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some two years after the supposed event, to repeat this story to Jowett himself. He listened patiently, and remarked, 'There is not a word of truth in it; not a word of truth.'

Another and less apocryphal reform was the abolition of the old grace at dinner to which Mr. Harrison refers. It had been the custom for the Scholar in course' to remain in Hall till the Fellows had finished their dinner, in order to take part in a somewhat elaborate Latin grace-an arrangement which often detained the solitary Scholar long after the rest of the undergraduates had gone. This custom was now abolished; the presence of the Scholar was no longer required, and the grace, if the old form was used, was said by the Fellows among themselves.

Before the Term ended an Undergraduates' Library had been founded in the College, a very valuable institution which was set on foot by the munificence of one of the Scholars. Many wealthy men have availed themselves of the resources of the University, treating their Scholarships or Exhibitions as lawful prize of war; but others have taken a different view. In this case the whole of the money received was returned, and out of it books were purchased for the use of the undergraduates. For some years the library went on increasing, until it was combined with the College Library and the whole made accessible to undergraduates.

In February, 1871, Jowett was entertained at dinner at the Albion Tavern, by his friends and old pupils, to celebrate his election to the Mastership. Dean Stanley was in the chair. Among the company were Robert Lowe-then Chancellor of the Exchequer-Lord Cardwell, Secretary of State for War, Lord Houghton, Robert Browning, and, at his own request, Lord Westbury.

Of Jowett's own speech on this occasion nothing has been preserved beyond the brief notice in the Times (February 27). He spoke with deep emotion, referring to the close and unbroken friendship which for thirtyfour years had existed between himself and Stanley; of the battles which they had fought together in the cause of religion and education. Then he turned more especially to his own pupils, and urged them, while supporting the advancement of freedom and truth, not to forget the lessons of Christian charity and forbearBut of all the speeches made on this occasion that which lived longest in the memory of the hearers was the speech of Lord Westbury, of which Jowett himself has left an account in a letter to Lord Westbury's daughter1. Speaking with the utmost seriousness, in tones almost pathetic, and without a smile, Lord Westbury 'put into twenty minutes about as much fun and mischief as it was possible to get into the time.'

ance.

'How much better and wiser a man he would have been,' he said, 'if he had had the good fortune to be the pupil of Stanley or Jowett, how many errors he would have escaped, how different would have been his retrospect of life! In his own days the University was like a great ship, left high and dry upon the shore, which marked the place where the waters of knowledge had once flowed. But now, by the efforts of his two distinguished friends, the stream had attained a level, lower indeed, but not much lower, than in other places.'

In the same month the long-expected translation of Plato was published, in four octavo volumes. As a literary work, a classical rendering of a Greek classic, its merit was at once recognized, for Jowett's style was irresistible; but as a work of philosophy and scholarship

1 See Nash's Life of Lord Westbury, vol. ii. pp. 286-288.

it was less appreciated. The more philosophical readers missed a connected statement of the philosophy of Plato; and scholars often turned to the book in vain for an explanation of the more difficult passages of the Greek1. Yet every one acknowledged that Plato was now an English book; that a new era had begun for the study of the great master. He was brought before us in his strength and his weakness: the poetry, the imagination, the elevation of thought shone out through the English; and on the other hand the sophistry of argument, the uncertainty and indefiniteness of the conclusions, the contradiction of various points of view, were not less apparent. Jowett's introductions to the Dialogues were and were not disappointing: on the one hand moremuch more-might have been said about the relation of Plato to previous philosophers, and on the plan and purpose of the Dialogues; but on the other, every reader was charmed by the beauty of the style, the wisdom and depth of thought, the happy illustrations from modern feeling and experience. Many who left Plato unread lingered with delight over Jowett's essays2.

By the election to the Mastership, and the publication of his Plato, Jowett's work in life became fixed. /

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Henceforth the practical power was developed at the expense of the speculative. It would not indeed be true to say that in his later years he was less thoughtful than he had been formerly, for he was always thinking and planning and criticizing. But it is true that as Master of the College the demands on his time and energy became too great to allow of that 'simmering over work,' by which alone such writing as we find in the Epistles can be produced. And the great success of his translation of Plato tended to confirm him in his choice of this kind of work; from Plato he went on to the translation of Thucydides and Aristotle's Politics; theology, in which perhaps his real strength lay, occupied his thoughts but not his pen; and though the work on the Life of Christ had a place among his plans almost to the end of his life, the vision was never realized. It was the same with his philosophical writing. He was not in truth at any time of his life a philosopher in the sense that he had a theoretical system. Perhaps it may be admitted that his way of thinking was essentially unsystematic: he grasped truth intuitively, rather than discursively, vividly apprehending one aspect of it after another, but hardly making any effort to trace their logical connexion. I put down my thoughts like sparks,' he once said, 'and let them run into one another.' In his mind all systems of moral philosophy were but partial glimpses of the truth; all were true, and all were imperfect, for each needed to be corrected and expanded by the other. If we ask,' he says, in the introduction to Plato's Philebus, which of these many theories is the true one? we may answer, all of them-moral sense, innate ideas, a priori, a posteriori notions, the philosophy of experience, the philosophy of intuition—all of them have added something to our conception of

ethics; no one of them is the whole truth'.' One whose range of vision was so wide, who, without being inconsistent, was yet inclined to look at moral or religious questions from many different points of view, found it more and more difficult, as he grew in know. ledge and experience, to write on such subjects with the systematic exposition required in an independent treatise. And so it came to pass that another great work which his friends, especially Lowe and Grant, urged him to undertake, and to which he constantly returned in his schemes for the future-a treatise on morals-was never written 2.

There was a change, too, in his relation to the under graduates. As Master he could not exercise quite the same sort of influence on them which he had exercised as a Tutor. But the change was not great. He continued to ask them to breakfast or wine, rarely allowing a day to pass without seeing two or three. He thought of them day and night. He won their confidence as he had always done, and those who were in distress turned to him for help and advice. To evildoers he was a terror; and the countenance with which an offender left his room was sufficient evidence of what had taken place within. Nor did he entirely give up Tutorial work. He took essays from a number of undergraduates once a week at least. He established weekly Tutorial meetings at which he never failed to attend, going through the whole list of undergraduates and satisfying himself by inquiry about the work of every In the terminal examinations a careful record was

man.

1 Cf. Professor J. Grote, Examination of the Utilitarian Philosophy, p. 177: 'My complaint against utilitarianism has been,

all along, that being partial, it claims to be all that is needed for morals.'

2 Cf. vol. i. p. 382.

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