[36] Guardian1, 27th Nov. 1889.
Lord Blachford, whose death was announced last week, belonged to a generation of Oxford2 men of whom few now survive, and who, of very different characters and with very different careers and histories, had more in common than any set of contemporaries at Oxford since their time. Speaking roughly, they were almost the last product of the old training at public school and at college, before the new reforms set in; of a training confessedly imperfect and in some ways deplorably defective3, but with considerable elements in it of strength and manliness4, with keen instincts of contempt for all that savoured of affectation and hollowness, and with a sort of largeness and freedom about it, both in its outlook and its discipline, which suited vigorous and self-reliant natures in an exciting time, when debate ran high and the gravest issues seemed to be presenting themselves to English society. The reformed system which has taken its place at Oxford criticises, not without some justice, the limitations of the older one; the narrow range of its interests, the few books which men read, and the minuteness with which they were "got up." But if these men did not learn all that a University ought to teach its students, they at least learned two things. They learned to work hard, and they learned to make full use of what they knew. They framed an ideal of practical life, which was very variously acted upon, but which at any rate aimed at breadth of grasp and generosity5 of purpose, and at being thorough. This knot of men, who lived a good deal together, were recognised at the time as young men of much promise, and they looked forward to life with eagerness and high aspiration6. They have fulfilled their promise; their names are mixed up with all the recent history of England; they have filled its great places and governed its policy during a large part of the Queen's long reign7. Their names are now for the most part things of the past—Sidney Herbert, Lord Canning, Lord Dalhousie, Lord Elgin, Lord Cardwell, the Wilberforces, Mr. Hope Scott, Archbishop Tait. But they still have their representatives among us—Mr. Gladstone, Lord Selborne, Lord Sherbrooke, Sir Thomas Acland, Cardinal8 Manning. It is not often that a University generation or two can produce such a list of names of statesmen and rulers; and the list might easily be enlarged.
To this generation Frederic Rogers belonged, not the least distinguished9 among his contemporaries; and he was early brought under an influence likely to stimulate10 in a high degree whatever powers a man possessed11, and to impress a strong character with elevated and enduring ideas of life and duty. Mr. Newman, with Mr. Hurrell Froude and Mr. Robert Wilberforce, had recently been appointed tutors of their college by Dr. Copleston. They were in the first eagerness of their enthusiasm to do great things with the college, and the story goes that Mr. Newman, on the look-out for promising12 pupils, wrote to an Eton friend, asking him to recommend some good Eton men for admission at Oriel. Frederic Rogers, so the story goes, was one of those mentioned; at any rate, he entered at Oriel, and became acquainted with Mr. Newman as a tutor, and the admiration13 and attachment14 of the undergraduate ripened15 into the most unreserved and affectionate friendship of the grown man—a friendship which has lasted through all storms and difficulties, and through strong differences of opinion, till death only has ended it. From Mr. Newman his pupil caught that earnest devotion to the cause of the Church which was supreme16 with him through life. He entered heartily17 into Mr. Newman's purpose to lift the level of the English Church and its clergy18. While Mr. Newman at Oxford was fighting the battle of the English Church, there was no one who was a closer friend than Rogers, no one in whom Mr. Newman had such trust, none whose judgment19 he so valued, no one in whose companionship he so delighted; and the master's friendship was returned by the disciple20 with a noble and tender, and yet manly21 honesty. There came, as we know, times which strained even that friendship; when the disciple, just at the moment when the master most needed and longed for sympathy and counsel, had to choose between his duty to his Church and the claims and ties of friendship. He could not follow in the course which his master and friend had found inevitable22; and that deepest and most delightful23 friendship had to be given up. But it was given up, not indeed without great suffering on both sides, but without bitterness or unworthy thoughts. The friend had seen too closely the greatness and purity of his master's character to fail in tenderness and loyalty24, even when he thought his master going most wrong. He recognised that the error, deplorable as he thought it, was the mistake of a lofty and unselfish soul; and in the height of the popular outcry against him he came forward, with a distant and touching25 reverence26, to take his old friend's part and rebuke27 the clamour. And at length the time came when disagreements were left long behind and each person had finally taken his recognised place; and then the old ties were knit up again. It could not be the former friendship of every day and of absolute and unreserved confidence. But it was the old friendship of affection and respect renewed, and pleasure in the interchange of thoughts. It was a friendship of the antique type, more common, perhaps, even in the last century than with us, but enriched with Christian28 hopes and Christian convictions.
Lord Blachford, in spite of his brilliant Oxford reputation, and though he was a singularly vigorous writer, with wide interests and very independent thought, has left nothing behind him in the way of literature. This was partly because he very early became a man of affairs; partly that his health interfered29 with habits of study. It used to be told at Oxford that when he was working for his Double First he could scarcely use his eyes, and had to learn much of his work by being read to. The result was that he was not a great reader; and a man ought to be a reader who is to be a writer. But, besides this, there was a strongly marked feature in his character which told in the same direction. There was a curious modesty30 about him which formed a contrast with other points; with a readiness and even eagerness to put forth31 and develop his thoughts on matters that interested him, with a perfect consciousness of his remarkable32 powers of statement and argument, with a constitutional impetuosity blended with caution which showed itself when anything appealed to his deeper feelings or called for his help; yet with all these impelling33 elements, his instinct was always to shrink from putting himself forward, except when it was a matter of duty. He accepted recognition when it came, but he never claimed it. And this reserve, which marked his social life, kept him back from saying in a permanent form much that he had to say, and that was really worth saying. Like many of the distinguished men of his day, he was occasionally a journalist. We have been reminded by the Times that he at one time wrote for that paper. And he was one of the men to whose confidence and hope in the English Church the Guardian owes its existence.
His life was the uneventful one of a diligent34 and laborious35 public servant, and then of a landlord keenly alive to the responsibilities of his position. He passed through various subordinate public employments, and finally succeeded Mr. Herman Merivale as permanent Under-Secretary for the Colonies. It is a great post, but one of which the work is done for the most part out of sight. Colonial Secretaries in Parliament come and go, and have the credit, often quite justly, of this or that policy. But the public know little of the permanent official who keeps the traditions and experience of the department, whose judgment is always an element, often a preponderating36 element, in eventful decisions, and whose pen drafts the despatches which go forth in the name of the Government. Sir Frederic Rogers, as he became in time, had to deal with some of the most serious colonial questions which arose and were settled while he was at the Colonial Office. He took great pains, among other things, to remove, or at least diminish, the difficulties which beset37 the status of the Colonial Church and clergy, and to put its relations to the Church at home on a just and reasonable footing. There is a general agreement as to the industry and conspicuous38 ability with which his part of the work was done. Mr. Gladstone set an admirable example in recognising in an unexpected way faithful but unnoticed services, and at the same time paid a merited honour to the permanent staff of the public offices, when he named Sir Frederic Rogers for a peerage.
Lord Blachford, for so he became on his retirement39 from the Colonial Office, cannot be said to have quitted entirely40 public life, as he always, while his strength lasted, acknowledged public claims on his time and industry. He took his part in two or three laborious Commissions, doing the same kind of valuable yet unseen work which he had done in office, guarding against blunders, or retrieving41 them, giving direction and purpose to inquiries42, suggesting expedients43. But his main employment was now at his own home. He came late in life to the position of a landed proprietor44, and he at once set before himself as his object the endeavour to make his estate as perfect as it could be made—perfect in the way in which a naturally beautiful country and his own good taste invited him to make it, but beyond all, as perfect as might be, viewed as the dwelling-place of his tenants45 and the labouring poor. A keen and admiring student of political economy, his sympathies were always with the poor. He was always ready to challenge assumptions, such as are often loosely made for the convenience of the well-to-do. The solicitude46 which always pursued him was the thought of his cottages, and it was not satisfied till the last had been put in good order. The same spirit prompted him to allow labourers who could manage the undertaking47 to rent pasture for a few cows; and the experiment, he thought, had succeeded. The idea of justice and the general welfare had too strong a hold on his mind to allow him to be sentimental48 in dealing49 with the difficult questions connected with land. But if his labourers found him thoughtful of their comfort his farmers found him a good landlord—strict where he met with dishonesty and carelessness, but open-minded and reasonable in understanding their points of view, and frank, equitable50, and liberal in meeting their wishes. Disclaiming51 all experience of country matters, and not minding if he fell into some mistakes, he made his care of his estate a model of the way in which a good man should discharge his duties to the land.
His was one of those natures which have the gift of inspiring confidence in all who come near him; all who had to do with him felt that they could absolutely trust him. The quality which was at the bottom of his character as a man was his unswerving truthfulness52; but upon this was built up a singularly varied53 combination of elements not often brought together, and seldom in such vigour54 and activity. Keen, rapid, penetrating55, he was quick in detecting anything that rung hollow in language or feeling; and he did not care to conceal56 his dislike and contempt. But no one threw himself with more genuine sympathy into the real interests of other people. No matter what it was, ethical57 or political theory, the course of a controversy58, the arrangement of a trust-deed, the oddities of a character, the marvels59 of natural science, he was always ready to go with his companion as far as he chose to go, and to take as much trouble as if the question started had been his own. Where his sense of truth was not wounded he was most considerate and indulgent; he seemed to keep through life his schoolboy's amused tolerance60 for mischief61 that was not vicious. No one entered more heartily into the absurdities62 of a grotesque63 situation; of no one could his friends be so sure that he would miss no point of a good story; and no one took in at once more completely or with deeper feeling the full significance of some dangerous incident in public affairs, or discerned more clearly the real drift of confused and ambiguous tendencies. He was conscious of the power of his intellect, and he liked to bring it to bear on what was before him; he liked to probe things to the bottom, and see how far his companion in conversation was able to go; but ready as he was with either argument or banter64 he never, unless provoked, forced the proof of his power on others. For others, indeed, of all classes and characters, so that they were true, he had nothing but kindness, geniality65, forbearance, the ready willingness to meet them on equal terms. Those who had the privilege of his friendship remember how they were kept up in their standard and measure of duty by the consciousness of his opinion, his judgment, his eagerness to feel with them, his fearless, though it might be reluctant, expression of disagreement It was, indeed, that very marked yet most harmonious66 combination of severity and tenderness which gave such interest to his character. A strong love of justice, a deep and unselfish and affectionate gentleness and patience, are happily qualities not too rare. But to have known one at once so severely67 just and so indulgently tender and affectionate makes a mark in a man's life which he forgets at his peril68.
THE END
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guardian
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| n.监护人；守卫者，保护者 | |
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Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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defective
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| adj.有毛病的，有问题的，有瑕疵的 | |
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manliness
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generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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aspiration
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| n.志向，志趣抱负；渴望；(语)送气音；吸出 | |
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reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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cardinal
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| n.(天主教的)红衣主教；adj.首要的，基本的 | |
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distinguished
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stimulate
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| vt.刺激，使兴奋；激励，使…振奋 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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admiration
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attachment
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| n.附属物，附件；依恋；依附 | |
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ripened
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| v.成熟，使熟( ripen的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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clergy
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| n.[总称]牧师，神职人员 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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disciple
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| n.信徒，门徒，追随者 | |
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manly
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| adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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loyalty
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| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
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touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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rebuke
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| v.指责，非难，斥责 [反]praise | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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interfered
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| v.干预( interfere的过去式和过去分词 )；调停；妨碍；干涉 | |
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modesty
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| n.谦逊，虚心，端庄，稳重，羞怯，朴素 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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impelling
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| adj.迫使性的，强有力的v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的现在分词 ) | |
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diligent
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| adj.勤勉的，勤奋的 | |
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laborious
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| adj.吃力的，努力的，不流畅 | |
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preponderating
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| v.超过，胜过( preponderate的现在分词 ) | |
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beset
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| v.镶嵌；困扰，包围 | |
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conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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retirement
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| n.退休，退职 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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retrieving
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| n.检索（过程），取还v.取回( retrieve的现在分词 )；恢复；寻回；检索（储存的信息） | |
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inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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expedients
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proprietor
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| n.所有人；业主；经营者 | |
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tenants
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| n.房客( tenant的名词复数 )；佃户；占用者；占有者 | |
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solicitude
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| n.焦虑 | |
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undertaking
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| n.保证，许诺，事业 | |
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sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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equitable
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| adj.公平的；公正的 | |
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disclaiming
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| v.否认( disclaim的现在分词 ) | |
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truthfulness
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| n. 符合实际 | |
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varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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vigour
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| （=vigor）n.智力，体力，精力 | |
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penetrating
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| adj.（声音）响亮的，尖锐的adj.（气味）刺激的adj.（思想）敏锐的，有洞察力的 | |
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conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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ethical
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| adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的 | |
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controversy
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| n.争论，辩论，争吵 | |
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marvels
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| n.奇迹( marvel的名词复数 )；令人惊奇的事物（或事例）；不平凡的成果；成就v.惊奇，对…感到惊奇( marvel的第三人称单数 ) | |
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tolerance
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| n.宽容；容忍，忍受；耐药力；公差 | |
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mischief
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| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
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absurdities
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| n.极端无理性( absurdity的名词复数 )；荒谬；谬论；荒谬的行为 | |
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grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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banter
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| n.嘲弄，戏谑；v.取笑，逗弄，开玩笑 | |
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geniality
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| n.和蔼，诚恳；愉快 | |
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harmonious
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| adj.和睦的，调和的，和谐的，协调的 | |
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severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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