Victorian Worthies

Part 1

Transcriber's note:

The reader will encounter the use of [=a] as an attempt to preserve the author's use of a lower case "a" with macron and [=i] as lower case "i" with macron.

VICTORIAN WORTHIES

Sixteen Biographies

G. H. BLORE

Assistant Master at Winchester College

'We have undertaken to discourse here for a little on Great Men, their manner of appearance in our world's business, how they shaped themselves in the world's history, what ideas men formed of them, what work they did;--on Heroes, namely, and on their reception and performance.'--CARLYLE.

Humphrey Milford Oxford University Press London Edinburgh Glasgow New York Toronto Melbourne Cape Town Bombay Calcutta 1920 Printed in England at the Oxford University Press

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION: THE VICTORIAN ERA 1. THOMAS CARLYLE. Prophet 2. SIR ROBERT PEEL. Statesman 3. SIR CHARLES NAPIER. Soldier 4. THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY. Philanthropist 5. LORD LAWRENCE. Administrator 6. JOHN BRIGHT. Tribune 7. CHARLES DICKENS. Novelist and Social Reformer 8. LORD TENNYSON. Poet 9. CHARLES KINGSLEY. Parish Priest 10. GEORGE FREDERICK WATTS. Artist 11. BISHOP PATTESON. Missionary 12. SIR ROBERT MORIER. Diplomatist 13. LORD LISTER. Surgeon 14. WILLIAM MORRIS. Craftsman 15. JOHN RICHARD GREEN. Historian 16. CECIL RHODES. Colonist INDEX

PREFACE

Some excuse seems to be needed for venturing at this time to publish biographical sketches of the men of the Victorian era. Several have been written by men, like Lord Morley and Lord Bryce, having first-hand knowledge of their subjects, others by the best critics of the next generation, such as Mr. Chesterton and Mr. Clutton-Brock. With their critical ability I am not able to compete; but they often postulate a knowledge of facts which the average reader has forgotten or has never known. Having written these sketches primarily for boys at school I am not ashamed to state well-known facts, nor have I wished to avoid the obvious.

Nor do these sketches aim at obtaining a sensation by the shattering of idols. I have been content to accept the verdicts passed by their contemporaries on these great servants of the public, verdicts which, in general, seem likely to stand the test of time. Boys will come soon enough on books where criticism has fuller play, and revise the judgements of the past. Such a revision is salutary, when it is not unfair or bitter in tone.

At a time when the subject called 'civics' is being more widely introduced into schools, it seems useful to present the facts of individual lives, instances chosen from different professions, as a supplement to the study of principles and institutions. There is a spirit of public service which is best interpreted through concrete examples. If teachers will, from their own knowledge, fill in these outlines and give life to these portraits, the younger generation may find it not uninteresting to 'praise famous men and our fathers that begat us'.

It seems hardly necessary in a book of this kind to give an imposing list of authorities consulted. In some cases I should find it difficult to trace the essay or memoir from which a statement is drawn; but in the main I have depended on the standard Lives of the various men portrayed, from Froude's Carlyle and Forster's Dickens to Mackail's Morris and Michell's Rhodes. And, needless to say, I have found the Dictionary of National Biography most valuable. If boys were not frightened from the shelves by its bulk, it would render my work superfluous; but, though I often recommend it to them, I find few signs that they consult it as often as they should. It may seem that no due proportion has been observed in the length of the different sketches; but it must be remembered that, while short Lives of Napier and Lawrence have been written by well-known authors, it is more difficult for a boy to satisfy his curiosity about Lister, Patteson, or Green; and of Morier no complete life has yet been published.

I am indebted to Mr. Emery Walker for assistance in the selection of the portraits.

Three of my friends have been kind enough to read parts of the book and to give me advice: the Rev. A. T. P. Williams and Mr. C. E. Robinson, my colleagues here, and Mr. Nowell Smith, Head Master of Sherborne. I owe much also to the good judgement of Mr. Milford's reader. If I venture to thank them for their help, they are in no way responsible for my mistakes. Writing in the intervals of school-mastering I have no doubt been guilty of many, and I shall be grateful if any reader will take the trouble to inform me of those which he detects.

G.H.B.

WINCHESTER,

April 1920.

LIST OF PORTRAITS

Thomas Carlyle From the painting by G. F. WATTS in the National Portrait Gallery.

Sir Robert Peel From the painting by J. LINNELL in the National Portrait Gallery.

Sir Charles Napier From the drawing by EDWIN WILLIAMS in the National Portrait Gallery.

Lord Shaftesbury From the painting by G. F. WATTS in the National Portrait Gallery.

Lord Lawrence From the painting by G. F. WATTS in the National Portrait Gallery.

John Bright From the painting by W. W. OULESS in the National Portrait Gallery.

Charles Dickens From the painting by DANIEL MACLISE in the National Portrait Gallery.

Part 2

Alfred, Lord Tennyson From the painting by G. F. WATTS in the National Portrait Gallery.

Charles Kingsley From a drawing by W. S. HUNT in the National Portrait Gallery.

George Frederick Watts From a painting by himself in the National Portrait Gallery.

John Coleridge Patteson From a drawing by WILLIAM RICHMOND. (By kind permission of Messrs. Macmillan & Co., Ltd.)

Sir Robert Morier From a drawing by WILLIAM RICHMOND. (By kind permission of Mr. Edward Arnold.)

Lord Lister From a photograph by MESSRS. BARRAUD.

William Morris From the painting by G. F. WATTS in the National Portrait Gallery.

John Richard Green From a drawing by FREDERICK SANDYS. (By kind permission of Messrs. Macmillan & Co., Ltd.)

Cecil Rhodes From the painting by G. F. WATTS in the National Portrait Gallery.

INTRODUCTION

THE VICTORIAN ERA

We like to fancy, when critics are not at our elbow, that each Age in our history has a character and a physiognomy of its own. The sixteenth century speaks to us of change and adventure in every form, of ships and statecraft, of discovery and desecration, of masterful sovereigns and unscrupulous ministers. We evoke the memory of Henry VIII and Elizabeth, of Wolsey and Thomas Cromwell, of Drake and Raleigh, while the gentler virtues of Thomas More and Philip Sidney seem but rare flowers by the wayside.

The glory of the seventeenth century shines out amid the clash of arms, in battles fought for noble principles, in the lives and deaths of Falkland and Hampden, of Blake, Montrose, and Cromwell. If its nobility is dimmed as we pass from the world of Shakespeare and Milton to that of Dryden and Defoe, yet there is sufficient unity in its central theme to justify the enthusiasm of those who praise it as the heroic age of English history.

Less justice, perhaps, is done when we characterize the eighteenth century as that of elegance and wit; when, heedless of the great names of Chatham, Wolfe, and Clive, we fill the forefront of our picture with clubs and coffee-houses, with the graces of Chesterfield and Horace Walpole, the beauties of Gainsborough and Romney, or the masterpieces of Sheraton and Adam. But each generalization, as we make it, seems more imperfect and unfair; and partly because Carlyle abused it so unmercifully, this century has in the last fifty years received ample justice from many of our ablest writers.

Difficult indeed then it must seem to give adequate expression to the life of a century like the nineteenth, so swift, so restless, so many-sided, so full of familiar personages, and of conflicts which have hardly yet receded to a distance where the historian can judge them aright. The rich luxuriance of movements and of individual characters chokes our path; it is a labyrinth in which one may well lose one's way and fail to see the wood for the trees.

The scientist would be protesting (all this time) that this is a very superficial aspect of the matter. He would recast our framework for us and teach us to follow out the course of our history through the development of mathematics, physics, and biology, to pass from Newton to Harvey, and from Watt to Darwin, and in the relation of these sciences to one another to find the clue to man's steady progress.

The tale thus told is indeed wonderful to read and worthy of the telling; but, to appreciate it fully, it needs a wider and deeper knowledge than many possess. And it tends to leave out one side of our human nature. There are many whose sympathies will always be drawn rather to the influence of man upon man than to the extension of man's power over nature, to the development of character rather than of knowledge. To-day literature must approach science, her all-powerful sister, with humility, and crave indulgence for those who still wish to follow in the track where Plutarch led the way, to read of human infirmity as well as of human power, not to scorn anecdotes or even comparisons which illustrate the qualities by which service can be rendered to the State.

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