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Charles Kingsley at Cambridge1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Owen Chadwick
Owen Chadwick
Affiliation:
Selwyn College, Cambridge
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Extract

That Magdalene College should commemorate the centenary of a celebrated son is generous, in two ways. First, because modern England owes a felt debt to Newman, whether it is to Cardinal Newman or only Mr Newman; and since the quarrel between Kingsley and Newman still reverberates out of the Victorian age like the quarrel between Wilberforce and Huxley, anyone who feels any kind of debt to Newman is bound to have less than the highest natural sympathy for Kingsley. The second reason is that Kingsley's attitude to his own college was at one time so tense with contempt, and diis contempt expressed publicly, and read in all the middle-class homes of England, that the contemporary fellows of the college might be pardoned for being tepid when in i860 he came back to Cambridge as a don.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , June 1975 , pp. 303 - 325
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

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References

2 Romilly's diary, 10 June 1860. Cf. Howson's, evidence in Life and Letters (hereafter L.L.) ii, 409.Google Scholar

3 Dean Wellesley to Charles Kingsley, 17 Dec. i860, B.M. Add. MS 41, 299/63.

4 London Review, quoted Camb. Indep. Press, 2 Feb. 1867.

5 Kingsley to Whewell, Eversley, 20 Sept. i860, Trinity College Add. MS, a. 207/163. In the Royal Archives are letters which show that one of the two previous men to be offered the chair was J. W. Blakesley, the vicar of Ware. Probably the other (if there was only one other) was Venables; not Edmund Venables the antiquary, as I once thought, but George Stovin Venables, like Woodham, formerly a fellow of Jesus College and a frequent contributor to The Times. For these letters in the Royal Archives see Theology, LXXVIII, no. 655 (01 1975), 2–8; the whole number is devoted to Kingsley. For suggestions from Cambridge, we have in the Royal Archives only a letter from Henry Phillpot the Master of St Catharine's to Lord Palmerston of 24 Mar. 1860, suggesting that none of the residents was specially qualified, and mentioning the possibilities, among non-residents, of Blakesley, Arthur Helps and ‘Mr Johnson, Fellow of King's College, who is now living at Eton’ – this, of course, is the poet Cory.Google Scholar

6 Dasent, A. T., Delane, i, 28; ii, 51, 244, 274.Google Scholar

7 B.M. Add. MSS, 44421/157: Thompson to Spedding, 10 July 1869, Karlsruhe.

8 L.L., n, 108–9.

9 Ibid.

10 Consumption, in The Magdalene Boat Club 1828–1928 (1930), p. 9.Google Scholar

11 Decree in C.U. MSS, UP/14/647: L.L., 1, 47–8.

12 Kingsley to John Martineau, Bideford, Feb. 1855; Martineau, Violet, John Martineau, p. 24.Google Scholar

13 Bury, J. P. T. (ed.), Romilly's Diary, 26 Oct. 1838 and 6 Jan. 1839; 29 Apr. 1836.Google Scholar

14 Romilly';s Diary, 8 Nov. 1860.

15 Romilly's Diary, 22 May 1861. Cf. also Romilly's Diary, 26 Mar. 1861: ’Just as I had finished dinner came the Vice-Chancellor and brought the address of condolence: – it had been written by Professor Kingsley, but the Council (in a two hours sitting today) pared down a good deal of its redundance.’

16 George Pryme, professor of political economy; whose ‘exact habits of thought’ Kingsley praised, and whose lectures he urged undergraduate historians to attend: Cf. The Roman and the Teuton (1881 ed.), pp. 326–7.Google Scholar

17 Dean Wellesley to Charles Kingsley, 17 Dec. i860, B.M. Add. MSS 41,299/63.

18 L.L., 11, 106.

19 W. H. Thompson toSpedding, 10 July 1869; B.M. Add. MSS 44421/157.

20 Chronicle, 13 July 1867.

21 David (2nd ed., 1874) p. 2.

22 E.g. J. S. Howson, in L.L., ii, 409.

23 L.L., i, 77. For the Gosse material cf. Cambridge University Library Add. MSS 7027; Gosse, Edmund, Life of Philip Gosse, pp. 252, 280 ff.Google Scholar For Kingsley's attitude to science see the article under that title by Meadows, A. J. in Theology, LXXVIII (1975), 15–22.Google Scholar For the discomfort between the patriotic and teutonic racial theory which he inherited and Darwinism, see Michael Banton, ibid. pp. 22–30.

24 C.U. MSS, UP/14/84.

25 Cf. L.L., ii, 58–9.

26 Add. MSS 41, 297.

27 L.L., i, 227.

28 L.L., ii, 192.

29 L.L., ii, 203.

30 See his letters to Sidgwick in the library of Trinity College; on a course of lectures on the sixteenth century and the period covered by Motley. His lectures are ill-recorded (for there were no lecture-lists and individual professorial notices are lost) but they appear to have been: 1860–61: Early medieval Europe; 1861–2: The same; (1861: The classes for the Prince of Wales and a selected company were: the constitutional history of England 1688–1832); 1862–3: The history of the United States: 1863–4: Invasion of the teutonic races (turning into The Roman and the Teuton, published 1864); 1864–5: The Norman Conquest; 1865–6: The same (Hereward published 1866); 1866–7: The Congress of Vienna. The course published 1867 as The Ancien Régime was given at the Royal Institution and not given as university lectures. It is a meditation on Tocqueville. 1867–8: Europe in the sixteenth century (he was much interested at the time in Motley's Dutch Republic); (Easter term) European science in the sixteenth century (published posthumously: the most original of his historical lectures); 1868–9: On certain philosophies of history (Comte, Bunsen, Carlyle, Maurice).

All his historical effort went into his lectures, which were intended to make later books (as in four cases, one posthumously, they did). The only historical book which we hear of him attempting is (1863–6, but the idea came earlier) a Boys' History of England of which we only know that it was intended to replace Mrs Markham for boys of 8 to 15, and was likely to be strongly Protestant in its emphasis, cf. B.M. Add. MSS 54911/103, among the Macmillan papers. His other commitments prevented it.

Kingsley's last service to the Cambridge history school was the choice of Seeley to succeed him. In the Lent Term of 1869 he was lecturing on Comte and counter-philosophies of history. During the term he finally decided to resign. He had lately read an article on John Milton by John Seeley, then professor of Latin at University College (Macmillan's Magazine, xvii (1868), 299–311,Google Scholar on Milton's political opinions; Macmillan's Magazine, xix (1869), 407–421,Google Scholar on Milton's poetry; republished by Seeley, in Lectures and Essays (1870), vols. iv–v.Google Scholar The second article, originally printed in March 1869, is evidently the article which moved Kingsley). The article showed that Seeley was far from being a disciple of Comte in his philosophy of history. Kingsley then wrote to Seeley telling him that he was about to resign and suggesting that he (Seeley) succeed him. Seeley replied from London in March (42 Regent's Park Road, otherwise undated), a letter in B.M. Add. MSS 41,299/142 ‘… one of the greatest compliments I have ever received in my life’ – his private need to increase his stipend – asks for duties, number of lectures needed – is committed to editing Livy for the Oxford University Press – ‘it is laborious work and would seriously interfere with my devoting myself as I could wish to Modern History; – thinks the chance of being appointed small – Gladstone may think highly’ (he had very favourably reviewed Ecce Homo) but he ‘can have no reason to think that I have given any special attention to Modern History…’ ‘If I were he I would not be bound to a Cambridge man…’ ‘The truth is that though I have read discursively in Modern History and have really given a good deal of thought to Philosophies of History, I have not studied a single period of Modern History critically in the original authorities. Is there any chance of the chair being made one of Universal History? Gladstone, I suppose can do what he likes with it. If ancient history were included I should not feel so diffident.’ ‘No post I should like more if I were ready, but it would throw away my knowledge of Latin and ancient history which I have been polishing. You see how mixed my feelings are…;’

In June, however, Gladstone offered the chair to James Spedding, who refused on 29 June (Spedding to Gladstone, Add. MSS 44421/71) – ‘not the proper man’ – ‘it is too late in the day to begin a new education’. Gladstone then asked Spedding about Dr Woodham of Jesus, and about Charles Merivale. Spedding told Gladstone (Spedding to Gladstone, 6 July 1869 Add. MSS 44421/105) that Merivale would be excellent but would have a difficulty of residence; that several Cambridge men had spoken of Woodham, as the most learned, and that Woodham was a copious contributor to The Times; but that W. H. Thompson (now Master of Trinity) would be the best judge. Thompson gave Spedding for Gladstone a lukewarm commendation of Woodham (10 July Add. MSS 44421/157). Gladstone offered the post to Merivale who at once declined (Merivale to Gladstone, 12 Aug. 1869, Add. MSS 44421/273). I find no sign in the Gladstone papers that he then offered to Woodham, but Woodham told Delane that he had had an offer. If there was one, it was perhaps an informal sounding. In September therefore Gladstone came at last to Kingsley's suggestion of Seeley, and on 25 September Seeley was appointed.

31 See report of London gossip in Cambridge Independent Press, 5 Dec. 1863.

32 Hereward the Walke (1906 ed.), p. 66. The Apologia had a very mixed reception, cf. Blehl, V. F., ‘The Apologia: Reactions 1864–5’ in The Month (1964), pp. 267–77. Kingsley was really damaged, first by the scornful pamphlet before the Apologia, and then by his own reply to the pamphlet, which was the most lamentable thing Kingsley ever wrote and was (in part at least) lamentable because he wrote it in an incipient nervous breakdown. The controversy over the Apologia does not clearly make an exception to the rule that an author's reputation cannot really be lowered but by himself.Google Scholar

33 The Christian Examiner (Boston, Massachusetts) printed extracts taken down by an unknown from Kingsley's university lectures on the history of the United States; and some of these extracts were reprinted in England and even in Cambridge, by Cambridge Independent Press, 5 Dec. 1863.

34 The most important collection is in the Parrish collection in Princeton University Library; some 500 letters by Kingsley, of which 159 to Sir William Cope and 101 to his wife, and some 75 letters to Kingsley. A number of these letters from Kingsley to Fanny were published by Martin, R. B., Charles Kingsley's American Notes (1958). My thanks to Mr Alexander D. Wainwright, curator of the Parrish collection.Google Scholar

35 It should be noticed however that he was capable of writing with true understanding of monks. The historical section on the monasteries as the bearers of civilization in the early Middle Ages is far the best part of The Roman and the Teuton. Something in medieval monasticism continued to interest if not fascinate him, as is evident both from The Hermits and from Hereward the Wake, despite the hard sayings to be found in both those books.

36 The Kingsleys suspected the author of the review of being Dr Woodham, and Fanny suspected that he was taking a revenge because he wanted the chair. But the reviewer was not Dr Woodham. The Times archive shows that it was the Irish military historian William O'Connor Morris, and if Kingsley had known he need hardly have taken it so seriously. For a less contemptuous but still very critical review, see Acton's review in the Chronicle, 13 July 1867, reprinted in Essays in Church and State (1952), p. 411.Google Scholar Hostile review in Athenaeum, 10 Aug. 1867, p. 174.Google Scholar For Fanny Kingsley's suspicion of Woodham in The Times, see the letter to F. D. Maurice printed in Martin, R. B., The Dust of Combat, p. 267.Google Scholar

The silence on Hereward may be due to the fairly widespread surprise among reviewers that such a book could be written by a famous Anglican clergyman, and still greater surprise that it should be published in instalments by Norman McLeod in the periodical Good Words. Cf. (e.g.) Cambridge Independent Press, 7 Apr. 1866; Pall Mall Gazette, 2 Jan. 1866, p. 27, ‘we wonder what has been thought in the hundreds of manses and parsonages, and other peaceful and serious homes, into which Good Words finds its way, as month after month through the past year this story has come tearing and thundering along…’; Cambridge Independent Press, 28 Oct. 1865, p. 5;Google ScholarSpectator, 7 Apr. 1866, p. 387; contrast the praise of Athenaeum, 14 Apr. 1866, p. 493.Google Scholar

37 Mrs Kingsley to Macmillan, B.M. Add. MSS 54912/53, 16 Dec. 1864.

38 ‘Born in the same year as the Queen, Kingsley typifies the Victorian man as closely as she presents the Victorian woman’, Thorp, M., Kingsley, p. 1; ‘If there ever lived such a mythical figure as a typical Victorian, that man might be Kingsley’ (R. B. Martin); etc.Google Scholar

39 L.L., ii, 186.

40 Henry Dunn to Mrs Kingsley, 7 Nov. 1868; B.M. Add. MSS 41, 299/137. Kingsley defined his entire attitude to ‘muscular Christianity’ in David (1865). For a modern treatment, Norman Vance, ‘Kingsley's Christian Manliness’ in Theology, LXXVIII (1975), 30–38,Google ScholarNewsome, David, Godliness and Good Learning (1961), pp. 207 ff., 235–6;Google ScholarWinn, W. E., ‘Tom Brown's Schooldays and the Development of Muscular Christianity’ in Church History, xxix (1960).Google Scholar But for the way in which something in the idea was thought to fit not only Kingsley's novels but his sermons, see the opinion of Howson, J. S. in L.L., ii, 409–10,Google Scholar for Howson disliked Kingsley in print because he preached a self-confident assertive Christianity and only lost the dislike when he came to know him. Kingsley was often angry at the charge; perhaps at his angriest when it was made in his friend Froude's Fraser's Magazine; see his fierce protest to Froude on 11 Sept. 1863 in Add. MSS 41,298/138 – muscular Christianity ‘a word and a notion which I abhor’.

41 The Leaves of the Tree, p. 230.

42 L.L., i, 230.

43 L.L., i, 230.

44 L.L., ii, 34.

45 L.L., ii, 262; cf. Benson, , Leaves of the Tree, p. 245; Violet Martineau, p. 5.Google Scholar

46 Benson, , Leaves of the Tree, p. 245.Google Scholar