Henry Scott Holland

“ Nor is he left to tread the quiet ways of the scholar; the fierce energy of political life and religious strife plucks him out of the cloister and clamours to him to act—to deal with the dangers of Rome and the difficulties of science, to succeed the expelled Massey and to banish Locke. He acts as determinedly as men can wish—but there is a something in his modesty, in his calm, in his soft kindliness, which disarms anger and shames malice. ”

“ Through all this Aldrich passes, the centre of the bitterest strife, the point at which all movements cross and crowd and jostle each other, yet himself calm, dignified, gentle, unruffled. Nothing angers; no one can fret him. Throughout he is self-possessed in the heart of turmoil, child-like in the midst of bewilderment. ”

“ In 1660 he must have seen from the old Dormitory windows the Abbey reddened with the fires that blazed night after night for the return of the Free Parliament, and heard the shouts of the multitudes in Palace Yard who were welcoming back the old members of the famous House that had rebelled against the father and now met to restore the son. In 1662, when Vane, on the scaffold at Tower Hill, was setting the last seal of blood to the grim enthusiasm of the old Puritan faith, Aldrich, at the age of fifteen, left Westminster for Oxford. ”

“ But, if we do not still study his theology, there is one book of Aldrich's in all our hands, if not in our heads—a book which made his name sound strangely familiar to us from our earliest infancy at Oxford, but which left him draped in all the mythical wonder and awe of a legendary hero. Few of us, as Freshmen, would not have felt a shock at identifying the creator of the Logic with any historic reality. ”

“ To-night I have to bring before the memory of the House a character of a far different type; the character of a quiet, humble, home-like scholar, of a gentle, modest musician; of a man, born indeed into stormy times, but round whose peaceful life and temper storms and tempests broke in vain; of one who seems ever to shrink from such publicity as his high qualities compel him to assume ”

“ It is a curious contrast: the one battered with hatred, worn with struggle, seared with strife; now 'floating in a sea of glory,' now 'left weary and old to the mercy of a rude stream that must for ever hide him:' the other, moving in peaceful settled ease along the even tenor of his way, enjoying the calm pleasure of graceful culture, the smooth placid flow of genial friendship and of unbroken affection, here among the dreaming spires and quiet meadows, admired, esteemed, beloved unto the end. ”

“ We can agree with a speech spoken by Atterbury, his succeeding Dean, on Aldrich, within a few yards of this spot:—'Seu studia graviora persequeretur seu levibus se oblectaret, seu res humanas seu divinas susciperet tractandas,—an his an illis aptior esset, multum dubitares;' or with the warm words of good Thomas Hearne:—'Consider him as a Christian, a scholar, or a gentleman, he was one of the most eminent men in England: he constantly received the Sacrament every Sunday, and rose to five o'clock prayers in the morning, summer and winter; a severe student, yet always free, open, and facetious. ”

“ Yet that work represents to us the sole thread by which Philosophy held its hold on Oxford; to it we owe it that the spirit of Speculative Thought has never wholly perished out of the educational course of this University. Logic is the shell of Thought—Logical formulae the Ritualism of Philosophy. ”

“ Fell, died, 'a learned and pious divine,' says Antony à Wood, 'an excellent Grecian, a great assertor of the Church, a second founder of his College, a patron of the whole University, a husband to the widow, a father to the orphan:' and Aldrich and that eminent band of men then in the House must have waited, not without some flutter of expectation, nor yet without some qualms of fear, the issue of the royal appointment. It was just then that James had resolved to carry out a dangerous policy with a high hand, and for this he was ready to harry and corrupt the whole Bench at Westminster Hall. ”

“ There is no timidity, no caution; rather a sallying out to meet his adversary, to vaunt his triumph: and such a temper is justified by Burnet's account of the meagreness of the Roman defence, of the utter vanquishing which it then endured.
Such was the determination of Aldrich's attitude toward Rome; but the thing to observe is, that though he could write thus against the Jesuit, yet when the reaction came and Protestant William had taken the place of Catholic James, he could act as we have seen him act, against the Puritan. ”

“ Grim and ghastly as our grey weather renders it, there is a grandeur in the simplicity of the lines, a dignity in the elevation, a majesty in the ease with which the pilasters rise from the basal story, which no wind can beat out or rain wash wholly away. ”

“ The Church rose to the crisis. 'Many of the Clergy,' says even Burnet, 'now made good amends for past errors. They examined all the points of Popery with a solidity of judgment, a clearness of argument, a depth of learning, and a vivacity of writing far beyond anything which had before that time appeared in our language.' Among the chiefs of this movement, he classes the Christ Church men, Smalridge, Atterbury, Wake, and Aldrich. It was for this Aldrich wrote his 'Reply to two Discourses,' a work to be judged by its purpose ”

“ It was not so long since Dean Reynolds had fought his way with hammer and blows into his College; not many years after, Aldrich himself walked as Vice-Chancellor in full procession to find Magdalen Hall gate barred against its new Head, and began 'chopping it in pieces:' but we hear of no murmuring of the Christ Church men. They had voted their principle, and they stuck to it: they at least would not decree passive obedience for others, and active resistance for themselves. ”

“ And over his new quad, from his Deanery window, he could see the beautiful little temple which he has poised on high for the spire of All Saints'—a work almost unique, it seems to me, in its effort to give the effect of a Gothic spire out of pure Palladian material; an effort too marvellously successful when we think how naturally it groups with St. ”