Church of South India 1842: Translated Bible into Malayalam which was published by the CMS Press 1846• Printed and Published an English — Malayalam Dictionary 1'6)0: Retired due to ill-health and returned to England Wife died in Salop, Shropshire Elected Hon. Life Governor of the CMS, Rector of Sheinton, Salop 1856 — 71: Curacy at Sheinton, Salop 1862 71: Rural Dean of Condover, Salop 3 April 1871: Died in Shropshire
The BL has 13 items related to the above Bailey, also catalogued together under `Benjamin Bailey' i.e., together with Benjamin Bailey (1791-1853)
In 2002, Stephen Neill wrote, in A History of Christianity in India, 1707-1858.
"In 1816, Benjamin Bailey and his wife joined the mission. The buildings of the College were going up. It was reported that there were 25 pupils. Plans were put in hand for taking up as soon as possible the work of translating the Bible into Malayalam... The translation of the Bible into Malayalam was from the start a major concern of the missionaries. This proved to be a work of much greater difficulty than expected. Neither grammar nor dictionary was available...at the time there was no standard Malayalam prose; into what kind of Malayalam should the Scriptures be translated?...
...in 1829 5,000 copies of the New Testament were printed...The Bailey version is vulnerable to criticism on a variety of grounds. Too close an adherence to the Greek original at times distorts the Malayalam idiom. An excess of Sanskrit words makes the book difficult reading...Elegance of diction is sadly lacking. But the 5,000 copies were sold in a surprisingly short space of time, and the sales continued..." 38 Bailey appears to have worked as the Principal of the Theological Seminary of Kottayam for eighteen months. Additionally, he had become proficient in Malayalam. He is thought to have made a wooden printing press and moulded models of Malayalam script with his own hand, thus setting up the first printing press in Kerala.
In 1846 he published a dictionary of High and Colloquial Malayalam and English, 852 pages. In 1849 an English Malayalam Dictionary of 545 pages.
Rev. Benjamin Bailey (1791 — 1871)
This photograph of Bailey (1791--1871) was inserted into his English--Malayalam dictionary, 1849, at the BL.
Since no photography was available in Ceylon or India until the early 1850s, Bailey must have been around 60 years of age when this photograph was taken. The illustration on the right shows an older Bailey.
Both Baileys are found on the official website of 'The Church of Jesus Christ of latter day Saints'.
The photograph of the 'older Bailey' and the cathedral (next page) were taken from http//adimathra.com.histoty.html
39 CMS Holy Trinity Cathedral - dedicated on 6 July 1842 Rev. Bailey was the first Bishop of this church
40 Appendix III
MS Eng 1461 Bailey, Benjamin, 1791?-1853. Scrapbook: Guide. Houghton Library, Harvard College Library
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138 © 2004 The President and Fellows of Harvard College
Descriptive Summary Repository: Houghton Library, Harvard College Library, Harvard University Location: Keats Room b Call No.: MS Eng 1461 Creator: Bailey, Benjamin, 1791?-1853. Title: Scrapbook, Date(s): 1817-1849. Quantity: 1 box (.5 linear ft.) Abstract: Scrapbook of letters and compositions by and about Benjamin Bailey, a friend of the English poet John Keats.
Acquisition Information: *51M-8 Manuscript deposited by Arthur Amory Houghton Jr., Wye Plantation, Queenstown, Maryland. Purchased at Sotheby's London, 1951 June 19, lot 459; received: 1951 July 20. Gift: 1970 Dec. 7. This scrapbook was formerly owned by Henry J.S. Bailey (d.1936).
Processing Information: Many of the notes included in this finding aid are taken from: Ryder E Rollins. "Benjamin Bailey's Scrapbook." Keats-Shelley Journal, Vol.V1, Winter, 1957, and are marked: Rollins. Extensive details about this scrapbook can be found in this article.
Historical Note Benjamin Bailey (1791?-1853) was an undergraduate at Oxford University who later became the Archdeacon of Colombo. He has been called "the best trained scholar of Keats' acquaintance." He was a friend of the English poet John Keats. 41 Arrangement
Items are arranged as bound into the scrapbook.
Scope and Content Includes autograph compositions by Benjamin Bailey (including sermons, poems, essays), letters to Bailey, correspondence between various others, Bailey family miscellany, and compositions by various others. Some of the material concerns the poet John Keats. Spine title: M.S.S. autographs, &c. Fly leaf signed: B. Bailey Colombo. 1844. Titlepage Part I: Manuscripts, Autographs, and other Papers. No. 1. Collected in 1842-48-50. Titlepage Part II: Manuscripts, Autographs, and other Papers. No.2. Collected in 1842- 1844. Includes autograph lists of contents of volume.
Bibliography For detailed description of contents of this scrapbook see: Hyder E Rollins. "Benjamin Bailey's Scrapbook." Keats-Shelley Journal, Vol.V1, Winter, 1957, copy in Manuscript Department curatorial file.
Container List (1) Bailey, Benjamin, 1791-1853. Moral principle. A.MS. (unsigned) essay; Oxford, 1817. 15f.(22p.)
(2) Bailey, Benjamin, 1791-1853. Letters on church government. A.MS. (unsigned) essay; [n.p.] 1825. 24f.(40p)
(3) Mill, William Hodge, 1792-1853. MS.L. (copy) to G V Withers; Alexandria, 17 Jul 1838. 14f.(28p.) Rollins: Mill was the "first principal of Bishop's College, Calcutta, and later regius professor of Hebrew at Cambridge (1848-1853), wrote aboard H.M.S. `Megaera,' Alexandria, to Withers, a professor in Bishop's College, giving details about his 'long and by no means slow ramble through Upper and Middle Egypt and Nubia' during four months beginning January 21.
(4) Clarke, Adam, 1762?-1832. 2 A.L.s. to Mary Anne (Clarke) Smith; Coleraine and [n.p.] 3 Jun and 22 Jun 1832. ls.(3p.); ls.(2p.) Also includes 2 scraps of letters from Mrs Adam Clarke to [ ? ]; a note of Clarke's about "My Letter to the Americans;" his calling card; and two impressions of his seals. Rollins: Clarke was "editor of Haydon Hall, Middlesex." Wrote to "his daughter Mary Ann (Mrs. Richard) Smith."
42 (5) Smith, Mary Anne (Clarke). [2 poems to her children]. A.MS.s.; Stoke Newington, 7-8 Sep 1842. ls.(4p.) Poems include pen and ink drawings. First poem addressed: "To my beloved children, Mary Leslie and John Finch Smith." Second poem addressed: "To John Finch Smith."
(6) Tooth, Eliza T. Quatorzain addressed on her Birthday 25th Novr 1842 To my beloved friend Mrs Richd. Smith. After the interdicted correspondence in Ceylon, upon her writing her beautiful Poem, 'Evening' Addressed by her, to the Rev. B. Bailey, in Aug. 1842. A.MS.s.; Stoke Newington, 25 Nov 1842. 1s.(2p.) Copy sent to Benjamin Bailey. Rollins: Beginning "Souls are no sex- they freely intermix," and signed "Eliza T. Tooth [?]," of Stamford Hill, Stoke Newington, this last poem was mailed to Bailey, and is postmarked November 26, 1842.
(7) Freeman, M. [2 sonnets]. A.MS.s. poems; [n.p.] 10-12 Sep 1830. 3s.(4p.) Rollins: Mr Freeman's poems, beginning "Dead must his heart be, - when the blooming year" and "Hast thou not, gentle reader, oft times known."
(8) Bailey family. [Autograph of Benjamin Bailey's father, and astrological nativity of his grandfather cast by Vincent Wing]; [n.p., n.d.] 2s.(2p.) Contents noted in volume as: "Sundry papers in print and Manuscript. -- Autograph of my late Father, & Astrological Scheme of Nativity by Vincent Wing, of my Grandfather. [Itemized as follows:] 1. Early Autograph of my late Father [died 1822] . 5. Astrological Scheme of my Grand Father's Nativity Cast by Vincent Wing." Rollins: On the verso of one leaf are pasted wax impressions of the "Seal of the Bp of Madras." and "My own Seal. BB:"
(9) Bailey, Benjamin, 1791-1853. [Epitaphs and memorial poems on Hamilton (Gleig) Bailey]. A.MS. and printed copies; Colombo, Ceylon, 1832-1834. 6f.(6p.) Hamilton Bailey was the wife of Benjamin Bailey. Rollins: Contains Bailey's autograph and printed copies of the inscription on his wife's tomb at Colombo (she was born at Stirling on April 19, 1793, and died at Colombo on March 31, 1832), which concludes with eight verses by him; unsigned poems in manuscript and print - "For a Sketch," March, 1834, "On a Profile," May, 1833, "On the Counterpart," May, 1833, "On a Portrait," August, 1834 (perhaps once belonging to this item is an untitled poem inserted after the letter [item (13) below].
(10) Bailey, Benjamin, 1791-1853. An Easter sermon for 1832. A.MS.s. (initials); Colombo, Ceylon, 22 Apr 1832. 14f.(28p.) A funeral sermon on his wife, Hamilton (Gleig) Bailey. 43 (11) Rough, Sir William, d.1838. 2 A.L.s. to Benjamin Bailey; [Colombo, n.d.] (lp.) With this is transcript by Rough of the opening of John Dryden's "To the pious memory of the accomplished lady Mrs Anne Killigrew." Is. (2p.) Rollins: Two brief notes from Sir William Rough (died 1838), poet and chief-justice of the supreme court, Ceylon; and a copy by Sir William of Dryden's "Anne Killigrew."
(12) Villett, [Mme]. Al. (signature wanting) to Benjamin Bailey; Marseilles, 10 Feb 1833. 2f.(4p.) Rollins: Letter in English from Mme Villett, "an old woman of 73," evidently a Protestant, on the death of the husband of "little Mrs Budd," of Malta, who, penniless and with six children, managed to get to Marseilles, where she is running a lodging house; on the illness of M. Villett and of Mrs. Turnbull, wife of the English consul. Presumably the writer had belonged to Bailey's small church.
(13) Bailey, Benjamin, 1791-1853. When sorrow dims the soul within [first line]. A.MS.s. (initials) poem; [Colombo, Ceylon] 24 Oct 1842. 1s.(1p.)
(14) Houghton, Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st baron, 1809-1885. 2 A.L.s. to Benjamin Bailey; London, 18 Dec [1848] and 17 Jul [n.d.] each. I s.(4p.) laid in. Inserted at point where Bailey removed 2 A.L.s. of John Keats to send to Milnes. Rollins: The most interesting piece in the scrapbook. A separate heading runs, "2 Letters of John Keats, `1818.' 1 Taken out to be sent to Richard Monckton Milnes Esqr Editor of Keats' Remains.' Octor 13. 1848. BB." Actually Bailey wrote to Manes on October 15 and 16, enclosing one Keats letter (No. 26 in M.B. Forman's 1952 edition). He there refers to "two letters (one of which I inclose [sic] you) which I had placed in a book of autographs I collected and bound up a few years ago." Evidently the second letter (No. 28) was removed from the volume at some later date. Here also is the first draft in Bailey's hand of the long biographical letter about the poet which, after being copied by his daughter Mrs Mitford, was forwarded to Milnes." [The text of these letters is reproduced in full in the Rollins article].
(15) Bailey, Benjamin, 1791-1853. A.L.s. (draft) to Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st baron Houghton; Ratnapoora, Ceylon, 7 May 1849. 2645 1p.) laid in. Biographical reminiscences of Keats, written at the request of Milnes. This item has been removed from this scrapbook and is now cataloged As: Keats 4.2.1.
(16) Cook, John, 1771-1824. 5 A.L.s. to Benjamin Bailey; St. Andrews, 25 Jul 1820- Nov 1824. 10f.(18p.) Rollins: John Cook, professor of Hebrew at St. Andrews (1802-1824), a great admirer of Bailey's. While writing the last letter Cook had expected Bailey and his wife to dinner on Friday (the 19th) at four o'clock. Soon John Cook, Jr. (1808-1869), professor of 44 ecclesiastical history at St. Andrews (1860-1868), informed Bailey, November 28, "My excellent father departed this life at 10 o'clock this morning." [See item (17) below].
(17) Cook, John, 1808-1869. A.L.s. to Benjamin Bailey; St. Andrews, 28 Nov 1824. ls.(3p.) See notes with item (16) above.
(18) Skinner, John. 5 A.L.s. to Benjamin Bailey; Inchgarth, 10 Sep 1828-18 Jul 1829. 10s.(20p.) Rollins: John Skinner (1769-1841), son of John Skinner (1744-1816), the bishop of Aberdeen (1786-1816) and primus of Scotland (1788-1816), and brother of William Skinner (1778-1857), who held the same offices, writes about various things to Bailey at Marseilles.
(19) Russell, Michael, bp. of Glasgow, 1781-1848. A.L.s. to Benjamin Bailey; Leith, 18 Jan 1848. ls.(4p.) Rollins: Michael Russell (1781-1848), bishop of Glasgow and Galloway (1837-1848), discusses mainly details about Bailey's funds in the Bank of Scotland from November 9, 1841, to December 31, 1847.
(20) Bush, James. A.L.s. to Benjamin Bailey; Cullomton, Devon, 2 Nov 1849. 21(4p.) Rollins: The Reverend Mr James Bush, author of The Choice: Or, Lines on the Beatitudes (London, 1841), wrote to Bailey from his daughter Mrs Webster's house at Cullomton, Devon, saying, "Your Manual has reached Mr Wordsworth by the Hands of one of my Daughters. Your Manuscript Poems shall be safely delivered to your Brother." Bush was then on his deathbed, though the end did not come until December 11, as is told in a letter from his son Paul, of South Luffenham, Stamford. [See item (21) below].
(21) Bush, Paul. A.L.s. to Benjamin Bailey; Cullomton, Devon, 13 Dec 1849. 2f.(4p.) See notes with item (20) above.
(22) Marsh, Herbert, bp. of Peterborough, 1757-1839. 3 A.L.s. to Benjamin Bailey; Peterborough, 23 May 1822-11 Jul 1826. 8f.(8p.) Rollins: Item concerns Bailey's curacy in Peterborough. To Herbert Marsh (1757- 1839), bishop of that diocese (1819-1839), he had written announcing his intention of resigning the Dallington living at Christmas. The bishop replied urging him to stay through the following September, and suggesting that if Mr Trottman by that time have deacon's orders Bailey nominate him as a successor. The bishop sent to Westgate, Kent (?), a testimonial, saying that he had instituted Bailey to the vicarage of Dallington on December 21, 1819, "which Living he held about three years. During the whole of that period he conducted himself to my entire satisfaction." In a final letter, Herbert Marsh, bishop of Peterborough forwards Bailey a letter from Bishop Gleig, and asks him to 45 inform the bishop "that the privilege of receiving letters free does not extend to packets which weigh more than an ounce."
(23) Luscombe, Michael Henry Thornhill, bp., 1776-1846. 10 A.L.s. to Benjamin Bailey; Paris, 30 Aug 1827 - 8 Apr. 1831. 19f.(26p.) Rollins: Luscombe, was the Continental bishop of the Scottish Episcopal Church and chaplain (1825-1846) at the Paris embassy. They show that Bailey went to southern France because of his wife's ill health.
(24) Blomfield, Charles James, bp. of London, 1786-1857. MS.L. (copy) to Michael Henry Thornhill Luscombe; London, 20 Mar 1829. 2f.(4p.) Rollins: Blomfield was bishop of London.
(25) Blomfield, Charles James, bp. of London, 1786-1857. 2 A.L.s. to Benjamin Bailey; London, 7 and 13 Jun 1831. 6f.(4p.)
(26) Nevett, Charles Shaw. 2 A.L.s. to Benjamin Bailey; Dryburg Abbey, 1831. 4f.(7p.)
(27) Fletcher, Maria Jane (Jewsbury) 1800-1833. 6 A.L.s. to Benjamin Bailey; India, 1833. 20f.(40p.) Includes several poems.
(28) Fletcher, William Kew. A.L.s. to Benjamin Bailey; Poonah, 6 Oct 1833. 2f.(2p.) On the death of his wife.
(29) Fletcher, Maria Jane (Jewsbury) 1800-1833. Dedicatory stanzas to William Wordsworth Esqr. A.MS.s. (initials); [n.p.,n.d.] 2f.(2p.) Rollins: Copy (made by Bailey's daughter) of Miss Jewsbury's stanzas to Wordsworth, "A simple solitary flower."
(30) [Bailey, Benjamin, 1791-1853]. On Southey's loss of mind. A.MS. (unsigned) poem; Colombo, 22 Mar 1841. ls.(1p.) A sonnet. Rollins: "Given to James Bush of the Ship Thos Coutts, for my dear friend his father, the Rev. Jas Bush, the neighbour and friend of Southey."
(31) Mitford, E L [Poems] A.MS.s.; [n.p.] 1842. 3f.(5p.) One poem is printed. Rollins: An "Imitation" of Psalm 20 (in E L Mitford's hand); printed, unsigned "Missionary Stanzas" ("Hail Prophet! who from Patmos height!); a poem, September, 1842, by Mr Mitford's mother ("Tell not of vain delights - Transient, fading!"); and a fragment of a letter, Tuesday (1842), from E L Mitford, Bailey's son-in-law, with "a come from the Cedars of Lebanon."
46 (32) Wilson, Daniel, bp. of Calcutta, 1778-1858. 7 A.L.s. to Benjamin Bailey; India, 1836-1843. 15f.(27p.) Wilson was bishop of Calcutta (1832-1858).
(33) Wilson, Daniel, bp. of Calcutta, 1778-1858. 3 MS.L. (copies) to Alfred Wallis Street; India, Jan-Feb 1848. 8f.(16p.) Includes copies of 2 replies of Street. Rollins: Dealing with the management of Bishop's College, Calcutta, and the criticism made of it in the Calcutta Review.
(34) Smedley, Edward, 1788-1836. [Poems] MS. (in the hand of Benjamin Bailey); [n.p.,n.d.] lOf.(20p.) Rollins: "Extracts From the Memoirs and last Poems of The Revnd E[dward]. Smedley" ( I 788-1836), in some unidentified hand.
(35) Forster, Charles, d.1871. A.L.s. to Benjamin Bailey; Stisted Rectory, Braintree, 30 Sep 1845. 2f.(4p.) Rollins: Forster was an orientalist of distinction.
(36) Baillie, Joanna, 1762-1851. A.L.s. to Benjamin Bailey; Hampstead, 19 Jan 1839. 2f.(4p.) Rollins: Expresses her sorrow at Mr Carr's news of the death of Sir William Rough.
47 Appendix IV
Keats House Museum, Hampstead, London NW3 2RR
Built around 1815 in Regency style the buildings were originally a pair of semi-detached houses known as 'Wentworth Place', which were occupied by Charles Wentworth Dilke (1789 - 1864) and his bachelor friend Charles Brown (1786 - 1842).The two friends shared the garden. Keats first visited Hampstead in 1816 because of his admiration for the poet and editor Leigh-Hunt (1784 - 1859). Keats and his brother lodged with the local postman nearby in Well Walk. In 1817 after Keats became friendly with Dilke and Brown, he was a regular visitor to Wentworth Place. Keats's brother George emigrated to America in 1818, and when his other brother Tom died of tuberculosis in December the same year, Keats was invited by Brown to share his half of the house. Keats lodged here in two modest rooms — a parlour and a bedroom, from December 1818 to April 1820. 'For Keats it was a refuge from illness, scathing reviews, poor sales, obscurity, the relentless deaths of parents and siblings and a desperate sense that he himself had dreadfully little time.'*
After Dilke and his family moved out in 1819, the house was let to Mrs Brawne, a widow, and her family who lived there until 1830. While living next door Keats fell in love with Fanny Brawne. However, Keats became ill with tuberculosis and was advised to move to a warmer climate. He left London in 1820 and died unmarried, in Rome in 1821. Benjamin Bailey, J H Reynolds and James Rice, together with Leigh Hunt's' circle of friends were frequent visitors to this house.
•
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*Christopher Hart, 2009 tLeigh Hunt of Salcombe Regis, Sidmouth, Devon, had Hampstead three daughters, one of whom, Marianne, was courted by in 1814 Bailey, who has been called 'the best trained scholar of Keats's acquaintance' 48 The house in the 1890s The house in the 1920s (Courtesy City of London)
John Keats in1819 Fanny Brawne (Courtesy Keats House Museum brochure)
Keats House, 1907, by J P Hull 49 The two houses were joined together in 1838 — 9 and were in continuous occupation until the 20th century when they were threatened with demolition; they were saved by subscription and opened to the public as the Keats Memorial House in 1925. The buildings underwent restoration in 2006. Artefacts on display include the engagement ring Keats offered Fanny Brawne and a copy of Keats's death mask. The Keats archive is now at the LMA. The museum runs regular poetry and literary events; in July and August 2009 the museum hosted Keats in Hampstead, a performance piece about Keats's life in Hampstead, his poetry, prose and his love for Fanny Brawne.
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Leather-bound octavo, 19 x I2cms. 366pages, 1815--16 Extracts and Selections from Miscellaneous Prose by B.B y
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Bright Star! Would I Were Stedfast As Thou Art (In Keats's writing. Courtesy LMA)
In 2009, a film was released based on the last three years of the life of John Keats and his romantic relationship with Fanny Brawne. Bright Star is a British / Australian / French production directed by Jane Campion, who wrote the screenplay and was inspired by the biography of Keats by Andrew Motion, a script consultant on the film. The last love-letter (of 30) written by John Keats to Fanny Brawne fetched £96,000 at auction recently. It was bought by the City of London Corporation and will be displayed at the Keats House Museum.
51 Appendix V
St Peter's Church, Fort, Colombo
This massive old building with thick walls and large door-windows facing the harbour, was the former residence of the Dutch Governors. Following the Dutch capitulation to the British in 1796, it was occupied by Governor Frederick North and briefly by General Macdowal who vacated the building in 1803. In 1804, the building was converted into a `garrison' church for the use of British troops, services being held regularly on Sundays. The church was consecrated only in May 1821 when the Bishop of Calcutta, Dr Thomas F Middleton performed the ceremony; from then on it was called St Peter's Church. Around 1832 the church underwent extensive repairs and the large porticos and wide verandahs, supported by tall pillars, were added to the front and back of the original building; also, the arcade of six round arches, supported by sections of wall, which has created a nave and a wide aisle, would have been later additions. The church, which is flanked on one side by the Grand Oriental Hotel and the Mission to Seafarers on the other, remains the only Dutch building of any pretensions now left in the Fort.
Registers have been maintained from 1804 and the church possesses a silver-gilt communion service, large silver salver and candle-sticks presented by George HI. The first Chaplain was Rev. James Cordiner (1799 -- ! 804), the author of a book on Ceylon. Rev. B Bailey was appointed in 1832. Church Services are still held regularly; the present Vicar is Rev. S J Balakumar. Both Bailey memorial stones have been illustrated previously in the text. They are placed on either side of the altar. J
The altar at St Peter's showing the memorials placed on the walls on either side
52 The wide front verandah of the church showing the notice-board announcing the times of the church services
The entrance to St Peter 's Church
53 Appendix VI: Six Letters of Vetus
Note by the Editor
These lengthy letters were written by Benjamin Bailey to the Ceylon Times under the pen-name Vetus, during the period November 1851 to January 1852; they were the immediate reason for Bailey being relieved of his duties and from his position as Archdeacon of Colombo. He returned to England, on a pittance of a pension and died soon after.
For a man of his intellectual capacity, obvious sincerity and even the total belief in his God, it is impossible to excuse Bailey's `tunnel vision'; his total intransigence and intolerance of other religions, including Roman Catholicism, where he compares some of the rituals with those of Buddhism and Hinduism, forgetting entirely some of the practices of the Anglican Church!
The 'tone' of his letters and some of the derogatory language Bailey uses in referring to the indigenous peoples and their culture, (e.g., "an ignorant and barbarous people like the Cingalese") which, through his extensive travels he was very aware of, is more than suggestive of Bailey's lack of comprehension and refusal to accept the changes going on around him. It is little wonder then, that the British Colonial administration, including the clergy, had the intelligence to dismiss Bailey and his opinion.
54 SIX LETTERS
OF
VETUS.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE CEYLON TIMES
ON THE RE-CONNEXION OF THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT WITH THE BUDDHIST IDOLATRY OF CEYLON.
What have I now done? Is there not a cause? I Sam. xvii, 29.
Every one with one of his hands wrought in the work, and with the other hand held a weapon. For the builders, every one had his sword girded by his side, so builded. Nehemiah iv, 17, 18.
Printed for private circulation
COLOMBO: PRINTED AT THE CEYLON TIMES OFFICE.
1852.
(Inscribed at bottom of page): Col. Braybrook, With the kind regards of The Author
55 PREFACE.
THE history of this little Pamphlet, which is intended only at present for private circulation, is as follows: Not many months after Sir George W Anderson became Governor of Ceylon, it was made known that he had signed an Act of Appointment of a Basnaike Nilleme to one of the largest Dewales in the Island; thus effectually, in the opinion of thoughtful and serious men, renewing the former, abandoned, Connexion of the British Government with the Heathenism of various kinds, both Budhist and Hindu, accompanied with devil- dancings, and other abhorrent practices, in the Island of Ceylon.
In addition, to this, Circulars were sent to Government Agents, and Assistant Agents, desiring them to recommend temple officers, at least high priests and basnaike nillemes. These Circulars have since been partially disclaimed, and but partially withdrawn. But one district alone establishes the principle, as much as if the requirement of the circulars were more generally insisted on.
The Home Government had for some years been gradually relaxing their hold upon this most unholy Connexion, which, it is the merest evasion to say, is solely political, after the example of India; and in 1847, a memorable Despatch was forwarded from this Island by Lord Torrington, containing the written opinions of the several Members of the Ceylon Government upon the question.
About the latter end of the year 1847, in the words of Sir James Emerson Tennent's first able letter on the subject, dated 11th October, 1847, "That connexion was formally dissevered; the Governor had finally proclaimed non-interference with all temple appointments, whether priestly or secular. The payments from the public treasury were already at an end; and the Dalada and its jewels had been handed over to their natural guardian, the priests, and their lay officer, the dewa nilleme."
In 1848, the disturbances in the Kandyan Provinces occurred. The Dalada was taken back by the Ceylon Government, who still retain it. In 1849 Lord Torrington, then Governor, called for the further opinions of the Members of his Council. (These will be found in Appendix I.)* It is on some of these papers that the Writer of the Letters of VETUS has commented. The following are the reasons which, right or wrong, impelled him to this course.
* this, and several other appendices have been excluded
56 When the intentions of Government, already partially carried into effect, became generally known, and the matter was taken up very decidedly by one of the local newspapers, the Ceylon Times, some of the Clergy felt it to be their duty to make a demonstration of their opinions against the measure. They wished to do this decidedly, but properly, and according to the rules of their Church. Although it is not a question of Church Discipline, upon which their Superior could of right call upon them to express an opinion one way or other, nor could the Clergy make a similar claim upon their Superior; still there was an obvious propriety in their acting all together, along with their Bishop, in a matter which they felt to be of the utmost importance to religion.
The Bishop was at that time absent from Colombo. They therefore had two successive private meetings at the Archdeacon's house, and carefully and unanimously drew up the letter, which, with the Bishop's answer, is now published.
The Bishop declining to act with them, they felt at liberty, as they could not take his lordship's view of the question, to proceed with their first design of presenting a Memorial to the Governor, or a Petition to the Queen. At a rather numerous Meeting, for these regions, it was agreed to draw up the Memorial, which has been published. To that Memorial, 18 out of 32 Clergy have signified their assent. Fourteen had signed it when it was sent in to the Governor; and four, who were distant from Colombo, have requested their names to be added. There were 22 names — and one Clergyman afterwards signified his desire to sign, which made 23 who were consenting, appended to the letter to the Bishop; which with 5 new names to the Memorial, amount, in all, to 28, who would have signed the Memorial, had the Bishop been united with his Clergy. Indeed, there can hardly be a doubt that the entire body of the Clergy would have joined, along with the Bishop, in a Petition to the Throne for the Disseverance of the Connexion.
The failure of the Bishop, and the consequent falling off of some of the Clergy, (and it is highly to their honor that, under such discouraging circumstances, so many have come forward, more than half of the whole body) — made the Author of the Letters of Vetus feel it to be his duty, as the Senior Clergyman of the Colony, to come forward, if not in his own name, yet under a designation, by which he was as well known as by his own name in the Island.
These letters have been abruptly terminated by a "Minute," of the Governor, forwarded by the Bishop with his lordship's decided censure. The Author has submitted under protest to the Governor's "Minute," which nevertheless he cannot but think very unmeasured in its expressions, and very uncalled for by the circumstances. As he published this protest in the local newspaper, he shall transcribe it here, for the information of his friends. The Editor of the Ceylon Times was "authorized, by the Author of the Letters of V F T U S, to state 57 "That he had cheerfully withdrawn, at the Governor's desire, from the columns of the Times, the further letters he had intended to publish, upon the distinct understanding, that, if the Government did not entirely do away with the hateful Connexion with the heathen Idolatry, and Atheistical Budhism of this Island, he was not pledged not to come before the Public in any form he might think proper in future." The reasons, or feelings, which impelled the Bishop of Colombo to add to the Governor's "Minute" his, really unwarranted, censure of a matter not within his jurisdiction and respecting which people would and did naturally think it should have rather won his approval, must rest with his lordship's own conscience. His conduct has led to results much to be deplored; but which this is not the proper place to discuss. It only remains to state that five Letters had been published when this "Minute" was received, and the sixth was at the Press. These six Letters are now printed, for private circulation among the Author's friends, and to be communicated to a few other persons who will have sympathy with his peculiar circumstances and position. He would have completed his plan, had the seventh Letter on Mr Selby's, the Queen's Advocate, very excellent Minute been allowed to come forth, or to be written. But he reprints the Minute in the Appendix. He will only add that in its general. principles, particularly the religious view, he entirely concurs. The "Memorandum" prefixed to these papers, which is generally most sensible, shows the impracticability of what the Author once thought practicable, Mr Selby's proposed Ordinance. The concluding paragraph of this paper, may, perhaps have influenced the Secretary of State in his conditional, and most guarded, permission to resort, even as a temporary measure, to the granting of acts of appointment. "If the Governor and his Council should think that the inquiry (suggested with reference to a grant of land in compensation) would produce too much agitation, there would seem to be no alternative but that the system sought to be abandoned, should be authorized to continue till such risk shall have ceased." But no such "inquiry" appears to have been made and no "risk" incurred. Nor, had the Bishop quietly united with his Clergy, would any agitation so far as respected the Clergy, have been raised beyond the legitimate exercise of remonstrance by Memorial. The example of the Bishop and Clergy would have been probably followed by other denominations of Christians and by the people generally. No obscure persecution of individual clergymen for simply doing their duty, whether in the pulpit or from the press would have ensued. And all would have tended to strengthen the hands of the Governor, who, it is believed by the Author, sincerely desires to be free of the odious and unhallowed Connexion.
B. BAILEY, D. D., Archdeacon of Colombo, Colombo, January 14, 1852.
58 THE CONNEXION OF THE CEYLON GOVERNMENT WITH THE BUDDHIST IDOLATRY RESUMED.
LETTER 1
TO THE EDITOR OF THE CEYLON TIMES
SIR, Since, very much to your honor, you first mooted in your journal the question of the Resumption of the State Connexion with the Budhist Idolatry, along with the abominations of the Hindu superstition, I have carefully perused your Leading Articles, and the various contributions of your correspondents. I have hitherto abstained from engaging in what our late Governor, Lord Torrington, very erroneously (in his Despatch of 10th May 1849) styles " a religious warfare, upon a matter unconnected with religion, and entirely one of a temporal nature." Anything of the character of a definition, more inaccurate, and more opposed to the true nature of the question, can hardly be conceived. It may be characterized as "a warfare," a controversy, a discussion, or by any other similar designation. " Stat nominis umbra"
But upon the epithet, "RELIGIOUS," I must crave leave to join issue with his Lordship, or any other Statesman or Civilian, however, otherwise gifted, even with our present talented Colonial Secretary, to whose Letter of 1847, and Minute of May 1849, is to be traced as to its fountain, the volition that it shall be considered as solely and exclusively a secular question. I say Volition, -- because it really appears that "the wish is father to the thought" when it is so prominently and energetically asserted, and reasserted, to be "a matter entirely of a temporal nature." That cause is surely a weak one, upon which such excess of labour is bestowed to merge the "religious" into the secular character, of which it undoubtedly partakes as we painfully perceive in Lord Torrington's despatch and Mr MacCarthy's Minute.
Now this, doubtless, is the point at issue. And much as my own original conviction has been strengthened by the many powerful articles and meriting contributions, which have appeared during the last three or four months in your journal, I do not think the subject by any means exhausted. It is with much satisfaction that I have seen at length published (in the journal of your contemporary, whence I doubt not it will be immediately transferred to your own columns) the "Despatch and Minutes relating to Buddhism" bearing date 10th May 1849, "from Viscount Torrington to Earl Grey. " For the republications in the island of these papers I have looked with anxiety for some time past. I shall make the examination of a portion of these documents the topic of some future letter or letters, if you will admit them into your columns, intending the present one merely as prefatory, upon the vital importance generally to all who value 59 r
true religion, and earnestly desire and pray that the benighted Budhist may have the full benefit of the Christian Rule of the English nation, instead of being driven back into his murky den of Error and dark Idolatry by this measure, which is unwise and impolitic when considered, only in a worldly view, as well as deeply irreligious, and to the dishonour of the one True God, Who Alone "inhabiteth eternity."
It is a question to which every conscientious Christian, lay or cleric, is bound to contribute something, however small, a solitary stone to swell the heap. And it is peculiarly worthy of notice, that, with the exception of a Document, which along with the Address which called it forth has recently been published, namely a Letter to 22 of his clergy by the Bishop of the Diocese, who has adopted, 1 grieve to say, the Government views — with the exception of this Document, and a few apologetic strains of your contemporary, who at last, I rejoice to observe, has come fairly into the field of the true and righteous cause — it is emphatically to be remarked that all the newspaper articles and contributions, and other efforts have been arrayed against the Government proposed measure of Re-Connexion with Idolatry; for such it undoubtedly is, be it varnished over by however many and specious glossy apologies and ingenious sophistries. These friends of Truth, among so many who ought to be interested in so solemn a cause are alas too few — "Rari nantes in gurgite vasio" But I would incite these "few and faithful" friends, to persevere in their righteous efforts, without turning to the right or to the left and I feel persuaded that they will ultimately prevail. "Gutta cavat lapidem saepe cadendo."
Whatever may be our differences and denominations of the Christian Religion, if we be Christians, whatever circumstances of excitement, or vexation, in this overheated Tropical climate, may cause "divisions among us," I would, as a Christian, call upon every one who "names the name of Christ," to unite in this holy cause. They who read their Bible, with the smallest observation and reflection, cannot fail to see, in words that "he may read that runneth," that IDOLATRY is the deadliest sin that man ever did, or ever can commit against his Maker and his Redeemer. Let reflective Christians be warned by what they read in the Book of God, of the destruction by the Divine Command, of numerous nations by the Hebrews, and finally of the destruction of that nation itself, for the sole cause of their idolatries!! Many words need not be wasted on so plain a topic. But I would beg the profound attention to this grave matter, not merely a secular one, of all serious minds who have not yet thought sufficiently upon it. I would, if possible, arouse Her Majesty's Civil Servants in this Colony to a sober and legitimate, but not the less energetic, movement against this perilous sin, from which they have escaped, and into which their Rulers, themselves under delusion, would again plunge them. I would appeal to the various members, and especially to the ministers, of our own Church, to consider more deeply their responsibilities, in foro Conscientiae, as professing Christians, to contribute their utmost efforts to ward off a blow, the consequences of which we cannot remotely calculate. I would specially appeal to the various 60 I 1 denominations of the Christian Religion in this island, to the ministers and people of the Scotch and Dutch Presbyterian Churches, ay, and to the bishops and priests and people of the Roman Catholic Church for once to unite with us as Christians against the infidel and heathen Idolater; and yet more emphatically would I appeal to all, Wesleyans, Baptists, and others, who are sent out by their respective societies as Missionaries to the heathen of this island, none of whom have yet come forward; I would appeal to all and each of these various Christian Communities and Societies of the Colony to unite their efforts, in some form among themselves; or in one common Petition to the Throne, with the English Clergy, the. Chaplains, and the Missionaries of the two Church Societies; to induce our Rulers to confirm their recent Abolition of all Connexion of the State with the heathen (so called) religions of Ceylon, and not to put new fetters upon the hands and feet of those persons, whose holy vacation it is to convert the benighted heathen and idolater. Thus, and thus only, shall we
"Unite With self-forgetting tenderness of heart, With earth despising dignity of soul; Wise in that union, and without it blind."
I am, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
VETUS. November, 1851
61 LORD TORRINGTON'S "DESPATCH AND MINUTES RELATING TO BUDDHISM — 10TH MAY, 1849."
LETTER II
TO THE EDITOR OF THE CEYLON TIMES SIR, The common error in carrying on almost every argument which presents itself to the mind of man, whether speculative or practical, is the partial view which is taken of it. The calibre of mind in "the many" is too narrow, and the great law of association of ideas makes them one-sided; they reason only upon the facts familiar to them. None regard the tota; question, except the few whose rare endowments enable them to take in at one view, in all ics bearings, the wide range of the entire argument, apprehending afar off those more subtle and uncertain truths, which, with our present limited faculties, the highest and most sagacious minds do but "see through a glass darkly."
The "vexed question," as it may justly be designated, of the imperfect Severance of the State Connexion with the heathen and idolatrous superstition of this "utmost Indian Isle," is one of a very complicated nature.
The maritime provinces of Ceylon, having been previously conquered by two successive Christian Powers, (of Portugal and Holland) though of a form and character of Christianity differing in many important features from each other, and from our own, were ceded by the last of those Powers to the Crown of England. The element of Christianity having been thus familiarized by time and habit to the native inhabitants, things went on quietly, if not satisfactorily. The corrupt system of the Roman Church, admitting of an admixture of the reverence of images, the worship of this body of Christians outwardly assimilated so much to the idolatry of the Budhist in the Wihare, and the mixed worship of Hinduism and Budhism in the Dewale, that Romish Christianity was nominally and largely adopted by the Budhist worshippers of Ceylon. Indeed, as the Romish Chapels demonstrate, the Idol-worship of the Wihare, and Dewale, to the eye, modified the external features of the Church of Rome of this country. Not only do the Romish Chapels here resemble, on a superficial view, the Idolatry of the indigenous heathen; but their processions are remarkably like the public processions in Roman Catholic countries, differing only in the superior relative splendor of the Romish processions in Europe over the poor Cingalese, whose "barbaric ornaments" and harsh unmusical tom-toms cannot for an instant be put into competition with the imposing spectacle, and the exquisite and grand music of Romish processions, in their measured march around the ancient European cities, ending with "the pealing organ and the full-voiced choir," within the walls of their venerable Cathedrals. Yet the resemblance 62 — "parva componere magnis" — is very striking to one, who, as was my own case, had recently lived for some years in ,a Roman Catholic country of Europe, upon his first witness of a Budhistical procession in Ceylon.*
The Romish form of Christianity by the Portuguese, which still prevails more numerously than any other in Ceylon, was followed by that of the Presbyterian religion of the Dutch. It was the meeting of extremes. The one was greatly eye-worship; the other, the metaphysical system of Calvin, addressed to the reasoning understanding. Nothing but the apathy of the Cingalese character could have borne such a shock. But they had been long accustomed to their European conquerors; and with the cunning peculiar to all natives of the East, especially to themselves, they at once, in great numbers, assumed the nominal form of the Dutch Church, and were baptized, and became eligible to Government offices.
Such was the state of things when the English took possession of the maritime provinces of Ceylon. They slowly introduced the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England; while Wesleyan and other Missionaries made their respective converts. And Christianity and Heathenism went on quietly together, with a full toleration of Buddhism, and a slow and imperfect conversion of the natives to the Religion of Christ, by the Church Missionary Society, and other denominations from England, and in the north of the island, from America; of the date, however, of whose arrival in Ceylon, I am not certain. t
But the Conquest of Kandy, and the Convention of 1815 with the Chiefs of the Kandyan Provinces, in which the Budhist religion universally prevailed, introduced a new state of things, out of which the present confusion of a "rudis indigestaque moles" has come forth. By the fifth clause of that Convention,
*1 speak from recollection of my own feelings on viewing a procession in 1834 at Allutnuwere in Wallepane, where I spent two or three days, and where there is a Dewale, I quote a sentence from a note taken at the time, in illustration of the above remarks: "The whole so nearly resembled the Papal Ceremonies that, but for the costume of the priest, and one or two other circumstances, one might almost have supposed himself to have been at the door of a Roman Catholic Chapel, instead of a Budhist or a Demon Temple,"
"Papal Rome! Blush at thyself in Peter's lofty dome"
TI believe, the Church Missionary Society did not send out Missionaries to Ceylon until after 1815. But I have taken a general view of the Maritime Provinces at or about that time. 63 "The Religion of Boodhoo, professed by the Chiefs and inhabitants of these provinces, is declared inviolable, and its rites, ministers, and places of worship are to be maintained and protected." Again, in the Proclamation after the first rebellion in 1818, the only clause, the 16th, which respects religion, states, that "As well the priests, as all ceremonies and processions of the Budhoo Religion, shall receive the respect which in former times was shown them."
It is necessary to repeat these two clauses, often as they have been cited, to complete our brief survey of the question, and to show the exact state of things up to 1818; since which, down to the year 1847, nearly 30 years, (though "some religious scruples were evinced" ten years before by Mr Stewart Mackenzie,) the "acts of appointment were still continued," until they were stopped by Sir Colin Campbell in 1847, in consequence of orders from the Home Government.* And in this year, the first of Lord Torrington's Government, the Dalada Relic was publicly given up at Kandy by His Excellency the Governor to the Kandian Chiefs; and the Connexion of the Budhist religion with the British Government was formerly dissolved.t But since the recent rebellion the Dalada Relic has been resumed by the Government, and is, as it was before 1847, in the custody of the Government Agent of Kandy.
We now take up the question as it is presented to us in the "Despatch and Minutes," placed at the head of this Letter. But it is necessary to review the general state of the argument, the elements of which will be found in these papers, that we may in some sort see our way out of this wilderness of confused thought and confident assertion, arising from the partial view of the party who hazards his opinion. The question of this State Connexion with Budhism, and its attendant superstitions of the partially Hindoo Dewales, is three-fold. It is in the first place political; secondly, legal; and lastly, religious. Instead of giving due weight to this obvious division, into which the subject naturally distributes itself, each partizan takes up the matter by the single light of his own solitary candle, telling much that is true, but neutralizing the force and effect of his argument by his one-sidedness.
1. the Statesman looks at the political expediency of the present contemplated concession, and lamentable retrogression, in part or in whole, into the old paths, so that, in his opinion, the State-vessel may be steered with safety, and of the inexpediency of ever having disturbed the serene security of the old system. He contemplates objects at a distance, and builds his airy castles on the clouds of future possible contingencies. The satisfaction of his own mind is thus made perfect; and without a moments hesitation he would forthwith issue acts of appointment to priests of the Wihares, and basnaike nillemes of the Dewales. *Minute of 8th May 1849, by Sir I.E. Tennent, the Colonial Secretary tSee a letter of Sir I.E. Tennent to Lord Torrington, dated llth October , 1847 64 The Lawyer looks at the law of the question. He will twist these few, and, as they appear to plain minds, very simple, words of the Convention, into unthought of difficulties, arguing rather from the abuses of political Governors, and the indolence of lax and indifferent public officers, than fairly and earnestly grappling with the subject and weighing the true legal, as well as common sense, import of the words themselves. He talks of the legal impracticability of the temple-holders getting their dues, if they cannot take into Court these said "acts", and unless Government goes back into the old system, emphatically, in the strong Scriptural adage, like the dog to his vomit, and the swine to the mire. He accordingly gives in his adhesion to Government; and he settles himself down into the complacent conviction of his surprising honesty, according to the well known witty epitaph:
"Here lies one; believe it if you can; Although a lawyer, was an honest man".
3. The Religious man, (though he may be, and he sometimes confessedly is, of a prejudiced, if not a bigoted mind,) sees his way , however more clearly than either the politician or the lawyer. His stake immeasurably more important than that of either of the former. He regards not at all either the expediency of the one, or the law of the other. He sees the LAW OF GOD violated by the Connexion of a Christian Government with anything in the shape of IDOLATARY, the greatest possible sin of man against the ALMIGHTY GOD: and, as a true Iconoclast, be exults in the contemplation of those times, "When temple and tower Went to the ground;" and anticipating this approaching destruction of a godless Idolatry, he opposes, like good Mr Peggs, with might and main, any possible return of the former stage of things. Of these three, I allow in excess, though I would not declare myself one of either of them, I unhesitatingly confess my feelings strongly, to incline to the religious — bigot, if you will; for he obviously has most of the "Integer vitae celerisque purus" about him. In one word, he has a CONSCIENCE! We shall see, more moderately than I have here hastily sketched them, these three party forms of opinion and principle in Lord Torrington's "Despatch and Minutes relating to Budhism," the more close examination of which I defer to my next, and some successive letters. I am Sir, Your obedient servant, VET US. Colombo , November 22, 1851
65 LETTER III
TO THE EDITOR OF THE CEYLON TIMES.
SIR, Lord Torrington's Despatch of 1849, with the inclosures, contains, as I have stated, the three views, both separately, and, (in one letter, that of Mr Selby the Queen's Advocate,) conjointly, the political, legal, and religious, of the question of the proposed Re-Connexion of the British Government with the Budhist superstition.
The inclosures in this Despatch are the various "Minutes" of the Governor and the Members of the Executive Council, expressing their several opinions upon the subject, The Despatch embodies the substance of these Minutes, and expresses the opinion of Lord Torrington himself. The Minutes, which are more elaborately written, and which only I shall examine, are those of the then Auditor General, now Colonial Secretary, Mr MacCarthy, the Queen's Advocate, Mr Selby, and the late Colonial Secretary, Sir James Emerson Tennent. As Lord Torrington has expressed a very decided opinion upon the main question, along with other matter worthy of attention, I shall first make some remarks upon the Despatch itself.
After referring to his former Despatches, and expressing the anxiety and labors of his Executive Council and himself "to solve this difficult question, and bring about a final and satisfactory adjustment," his Lordship states that "the difficulties originated with Mr Stewart Mackenzie, about the year 1840, by his refusing to sign the warrants appointing priests to the principal Budhist temples." Mr Stewart Mackenzie held that such documents proceeding from him, was "a direct encouragement to and interference with the Buddhist religion." In this, Lord Torrington thinks, "Mr Stewart Mackenzie committed a grave and serious error;" and that "he mistook an act purely temporal for one of a religious nature"
Now this is that which was first largely and elaborately argued by Mr MacCarthy in 1847, and repeated in his Minute of 1849, and is very earnestly adopted and supported by Lord Torrington. This is assumed in the present Despatch, but not attempted to be proved. It is doubtless a more easy task, for the time being, to cut than to unite a difficult and hard-twisted knot; but it really helps us no further than the moment in which it is thus violently severed. Mr Mackenzie acted from the conviction of his conscience, or, as his Lordship expresses it, "he was carried away by a religious scruple" The "scruple" itself is of some weight, and entitled to respect, inasmuch as many a Christian may have the same "scruple" and I hope, many more would have, as I am sure Mr Stewart Mackenzie had, a strong conscientious objection. Nor was our late Governor, Mr Stewart Mackenzie, a man who took up a question superficially. Along with a religious conscientiousness, he had a very fine, and a very highly cultivated mind. His experience 66 'I
too, at his time of life, was necessarily far greater than that of Lord Torrington could possibly be, in political questions; and it is very incredible that he should have merged all those qualities in a "religious scruple" of an ordinary mind. I fear rather that it is the absence of this "religious scruple" or more properly a defective sense of true religion, which characterizes the views (I do not say the men) of those minds which would limit this question to "an act purely temporal," instead of regarding it, as I must think that it is most unquestionably to be regarded, of a "spiritual nature," though mixed with temporal elements. *
But as I shall have to take up this part of the subject more fully when I come to the Minutes of the Members of the Executive Council who support these views, I shall now add no more to what has been stated, and which seemed more immediately to result from this clause of the Despatch.
In the next clause his Lordship speaks of the Dalada relic which Mr Peggs had brought before the notice of the Secretary of State, Lord Stanley. "This Dalada and its jewels was in 1847 handed over to their natural guardian the priests and their lay officers the dewa nilleme."-1. Lord Torrington in this Despatch denies the alleged fact of a British soldier standing sentry over the relic, and state that it is the same man who then, when the relic had been given up, (which has once more been taken back again!) was keeping guard over the military prisoners. I have been informed that there were two sentries; one of whom, it was understood, kept guard over the relic and its shrine and jewels. One was at the door of the room wherein they were kept; the other was in a gallery in the dome, where the military prisoners were detained. They were far apart; nor could one sentry have kept guard over both.
Again, his Lordship complains that "Mr Buller, the Government Agent of the Central Province, was also represented, in a manner both unfair and invidious, as displaying the tooth to the people, when it is a well known fact that it was an imperative duty on the part of the gentleman to hold it in charge, and not to lose sight for a moment of that relic"
*Lord Torrington himself, towards the end of the Despatch, unwittingly and inconsistently acknowledges the question to be of a religious nature, when he says: -- "In itself the Buddhist religion is a mild and harmless one, and has as few objectionable points as place; and any heathen doctrine. Unless we interfere with it, it will be destroyed before another and a purer one, is built up in its place; and I am sure I need not point out to Your Lordship the dangers and misery that must overtake a country divested of any species of spiritual control."
tSir J. Emerson's letter to Lord Torrington dated I lth October
67 Now, I would ask, can any thing be more strongly stated regarding Mr Buller, or the Government Agent for the time being, who has charge of this paltry relic, than the words which I have italicised in the foregoing sentence of the Despatch. If it be "the imperative duty of that gentleman" to have this abominable imposture, and gross symbol of the basest idolatry, constantly in his sight, is it not tantamount to displaying it to the people? If it be displayed only to some Siamese, or other foreigners, and strangers, who are Budhists, the act is as sinful in a Christian, (and I believe Mr Buller to be a very sincere Christian, though I fear strangely deluded and perverted on this question of the British Connexion with Budhism,) as the public display of it to the assembled Cingalese. "Man", says Paley, "is a bundle of habits" And nothing but the habit of years, and the early age at which young Civilians come to Ceylon, can account for what, (Mr Buller must pardon me if I call it moral blindness,) is here stated of the "duty" he is "imperatively" called upon to perform, and which doubtless he does perform. Solemnly as we regard the sacred vessels of our Christian altars, and take all the care we possibly can that they shall be in safe custody, yet our duty is not held or felt to be so imperative upon us that we shall "not lose sight of them for a moment." And it is preposterous that a Christian gentleman, because he happens to be the Government Agent of a station where there is a Wihare, in which is kept this disgusting relic, from the jaw of a baboon or some such sacred animal, should have it imposed upon him as an imperative duty to hold in charge such an abominable symbol of gross idolatry. We owe a deep debt of gratitude to the untiring zeal of Mr Peggs in bringing before the notice of the Secretary of State Lord Stanley, now Earl Derby, whom I believe to be a deeply religious character, "the fact of a British soldier standing sentry over this relic (the Dalada or sacred tooth ); nor is he less to be commended, if it were on his information, that an exposure was made of the disgraceful fact that the sacred office of Budhas's Tooth keeper was imposed upon a Christian gentleman, who happened to be the Government Agent of the Central Province. It requires but to be stated to be revolted at; and eventually, I trust, this re- imposition of custodier of this abominable relic will be entirely done away. The last clause of this Despatch which I shall notice is, the statement that petitions were presented to Lord Torrington from the priests of some of the temples, complaining that "they were utterly unable to obtain their dues, or indeed any of their rights of property; that they were suffering great distress and hardship; that their property was being ruined, and their temples going to decay, simply from the absence of any person to control or command their people, or receive their payments." It is added that "We agreed by treaty to fulfil all the duties devolving on the king of Kandy." To take the hysteron proteron, the last first, I would emphatically protest, as a Christian, against the conclusion, from the single clause of the Convention of 1815, to which may be added that of the Proclamation of 1818, (cited in my last letter) that we are bound "to fulfil all duties devolving on the king of Kandy," in respect of the claims of the temple-holders upon their people. Indeed the expression is so wide and general that it would be difficult to define what those duties were. But what says Sir J.Emerson 68
L. Tennent, in his letter to Lord Torrington of October 1847, which I have already cited? "I attach (he says) no value whatever to the objections taken to the measure (of the Severance "of the Connexion of the British Government with the Buddhist superstition,") on the grounds of the obligation contracted by the conventions of 1815, and 1818; the former was itself superseded by the events which led to the promulgation of the latter, and power was reserved by it to the British Government to remodel its own stipulation."
I believe, moreover, that in order to induce the Government to receive this hateful connexion, the priests'exaggerated the difficulties of their situation. But so long as we oppose no obstacles to their having the benefit of the law for the protection of their property, and the recovery of their dues, I cannot understand why we are called upon to support the tottering temples, and to prevent their crumbling to decay. It were the best result which could possibly happen to themselves. But clearly it is not our duty to sustain a falling idolatry. Yet would 1 have them allowed the privilege of British subjects along with ourselves, in Her Majesty's Courts of Law. But I repeat that I believe this part of the complaint to be grossly exaggerated. I have made inquiry, as far as I have been able, as to the truth of this assertion, though I hold it no part of my business in writing these letters to suggest legal remedies. I believe the assertion to be generally, unfounded. In the three Courts at least, as I am credibly informed, and these not inconsiderable ones, the right of incumbents, not holding acts, has not only been unquestioned; but the parties have had suits in Court, and that frequently, like any other person, and have had justice done them. These Courts are, Nuwera Kalawia at Anuradhapoora; Saffi-agam, at Ratnapoora; and Batticoloa. If my statement be incorrect, it is easily tested, and proved to be so. One word more on the legal difficulties of this question: and I have done.
The laws of man are limited by the laws of God. A man, under constraint of an unlawful vow, or oath, might undertake to murder one of his fellow creatures. But so long as the Law of God is on the Sacred Record "Thou shalt not kill," or "shall do no murder" the vow is decidedly unlawful; nor can it be observed without incurring the awful guilt and penalty of the Divine Law; "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the Image of God made He man." Idolatry is surely a sin no less heinous in the eye of God than murder. The prohibition of Idolatry, in every possible or conceivable form stands at the head of the First Table of the Decalogue; the prohibition of murder is not at the head, but it is the second law of the Second Table. The First Table contains the laws on the relation of man to God; The Second contains the laws in relation of man to man. I need not ask which is the most sacred and binding. Again, regarding the Royal Prerogative of Kings or Queens of England to change the law of conquered countries, I will end this subject, and this letter, with an extract from Sir William Blackstone's Introductory Section to his immortal "Commentaries on the Laws of England." 69 After stating that Plantations or Colonies, in distant countries, have been either gained by conquest, or ceded to us by treaties; and both are founded upon the law of Nature, or at least upon that of Nations; he adds, "But in conquered or ceded countries, that have already laws of their own, the king may indeed alter and change those laws; but till he does alter and change them, the ancient laws of the country remain, -- UNLESS SUCH AS ARE AGAINST THE LAW OF GOD, AS IN THE CASE OF AN INFIDEL COUNTRY."
I will not destroy the force of this righteous decision of the essential invalidity of "laws against the Law of God" by so learned and righteous a judge, and so high in authority, as Sir William Blackstone,* by one word more than that. I am, Sir, Your obedient servant,
VETUS.
P.S.—Since writing the above I am induced to add a few lines by way of Postscript, in consequence of some circumstances which have come to my knowledge. As they refer to the relative responsibility of the late Governor Lord Torrington, whose Despatch has been the subject of this Letter, and that of the present Governor Sir G.W.Anderson regarding the resumption of this Connexion with the idolatrous system of Heathenism in this island, I may not have so fitting an opportunity of making these few remarks. The present Despatch clearly shows (and of this by the access of the Appendix to the Blue Books of 1851, I have long been aware,) that the idea and recommendation of this resumption commenced with Lord Torrington; and that Sir George Anderson is really bearing the heavy responsibility which was prepared for him by his predecessor. But it must, at the same time, be remembered that Sir George has decidedly taken this responsibility upon himself, and is responsible. He has not only signed at least one Act of appointment; but he has taken the further and more decided step of sending Circulars to Government Agents, and Assistant Agents, desiring them to recommend Temple Officers. A stronger act of responsibility cannot be conceived I truly believe that Sir George wishes with us, that we were all clear of this obnoxious Connexion. And I have taken up the question with no hostile or personal feeling to Sir George or any other person. Far otherwise. I firmly and soberly believe that by these Letters and still more by the Memorial of the clergy, which I myself would sign, were I alone, in the most humble and respectful way, we intend to strengthen the Governor's hands to induce the Secretary of State, with, I hope, our Governor's strong recommendation, finally to throw off this hateful yoke from the shoulders of a Christian Government and people. I seek no concealment. I carry my visor in my hand, when I come before the public under the designation of VETUS.
*Blackstones Commentaries, by Edward Christian, Esq., vol. 1 pp. 106, 107, London, 1807 70
L LETTER IV
TO THE EDITOR OF THE CEYLON TIMES.
Sir, The first opinion of the Members of the Executive Council regarding "the final settlement of the Budhist Question," in May 1849, is that of the then Auditor-General, now Colonial Secretary, the Honorable Mr MacCarthy. In this Minute, Mr MacCarthy strongly recommends the Governor to confer the Acts of Appointment, "subject to future legislation; and amendable to future instructions." He considers that "the question turns on a matter of obvious political expediency" And "he expresses his earnest and matured conviction that this course, which, under the circumstances, is undeniably right for the time is also itself the right course, and should never have been departed from in practice." He refers to a previous paper he had submitted to Government in 1847; "in which his opinion on this whole subject was stated at some length."
I shall, therefore, at once go to this very able paper, to which we are referred for "the conclusion of the whole matter." I fear it will not be found in its result to arrive at "the conclusion" of the sacred writer; "to fear God, and keep his commandments for this is the WHOLE DUTY of man." Unwittingly, I am sure on the part of the writer, the reasoning of this paper would in my view of it lead to the opposite "conclusion." I fully acknowledge its ability: and if, upon honest conviction, I do not coincide in its reasoning, I am persuaded that that gentleman will perfectly understand that it is a friendly difference, arising from no diminished respect for his talents, or personal regard for himself. It springs out of the powerful feeling, that "there is a time to speak and a time to keep silence." And I find myself conscientiously impelled to "keep silence" no longer, but plainly and openly "to speak" my decided conviction. Nor can any man, better than himself, appreciate the ancient and wise adage: "Amicus Plato amicus homo; sed major amica VERITAS."
The substance of this paper, I shall, for my present purpose, distribute into three heads:
1.The character of the superstition practiced by the native inhabitants of Ceylon.
2.The British support and protection of Budhism, and its concomitants, up to 1847, when the severance was formally and publicly made at Kandy.
3.The present state of things, and the proposed remedy for the alleged grievances; out of which arises the question, "Whether it is a matter of political expediency; or whether it is essentially a religious question."
71 1.Touching the first question: "The character of the superstition practiced by the native inhabitants of Ceylon," Mr MacCarthy has a very noticeable paragraph; some of the more striking expressions of which have been already controverted in some of your leading articles and in the letters of your correspondents. We are told that there prevail two wholly opposite and inconsistent forms of religious belief and practice, which are hastily confounded under the name of Buddhism." He goes on to describe these as follows:
"The grim and cruel obscenities of Hindoo idolatry, the withering mysteries of devil-worship have sought a refuge and a home in the dewales* of Ceylon; and though materially kept in check by the purer influences of the national superstition, will doubtless cost many an effort before they are extirpated from the soil. But they are not Buddhism; and so far from being intrinsically connected with it, the writer considers them essentially antagonistic to its doctrines and incompatible with its continued existence. The religion of Buddhoo, on the contrary, is, to his apprehension, the one faint protest of the human mind in the East against debasing and iniquitous abominations."
I have quoted the entire paragraph, that the opinion of such a mind may be fairly before us. I confess I cannot bring my own mind to assent to any portion of these sentences, except the denunciation of the dewales; but from the statement of the nature of these combined superstitions I wholly dissent. That these combined forms of Hinduism and Budhism are in one sense "antagonistic," no one, I apprehend, be disposed to question; but that the devil -- or demon-worship, which is a chief characteristic of Hinduism in Ceylon, is practically incompatible with Budhism, the fact of their being practised in combination by the same people for an indefinite number of years, for it is obviously of no "recent growth," proves their perfect compatibility, both with each other, and with the existence of Budhism itself. At what period this species of demon-worship was introduced into Ceylon, I am not sufficiently versed in the history of the island and its inhabitants to know. It was very probably introduced, as Mr MacCarthy states, when the country was "under the dominion of the many Hindoo usurpers" But however different their elements that the superstition of Gotama Budha, and the species of demon- worship now practiced in Ceylon, existed together in combination, under the common
*"Another official, the present Government Agent of the Central Province, who nevertheless, I grieve to add, is an advocate for the reconnection of the State with Buddhism, writes thus of these places of "iniquitous abomination": "C.R. Buller Esqr., to Mr Bernard, for the Governor, Kandy, July, 31, 1848." "The Dewale headmen have applied for leave to have tom-toms beat in them; but at present I doubt the policy of allowing this, as they are receptacles of all villainy, and as they might collect arms within them, if they imagined that by so doing they would effect their object." Yet for these men and these places, 'receptacles of all villain' Mr Buller would recommend the Governor to sign 'acts of appointment' 72 denomination Budhism, at and long before the Convention of 1815, is, I believe, an indisputable fact. And if it were so, if the, so-called, religion of the Budhists in Ceylon were the strange and abhorrent mixture we now see of a cold notional set of doctrines, which are rather the relics and corruption of more ancient philosophies, to which the asceticism of Gotama was by no means alien, than any form of religion, properly so- called, along with "the grim and cruel obscenities of Hindoo idolatry and the withering mysteries of devil worship," the whole theory is baseless, and falls to the ground. The two superstitions must. stand or fall together. And, I apprehend, in our Courts of Equity in England, the words of the Convention would be decided to include both forms of religion, or superstition, which are certainly both idolatrous.
This combination is proved to demonstration by another fact of great notoriety. The Hindu gods are placed in the Wihares, and the Budhist priest reads bana in the Dewales; and in the Dewales there is a shrine, or image of Budha.
But it is necessary to make some further remarks on the character of the purer form of Budhism itself. In MacCarthy's very just designation of "Devil-worship," he observes that it is "materially kept in check by the purer influences of the national superstition; that the religion of Budha is, to his apprehension, the one faint protest of the human mind in the East against those debasing and iniquitous abominations; and that of all forms of heathenism the religion of Buddha is perhaps the least repulsive in itself, and the most pliant to the influences of a pure and nobler creed."
In all that I have met with on the subject of Budhism, whether in translation from the reputed works of Gotama, or dissertations of persons conversant with the subject, I have never been satisfied as to the one point, which seems to me the unsolved desideratum, namely, the remote origin of Budhism; what it was, as well as what now it practically is. It seems to be agreed by all Pali scholars, who have intelligent access to the original writings on which this sect rests its principles and its existence, that it is not, properly speaking, a religion, but a sect of philosophy. When traced to its probable source in remote antiquity, it seems to be a system of pure fatalism, with moral precepts, in themselves good, for the more rational and happy enjoyment of this life, while its disciples are conscious beings. It ends in nirwane, a state of unconscious repose, in one word, annihilation. The only idea of the future, and that is a finite one, is the belief in the ancient Pythagorean doctrine of Metempsychosis, the transmigration of the soul into some other body of men, or of the brute creation generally for its sins, until the being is finally annihilated.* It is therefore, emphatically a system of pure atheism.
*"The Budhist does not seek for absorption, but annihilation. An explanation of what is intended by bhawo, which in the circle of sequence is translated existence, or state of existence, will render it the more probable that nirwana is literally annihilation.
73 "Absorption it cannot be, as there is no locality in which it can take place, no existence in which the sentient being can be merged."
(Hardy's Eastern Monachism, p. 308)
"The term which the Bauddhas more particularly affect, is nirvana, profound calm. In its ordinary acceptation, as an adjective, it signifies extinct, as a fire which is gone out; set, as a luminary which has gone down; defunct, as a saint who has passed away; its etymology is from va, to blow as wind, with the preposition nir used in a negative sense; it means calm and unruffled. The notion which is attached to the word, in the acceptation now under consideration, is that of perfect apathy. It is a condition, of unmixed tranquil happiness or ecstasy (ananda.) Other terms (as sucha, moha„ &c.) distinguish different gradations of pleasure, joy and delight. But a happy state of imperturbable apathy is the ultimate. bliss (ananda) to which the Indian aspires". "Je remarque d' abord que acception propre de ce terme (Nirvena) est celle d' extinction"
(H T Colebrooke's Miscellaneous Essays, vol. 1. p. 401.
Bumouf du Buddhisme Indian p. 589, Paris, 1844.4t
74 Such is the poverty of human thought, that but a very few leading ideas have ever existed in the human mind. The great truths of primitive faith have been corrupted by all nations; they have been almost entirely lost sight of by some, wholly by others. In the Hindu religion we perceive the dim, but most intelligible, traditions of primitive faith, but overlaid with the most revolting corruptions.* In the order of thought Budhism seems to have been rather the protest of "vain wisdom and false philosophy" against what was good, as well as what was "debasing and iniquitous abomination" in the system of Hinduism. And though, for its pure morality in theory, but not in the practical lives of the Budhist, it may be "the least repulsive form of heathenism;" yet being essentially infidel and atheistic,t I concur in the opinion that it is "the most pliant to the influences of a pure and nobler creed," inasmuch as it is no creed whatsoever, being the directly reversed system of positive infidelity of all truth, properly religious.
"Hinduism retains the notion of bloody sacrifices, in which life is taken away to atone for sin. Some such system permeates through the history of most Pagan nations from the earliest of time: and it was no doubt a part of the teaching which God gave to Adam, and he to Noah, and Noah to Abraham. It could not arise from a thankful feeling for benefits received; for this shrinks from an exhibition of pain and death, as an appropriate offering of praise. Cain's offering of the fruits of the ground is a more natural expression of joy and thankfulness. His sin was that he presumed to praise God while yet unreconciled to him." (The Missionary, Published at Bishop College, Calcutta, No. 1. Vol. 2, for November 1851.) An obvious analogy exists between the "offering of the fruits of the ground," by Cain, the first infidel, and of the flowers of the forest, by Budha, the atheistic Reformer of Hinduism.
t" The Bauddahas or Sangatas, followers of BUDDHA or SUGATA (terms of the same import) are not unfrequently cited by their adversaries as (Nasticas) Atheists, or rather, disowners of another world," Colebrooke's Essays, Vol. I. p. 390.
"It can scarcely be disputed, if the statements herein made are allowed to be a correct exposition of Budhism, that according to this system all sentient beings are called u[on to regard the entire cessation of existence as the only means by which they can obtain a release from the evils of existence." ... "The Budhists deny the existence of any such entity of Brahm. They are not pantheists, but atheists" ( Hardy's "Eastern Monachism" p.p. 300, 307)
"According to Budhism there is no Creator, no being that is self-existent and eternal ... The power that controls the universe is karma, literally action; consisting of kusala and akusala, or merit and demerit. There is no such monad as an immaterial spirit; but at the death of any being, the aggregate of his merit and demerit is transferred to some other being, which being is caused by the karma of the previous being, and receives from that karma all the circumstances of its existence." -- Ibid, p. 5. 75 The disciples of such a form of opinion are necessarily apathetic, and indifferent to all emotions of religion, having denied all doctrinal truth of the existence of God. But the human mind revolts at annihilation; and it cannot subsist on a notional philosophy, ending in nothing. Hence the association, revolting as it is, of even so corrupt and vile a superstition of gross demonism, or evil worship, with the philosophic and infidel Budhism.
I need not remind a scholar, like Mr MacCarthy, of the similar forms of philosophy among the ancient Greeks, which were drafted into the Roman philosophy. They who are conversant with the "Intellectual System" of Cudworth, or, at any period of their life, have attentively read that noble effort of the human intellect, and elaborate storehouse of recondite learning*, will readily call to mind the Democriticalt corruption of the ancient and pure atomic philosophy, which claims descent from the Mosaic Cosmogony itself.
*I am induced to enliven a dull essay by transcribing a passage of a modern author on the triumphs of thinkers such as Cudworth. "There are moments in the life of a solitary thinker which are to him what the evening of some great victory is to the conqueror and hero — milder triumphs long remembered with truer and deeper delight. And though the shouts of the multitudes do not hail his success, though gay trophies, though the sounds of music, the glittering of armour, and the neighing of steeds do not mingle with his joy, yet shall he not want monuments and witnesses of his glory, the deep forest, the willowy brook, the gathering clouds of winter, or the silent gloom of his own chamber, 'faithful remembrances, of his high endeavour, and his glad success,' that, as time passes by him with unreturning wing, still awaken the consciousness of a spirit patient, indefatigable in the search of truth, and the hope of surviving in the thoughts and minds of other men." Hazlitt's Essay on the Principles of Human Action.
-1' Atheism is imputed to Democritus and Epicurous, and the atomical system, as they were to Gotama Budha. "We principally Intend (says Cudworth ) the confutation of the atheistical or Democritical Fate. Which as it is a thing of the most dangerous consequence of all, so it seems to be most spreading and infectious in these latter times. Now this Atheistical system of the World that makes all thin to be materially and mechanically necessary, WITHOUT A GOD is built upon a peculiar physiological hypothesis, different from what hath been received for many ages, which is called by some Atomical or Corpuscular, by others Mechanical. Cudworth's Intellectual system p 7. Folio 1628.
76 This Democritical philosophy was taught in Greece by Epicurus*, about a century later, and immortalized in the Roman or Latin language by the splendid poem of Lucretius, De rerum Nature f upon the Epicurean philosophy. Gotama Budhat lived .before either of the Greek philosophers. His system is that which was in the East probably long before his era, being in its atheistical, or material character that which has been in the world from the earliest ages of thinking man; while the Metempsychis. Which the Jews brought from Babylon, and which was a doctrine among that people in the time of our Lord, was probably no new doctrine when it was taken up by Budha, and adopted into his system. These two doctrines, known afterwards to Greece as the Metempsychosis of the Pythagorean philosophy, and the atomic origin of things of Democritus and Epicurus, form the basis of the system of pure Budhism. The remoter origin of Gotama would alone infer the greater antiquity of his opinions; and that the Democritical system was ulterior. The philosophy, if such a system be worthy of the denomination of that which has been called "Divine philosophy,"§ of Gotarna, Democritus, and Epicurus, equally denies the immortality of the spiritual part of man, and indeed, like the Sadducees of old, did not admit the existence of angel or spirit. Their votaries were
"Pleased to have been, contented not to be."
To their morbid apprehension "Night was than day more acceptable; sleep Did in their estimate of good appear A better state than waking; death than sleep."
* Democritus was born B.C.460; Epicurus B.C.344
t Et quouian docui, cunctarum exordia rerum Qualia sint; et quam variis distantia formis Sponte sua volitent ae'erno percita mote Qucque modo possint ex his res qucequ creaari, Lucretius. Lib. iii.
The date of Budha's death, where his era commeces has been stated from 500 upwards of 10 C. B. C. But the more generally received date is that of the Mahawanso, 543, B.C, preceding the Greek philosophers, Democritus and Epicurus, 100 and 200 years at least. That it was a system of Atheism is agreed on all hands; and the atomical or corpuscular philosophy seems to have descended to the Greek philosophers with the other doctrines of Atheistic fatalism, and Metempsychosis. — "The Elements which they reckon four, not acknowledging a fifth, consist of atoms. The Baudhas do not, with the followers of CANADE, affirm double atoms, triple, quadruple &c., as the early gradations of composition; but maintain indefinite atomic aggregation ,deeming compound substances to be conjoint primary atoms." (Colebrooke's Essays, voLI p.392)
77 .
§"How charming is divine Philosophy! Not harsh, and crabbed, as dull fools suppose, But musical as is Apollo's lute, And a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets, Where no crude surfeit reigns"
Milton's Comus.
78 But superstition, however foul, is to be preferred to pure atheism. Nor is it difficult to conceive how the hopeless votaries of Budha sought some relief, at least from the terrors of superstition, or the dreary hopelessness of annihilation, in the deprecatory worship of demons. Outward morality is but an unreal shadow, without some religious faith, and some 'glimpses' of the hope of a future existence, which would "make one less forlorn." For, in the words of the philosophic poet already quoted,
"Moral truth Is no mechanic structure, built by rule; And which, once built, retains a stedfast shape And undisturbed proportions; but a thing Subject, we deem, to vital accidents, And, like the water lily, lives and thrives, Whose root is fixed in stable earth, whose head Floats on the tossing waves."
Supported by Divine faith, its head, no longer "floating on the tossing waves of vital accident," it will rest in heaven.
I have perhaps dwelt longer on this part of the subject than may be deemed necessary. But I do think it is of the last importance that the "withering mysteries" of Atheistic Budhism should be perfectly unveiled, and clearly understood, that men be not induced by a specious theory to prefer its professed outward morality, which is not practically binding on its disciples, who are notorious for the two deadly sins of the "the Father of lies," falsehood and impurity.
Let us look upon the question as it really is; and we shall no longer hesitate to lift up our hands and voices, unitedly, against the British support and protection of Atheism, Idolatry, and impure Demonism. I am, Sir, Yours obedient servant, VETUS. Colombo, December 3, 1851.
79 LETTER V
TO THE EDITOR OF THE CEYLON TIMES.
Sir, In my last letter, I have largely treated of the first of the three heads, which I proposed to examine, as suggested by Mr MacCarthy's Minute of 8th May 1849, and his previous letter of 7th March 1847, namely, the character of the superstitions practiced by the natives of Ceylon. It remains that I now remark on the second and third heads, namely, (2) the British support and protection of those superstitions up to 1847, when the Severance was made at Kandy; and, (3) the present state of things, and the proposed remedy for the alleged grievances, by permanently returning to the old system; out of which arises the question, "Whether it is a matter of political expediency; or whether it is essentially a religious question."
2. In a previous letter* I have quoted the brief clauses of the Convention of 1815, and of the Proclamation of 1818; from the exaggerated interpretation of which few and plain words has resulted all the elaborate support of the Wihares and Dewales, and of their heathen processions and disgusting Devil-dancings, and, in a word, all those enormities which the Secretary of State very justly designated (in the Despatch referred to by Mr MacCarthy) "an abomination," and the practices as things "impious and obscene."
To the disgrace of our nation as a Christian people, and to the dishonour of God, and far beyond the proper construction of the words of the Convention, and of the subsequent Proclamation, which mean no more than a just toleration, this unrighteous system was upheld by the "British support and protection up to 1847, when the severance was made at Kandy."t It was naturally expected that this severance would be final. But "a change came over the spirit of the dream" of our rulers; and ere eighteen months were well nigh ended, a Despatch of Lord Torrington, containing the opinions of His Executive Council along with his own, was drawn up and sent to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, importing that a great and grievous error had been committed, that the whole was "a matter of obvious political expediency;" and that the system "should never have been departed from."
It has also been asserted by another high authority, that it is "a question, in which not abstract right alone, but the sacred and binding pledge of treaties is involved." And Mr MacCarthy has further affirmed that the measure of the severance was "imposed .on former Governments by unenlightened public opinion, both here and in England."
*Letter 2, f Sir J.E. Tennent's letter to Lord Torrington in 1847. 80 It were most easy to show, and too much has been already said, on the subject of the alleged "sacred and binding pledge of treaties," to need any further confutation of such assertions, that there has been no "disregards of our national pledges;" no treaty or compact has been interfered with. And if Public Opinion, not "unenlightened," but rather enlightened and strengthened by religious considerations and a more ardent faith, and warmer zeal, once discharged in copious stream its holy and salubrious waters in this direction, I cannot comprehend the good faith, or the wise policy, of running counter to that strongly-expressed opinion by the reversal of that good and memorable deed which was done at Kandy by Lord Torrington in 1847, after the British Government, for upwards of thirty years, had supported this system, a system gross and godless for Christian countenance; as the details which you, Mr Editor, have recently published in your Journal, have sadly made known to the public at large. But this train of thought would insensibly lead me into the subject of the third, and most comprehensive head of this discussion. I shall therefore end this portion with two admirable extracts from Sir James Emerson Tennent's letter, which, in 1847, accompanied Mr MacCarthy's, for the consideration of the Secretary of State.
"Rightly regarded, the recent measure (of Severance at Kandy) is one of those memorable events in the history of Budhism, which will not fail to suggest to the minds of its followers a reasonable doubt as to the efficacy of that form of religion which, after a prevalence of so many centuries, has done so little for the moral elevation of their national character. "The first operation, thus definitively, and I trust, satisfactorily completed by our total disseverance from all connexion with the religious interests of the natives, and the surrender to them of the management of their own internal affairs, it only remains to provide for the second point by securing for them the protection of law on an equality with every other class and sect in the exercise and enforcement of their proprietary rights over their lands and other possessions."
3.The proposed remedy for the future, as well as the intermediate measure strongly recommended by Lord Torrington, and at least partially adopted by Sir George Anderson, almost on his immediate assumption of the Government, is (as I have already remarked in a previous letter) clearly to be traced to these Documents of Mr MacCarthy. 4. In the Minute of 1849 he decidedly recommends the conferring of appointments by the Governor, as "a matter of obvious political expediency, which , moreover, is not only right for the time, but should never have been departed from in practice." He refers to his paper of 1847; and he re-asserts, "that the whole course of policy of our Government for some years past, as regards to Budhist temporalities, had been based on one most gratuitous and unfounded assumption, to wit that its control over them had been, or was, or might be, a religious or spiritual function, and therefore incompatible with its essential Christianity." 81 He attributes the outbreak of 1848 to the severance of the Government connexion with the Budhist Idolatry, and thinks, "that there was some deeper cause of discontent than the pressure of a shop tax," namely, the abolition of this Connexion. That this cause operated with many others, all tending to deprive the headmen of despotic authority over their late serfs, may be true; but that it was the sole cause I think very untenable.* But this, if it were so, would furnish no just reason for a Christian Government to return to this once formally and righteously abandoned connexion with a system which had been soberly considered in all its bearings. I would remind the writer of the Minute of the powerful and statesmen-like language of Earl Grey, who was not insensible of the difficulties which surrounded the question of legislation; while he strongly deprecates the least interference with the affairs of the priests and officers of the temples, and declares nobly and uncompromisingly, as becomes a Christian Statesmen that "the difficulties, whatever they may be must be encountered, and the danger, whatever they may be, must be incurred, in order to maintain inviolate the sacred principle in question, of non- interference with the heathen superstition of the Kandians."
Mr MacCarthy does indeed recommend, in his paper of 1847, that act of "legislation shall not in any wise interfere with the internal discipline of the religious body of the Budhist priest- hood." But this is not the question. The question is that it must necessarily interfere with the religion of the people generally. Again, he conceives that " the question is not a religious question at all; that there is no such recognized body in existence as a Budhist priesthood, or Church; and that there is no analogy between the position of the British Government, as regards the temple lands, and other temporalities of the Kandyan provinces, and its relations with any Christian Church or community in any other part of the dominions."
Unquestionably there is no such analogy. There is no "organized body" of the Budhists at all analogous, as a society, to our Christian national Churches. Every temple, as I understand, is independent of any other body, if there can be a body without organization. It is nevertheless, as I shall presently show, emphatically "a religious question" in its effects upon the people."
*This is clear from "the Evidence of the priest, Panebokke Guneratana Unanse. He assigns as the first ground of rebellion, the abandoning of the temple Dalada Maligawe, and the other temples called Dewales; and as the second, "that contrary to the custom of the Kandian country, individuals of low caste are made equal to those of ancient and high families, or equal power is given to the former as to the latter." (Ceylon Papers, p 229.) Calcutte Review for September 1849, p. 201
82
•■■ The writer, however, reiterates his position in various forms; that "the direction and management of the temporalities are not religious, but purely secular functions, essentially inherent in the state." This indeed is the leading characteristic feature of both Mr MacCarthy's papers. For he is eminently consistent with himself. But I must crave his pardon, if I express my opinion, that it is the capital error of his reasoning. And when he says again, that "we should keep a fast hold on that temporal power over heathen temporalities and heathen wealth which God and our swords have given us, doubtless for some good end;" I do heartily assent to the last words, that our power is given to us "for some good end." But what is that end? Surely to convert the heathen to the Gospel, gradually inducing them, by a just and even kind government, to adopt our institutions, secular and religious. But, we ask, will this end be attained by our disobedience to an express command of God for the sake of "political expediency?" And it becomes a truly awful question, whether we shall not do so, when we defile our hands by signing appointments of the priests and temple officers, and thus soil our minds and consciences in Mr MacCarthy's own words, "by our participation in religious opinions or practices repugnant to our national Christianity." The very act of signing involves this "participation;" something analogous to the known canon that the receiver of stolen goods is equally guilty with the thief. This signature of appointments of heathen priests and basnaike nillemes is done from present political expediency, with the apparent absence of faith and trust in the Almighty God.*
"By His Excellency The Right Hon'ble Viscount Torrington, Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Ernestine of Saxony, Governor and Commander in Chief in and over the British Settlements and Territories in the Island of Ceylon with the Dependencies thereof.