Part 18 (2/2)

1863-4 Curate at Hoxton

1864-9 Mission Curate and Rector of St Philip's, Stepney

1869 Abandons parochial work Librarian at Lambeth Palace

1867-73 Contributor to _Saturday Review_

1874 _Short History of the English People_ published

1877 Marries Miss Alice Stopford

1877-80 Four volulish People_ published

1880-1 Winter in Egypt

1882 January, _Making of England_ published

1883 January, _Conquest of England_ finished (published posthumously)

Last illness Death, March 7

JOHN RICHARD GREEN

HISTORIAN

The eighteenth century did sos with a splendour and a completeness which is the despair of later, h it was of poetry and high iave birth to our raphy, and in history; and it has set up for us classic models of imperishable fame But the wisdom of Ada of Gibbon, did not readily find their way into the market-place Outside of the libraries and the booksellers' rows in London and Edinburgh they were in slight demand Even when the volumes of Gibbon, Hume, and Robertson had been added to the library shelves, where Clarendon and Burnet reigned before thenified retirement and slumber No hand disturbed them save that of the conscientious housemaid who dusted thes indispensable to the elegance of a 'gentleuests, unless a Gibbon were anorant whether the labels on their backs told a truthful tale, or whether they disguised an ingenious box or backga to the wall

The fault ith the public more than with the authors Those who ventured on the quest would find noble eloquence in Clarendon, lively narrative in Burnet, critical analysis in Hunorance of the general public unfitted thee of history or to take steps to acquire it It is true that the eneration accustourated by Dryden and Addison; and that Hume and other historians, with all their precision and clearness, anting in fervour and ilorious, so full of interest for the patriot and for the politician, that it should have spoken for itself, and the apathy of the educated classes was not creditable to theetful of their past history and its lessons, sunk in torpor and indifference He looked upon the wreckage of his nation, settled in the Babylonian plain; in his fervent iination he saw but a valley of dry bones, and called aloud to the four winds that breath should come into them and they should live

In our islands the prophets ielded the most potent spell came from beyond the Border Walter Scott exercised the wider influence, Carlyle kindled the intenser flame As artists they followed very different orous brush full charged with human sympathies, set before us a broad canvas in lively colours filled with a warht Carlyle workeddeep into the plate Froroups, in striking contrast, riveting the attention and i themselves on the memory Scott drew thousands of readers to sympathize with the men and women of an earlier day, and to feel the romance that attaches to lost causes in Church and State Carlyle set scores of students striving to recreate the great men of the past and by their standards to reject the shi+bboleths of the present However different were the methods of the enchanters, the dry bones had come to life Mediaeval abbot and crusader, cavalier and covenanter, Elizabeth and Cro voice to ears which were opened to hear

Nor did the English Universities fail to send forth eneration which aking up to a healthier political life The individual who achieved an to write his famous Essays in 1825, the year after he won his fellowshi+p at Trinity, though the world had to wait another twenty-five years for his History of the English Revolution

Since then Cae historians like Acton, or Maitland, have equalled or excelled hih none has won such brilliant success

But it was the Oxford School which did most, in the middle of the nineteenth century, to clear up the dark places of our national record and to present a colish people

Free the chronicles of Normans and Saxons; Stubbs no less laboriously excavated the charters of the Plantagenets; Froude hewed his path through the State papers of the Tudors; while Gardiner patiently unravelled the tangled skein of Stuart est of the school, took a wider subject, the continuous history of the English people He was fortunate in writing at a time when the public was prepared to find the subject interesting, but he hi this interest, and since then his work has been a laht teachers on the way

In a twofold way Green may claim to be a child of Oxford Not only was he a me born in the centre of that ancient city in the year of Queen Victoria's accession His faenerations withoutmore than a competence; and even before his father died in 1852 they were verging on poverty Of his parents, ere kind and affectionate, but not gifted with special talents, there is little to be told; the boy was inclined, in after life, to attribute any literary taste that he may have inherited to hiswas his passion, and he was rarely to be seen without a book Old church architecture and the sound of church bells also kindled his childish enthusiasms, and he would hoard his pence to purchase the joy of being ad sent at the age of eight to Magdalen College School, where he had daily access to the old buildings of the College and the beautiful walks which had been trodden by the feet of Addison a century and a half before An a contrast could be drawn between the decorous scholar of the seventeenth century, handsoravel walk, while he tasted the delights of classic literature, and little 'Johnny Green', a ht eyes and restless ways, darting here and there, eagerly searching for anything new or exciting which he es of so

But, for all his lively curiosity, Green seeot little out of his lessons at school The classic languages formed the staple of his education, and he never had that power of verbal merae with the accuracy of a scholar He soon gave up trying to do so Instead of aspiring to theidalen School it was still actively in use; but there were certain rules about the nuiven tih to notice this, and to shape his course accordingly; and thus his lessons beca point of view, an unqualified success

But his real progress in learning was due to his use of the old library in his leisure hours Here he made acquaintance with Marco Polo and other books of travel; here he read works on history of various kinds, and became prematurely learned in the heresies of the early Church The viehich he developed, and perhaps stated too crudely, did not win approval He was snubbed by exaravely reproved by Canon Mozley[56] for justifying the execution of Charles I The latter subject had been set for a prize essay; and the Canon was fair-ive the award to the boy whose views he disliked, but whose h this education was, the years spent under the shadow of Magdalen must have had a deep influence on Green; but he tells us little of his impressions, and was only half conscious of them at the time The incident which perhaps struck hied Dr Routh, President of the College, who had seen Dr Johnson in his youth, and lived to be a centenarian and the pride of Oxford in early Victorian days

[Note 56: Rev J B Mozley, 1813-78 Canon of Worcester and Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford: a Tractarian; author of essays on Strafford, Laud, &c]

Green's school life ended in 1852, the year in which his father died He was already at the top of the school; and to win a scholarshi+p at the University was now doubly ie, Oxford, in Decehteento go into residence at once, he continued for another year to read by hiave closer attention to his classics he did not drop his general reading; and it was a lande of sixteen he raduate was not very happy and was even less successful than his days at school, though the fault did not lie with him Shy and sensitive as he was, he had a sociable disposition and was naturally fitted to make friends But he had coe where the men were clannish, most of them Welshmen, and few of them disposed to look outside their own circle for friends Had Green been as fortunate as Williaht have been different; but there was no Welshman at Jesus of the calibre of Burne-Jones; and Green lived in almost complete isolation till the arrival of Boyd Dawkins in 1857 The latter, who becay, was Green's first real friend, and the letters which he wrote to him sho necessary it was for Green to have one hoe views freely Dawkins had the scientific, Green the literary, nature and gifts; but they had plenty of coround and were always ready to explore the records of the past, whether they were to be found in barrows, in buildings, or in books If Dawkins was the first friend, the first teacher who influenced him was Arthur Stanley, then Canon of Christ Church and Professor of Ecclesiastical History An accident led Green into his lecture-roohted with the spirit of Stanley's teaching, and the life which he imparted to history, that he became a constant member of the class And when Stanley made overtures of friendshi+p, Green welcomed them warmly

A new influence had come into his life Not only was his industry, which had been feeble and irregular, stiious questions and to the position of the English Church was at this tih Churchman; like many others at the time of the Oxford Movement, he had been led half-way towards Roman Catholicism, stirred by the historical claims and the uidance of Stanley and Maurice, he adopted the views of what is called the 'Broad Church Party', which suited his moral fervour and the liberal character of his social and political opinions

Despite, however, the stiiven to him (perhaps too late) by Dawkins and Stanley, Green won no distinctions at the University, and few uessed that he would ever win distinction elsewhere He took a dislike to the systeue, which consisted in dee of selected frag the of wider subjects He refused to enter for a class in the one subject in which he could shi+ne, anda variety of uncongenial subjects This was perverse, and he hinized it to be so afterwards All the while there was latent in hiht have enabled him to surpass all his contemporaries His one literary achievee, but it is of singular interest in viehat he came to achieve later He was asked by the editor of the _Oxford Chronicle_, an old-established local paper, to write two articles on the history of the city of Oxford To raduates the town seemed a mere parasite of the University; to Green it was an elder sister Many years later he complained in one of his letters that the city had been stifled by the University, which in its turn had suffered sily, he brought a ready enthusiasm and a full mind; and his articles are alive with the essence of what, since the days of his childhood, he had observed, learnt, and iined, in the town of his birth We see the same spirit in a letter which he wrote to Dawkins in 1860, telling hi the Mayor of Oxford when he observed the ti the bounds of the city He describes with gusto how he trudged along roads, clah hness But it was years before he could find an audience ould appreciate his power of handling such a subject, and his University career must, on his own evidence, be written down a failure