'Ah,' He Exclaimed, With Mock Solemnity, '"The
Rellum," Should Be Printed On Vellum.' He Too, Like
Tennyson, Was Variable.
But this depended on whom he found.
In the presence of a stranger he was grave and silent. He
would never venture on puerile jokes like this of his
'Rellum' - a frequent playfulness, when at his ease, which
contrasted so unexpectedly with his impenetrable exterior.
He was either gauging the unknown person, or feeling that he
was being gauged. Monckton Milnes was another. Seeing me
correcting some proof sheets, he said, 'Let me give you a
piece of advice, my young friend. Write as much as you
please, but the less you print the better.'
'For me, or for others?'
'For both.'
George Cayley had a natural gift for, and had acquired
considerable skill, in the embossing and working of silver
ware. Millais so admired his art that he commissioned him to
make a large tea-tray; Millais provided the silver. Round
the border of the tray were beautifully modelled sea-shells,
cray-fish, crabs, and fish of quaint forms, in high relief.
Millais was so pleased with the work that he afterwards
painted, and presented to Cayley, a fine portrait in his best
style of Cayley's son, a boy of six or seven years old.
Laurence Oliphant was one of George Cayley's friends.
Attractive as he was in many ways, I had little sympathy with
his religious opinions, nor did I comprehend Oliphant's
exalted inspirations; I failed to see their practical
bearing, and, at that time I am sorry to say, looked upon him
as an amiable faddist. A special favourite with both of us
was William Stirling of Keir. His great work on the Spanish
painters, and his 'Cloister Life of Charles the Fifth,'
excited our unbounded admiration, while his BONHOMIE and
radiant humour were a delight we were always eager to
welcome.
George Cayley and I now entered at Lincoln's Inn. At the end
of three years he was duly called to the Bar. I was not; for
alas, as usual, something 'turned up,' which drew me in
another direction. For a couple of years, however, I 'ate'
my terms - not unfrequently with William Harcourt, with whom
Cayley had a Yorkshire intimacy even before our Cambridge
days.
Old Mr. Cayley, though not the least strait-laced, was a
religious man. A Unitarian by birth and conviction, he began
and ended the day with family prayers. On Sundays he would
always read to us, or make us read to him, a sermon of
Channing's, or of Theodore Parker's, or what we all liked
better, one of Frederick Robertson's. He was essentially a
good man. He had been in Parliament all his life, and was a
broad-minded, tolerant, philosophical man-of-the-world. He
had a keen sense of humour, and was rather sarcastical; but,
for all that, he was sensitively earnest, and conscientious.
I had the warmest affection and respect for him. Such a
character exercised no small influence upon our conduct and
our opinions, especially as his approval or disapproval of
these visibly affected his own happiness.
He was never easy unless he was actively engaged in some
benevolent scheme, the promotion of some charity, or in what
he considered his parliamentary duties, which he contrived to
make very burdensome to his conscience. As his health was
bad, these self-imposed obligations were all the more
onerous; but he never spared himself, or his somewhat scanty
means. Amongst other minor tasks, he used to teach at the
Sunday-school of St. John's, Westminster; in this he
persuaded me to join him. The only other volunteer, not a
clergyman, was Page Wood - a great friend of Mr. Cayley's -
afterwards Lord Chancellor Hatherley. In spite of Mr.
Cayley's Unitarianism, like Frederick the Great, he was all
for letting people 'go to Heaven in their own way,' and was
moreover quite ready to help them in their own way. So that
he had no difficulty in hearing the boys repeat the day's
collect, or the Creed, even if Athanasian, in accordance with
the prescribed routine of the clerical teachers.
This was right, at all events for him, if he thought it
right. My spirit of nonconformity did not permit me to
follow his example. Instead thereof, my teaching was purely
secular. I used to take a volume of Mrs. Marcet's
'Conversations' in my pocket; and with the aid of the
diagrams, explain the application of the mechanical forces, -
the inclined plane, the screw, the pulley, the wedge, and the
lever. After two or three Sundays my class was largely
increased, for the children keenly enjoyed their competitive
examinations. I would also give them bits of poetry to get
by heart for the following Sunday - lines from Gray's
'Elegy,' from Wordsworth, from Pope's 'Essay on Man' - such
in short as had a moral rather than a religious tendency.
After some weeks of this, the boys becoming clamorous in
their zeal to correct one another, one of the curates left
his class to hear what was going on in mine. We happened at
the moment to be dealing with geography. The curate,
evidently shocked, went away and brought another curate.
Then the two together departed, and brought back the rector -
Dr. Jennings, one of the Westminster Canons - a most kind and
excellent man. I went on as if unconscious of the
censorship, the boys exerting themselves all the more eagerly
for the sake of the 'gallery.' When the hour was up, Canon
Jennings took me aside, and in the most polite manner thanked
me for my 'valuable assistance,' but did not think that the
'Essay on Man,' or especially geography, was suited for the
teaching in a Sunday-school. I told him I knew it was
useless to contend with so high a canonical authority;
personally I did not see the impiety of geography, but then,
as he already knew, I was a confirmed latitudinarian.
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