Augustus John Cuthbert Hare

“ The proclamation of peace after the Crimean War was celebrated—Oxford fashion—by tremendous riots in the town, and smashing of windows in all directions.
At Whitsuntide, I had a little tour in Warwickshire with Albert Rutson as my companion. We enjoyed a stay at Edgehill, at the charming little inn called “The Sun Rising,” which overlooks the battlefield, having the great sycamore by its side under which Charles I. breakfasted before the battle, and a number of Cavalier arms inside, with the hangings of the bed in which Lord Lindsey died. ”

“ I used to think Canterbury perfectly enchanting, and Arthur was most kind and charming to me. While there, I remember his examining a school at St. Stephen’s, and asking the meaning of bearing false witness against one’s neighbour—“When nobody does nothing to nobody,” answered a child, “and somebody goes and tells.” ”

“ We went against the Heads of Houses with the enthusiasm of martyrs in a much greater cause, and we were victorious. George Sheffield was forcibly elected to a Founder’s-kin Scholarship at Pembroke, and was the last so elected. Dr. Jeune was grievously annoyed, but, with the generosity which was always characteristic of him, he at once accorded us his friendship, and remained my most warm and honoured friend till his death about ten years afterwards. He was remarkable at Oxford for dogmatically repealing the law which obliged undergraduates to receive the Sacrament on certain days in the year. ”

“ I think we were liked in college—Milligan much better than I. Though we never had the same sort of popularity as boating-men and cricketers often acquire, we afforded plenty of amusement. When the college gates were closed at night, I often used to rush down into Quad and act “Hare” all over the queer passages and dark corners of the college, pursued by a pack of hounds who were more in unison with the general idea of Harrow than of Oxford. ”

“ It was the third year of our Oxford life, and Milligan and I were now the “senior men” resident in college; we sat at one of the higher tables in hall, and occupied stalls in chapel. We generally attended lectures together, and many are the amusing tricks I recall which Milligan used to play—one especially, on a freshman named Dry—a pious youth in green spectacles, and with the general aspect of “Verdant Green.” An undergraduate’s gown is always adorned with two long strings behind ”

“ The men I now saw most of were those who called themselves the δωδεκα—generally reputed “the fast men” of the college, but a manly high-minded set of fellows. Most of my time was spent in learning Italian with Count Saffi, who, a member of the well-known Roman triumvirate, was at that time residing at Oxford with his wife, née Nina Crauford of Portincross. ”

“ I did not care about the places on the inland Scottish lakes, except Killin, where our cousin Fanny Tatton and her friend Miss Heygarth joined us, and where we spent some pleasant week-days and a most abominable Sunday. We afterwards lingered at Arrochar on Loch Long, whither Aunt Kitty and Arthur Stanley came to us from Inverary. ”

“ I always feel that a garden is my impression—the garden of Paradise.’ ‘People generally love themselves first, their friends next, and God last,’ she said one day. ‘Well, I do not think that is the case with me,’ I replied; ‘I really believe I do put you first and self next.’ ‘Yes, I really think you do,’ she said.”
When I returned to Oxford after Easter, 1856, my pleasant time in college rooms was over, and I moved to lodgings over Wheeler’s bookshop and facing Dr. ”

“ In the castle itself is Cardinal Beaton’s dungeon, where a Lord Airlie was imprisoned, and whence he was rescued by his sister, who dressed him up in her clothes.”
“Brechin, August 17.—The ruin of Arbroath (Aberbrothock) is most interesting. William the Lion is buried before the high altar, and in the chapter-house is the lid of his coffin in Scottish marble, with his headless figure, the only existing effigy of a Scottish king. In the chapter-house a man puts into your hand what looks like a lump of decayed ebony, and you are told it is the ‘blood, gums, and intestines’ of the king. ”

“ Late in the evening a note was brought in for Duckworth, who said, “It is a note from John Conington,” and read—“Dear Duckworth, having been the victim of a cruel outrage on the part of some undergraduates of the college, I trust to your friendship for me to assist me in finding out the perpetrators,” &c. Duckworth urged that I should give myself up—that John Conington was very good-natured—in fact, that I had better confess the whole truth, &c. ”

“ June 15.—I am afraid I cannot help being tired of the mental solitude at home, as the dear mother, without being ill enough to create any anxiety, has not been well enough to take any interest, or have any share in my doings. ”

“ There is a charming old-fashioned inn here, and a beautiful old castle, in one of the rooms of which the young Duke of Rothesay was starved to death by his uncle.”
“St. Andrews, August 15.—This is a glorious place, a rocky promontory washed by the sea on both sides, crowned by Cardinal Beaton’s castle, and backed by a perfect crowd of ecclesiastical ruins. The cathedral was the finest in Scotland, but destroyed in one day by a mob instigated by John Knox, who ought to have been flayed for it. Close by its ruins is a grand old tower, built by St. ”

“ At Glasgow, though we were most uncomfortable in a noisy and very expensive hotel, my mother insisted upon spending a wretched day, because of—Sunday! We afterwards paid pleasant visits at Foxhow and Toft, whence I went on alone to Peatswood in Shropshire (Mr. Twemlow’s) , and paid from thence a most affecting visit to our old home at Stoke, and to Goldstone Farm, the home of my dear Nurse Lea. ”

“ Dalzell, whose goodness and simplicity perfectly charmed my mother.
We passed the latter part of the winter between the Penrhyns’ house at Sheen, Aunt Kitty’s house of 6 Grosvenor Crescent, and Arthur Stanley’s Canonry at Canterbury. With Arthur I dined at the house of Mr. Woodhall, a Canterbury clergyman, now a Roman Catholic priest, having been specially invited to meet (at a huge horseshoe table) “the middle classes”—a very large party of chemists, nurserymen, &c., and their wives, and very pleasant people they were. ”

“ Upon all these subjects she was equally vigorous, and gave all her decisions with the manner and tone of one laying down the laws of Athens. She admired Arthur excessively, but was a capital friend for him, because she was not afraid of laughing—as all his own family were—at his morbid passion for impossible analogies. In his second lecture Arthur made a capital allusion to Mr. ”