Gifford Lectures

“ He resigned his chair to devote himself to literary work, a purpose hampered by failing health. For some time he lived at Musselburgh. He delivered the Gifford lectures in 1908-9. He died, unmarried, at his residence, 3 Royal Terrace, Edinburgh, on 25 Nov. 1910.
Flint was in person spare but well knit; his pale features wore an expression of self-command; his dark moustache gave distinction to his clerical garb. He had few intimates, and lived much of his life apart, devoted to his studies, always a hard reader, of extraordinary diligence in research and facile power of mastery. ”

“ Professor Müller having promised in the Gifford lectures of 1890 a trinity of courses upon Natural Religion, has now completed two of them; it is to be hoped his life will be spared to crown the series with the last. In these courses his object is to show that man, without a special revelation, has gained a belief in God, the soul's immortality, and future retribution. ”

“ The books were based on two courses of Gifford lectures, the first delivered before the University of St. Andrews in 1891-2 and the second before the University of Glasgow in 1900. In the first work he exhibits the spiritual sense of mankind as at first dominated by the object, but constrained by its own abstractions to swing round so as to fall under the sway of the subject. In the second work there is the same exhibition of spiritual continuity and evolution. The story of Greek philosophy, which Caird considered mainly in its relation to theology, was carried from Plato to Plotinus and St. ”

“ GIFFORD, ADAM, Lord Gifford (1820–1887) , lord of session and founder of the Gifford lectureships, eldest son of James Gifford and his wife, Catherine Ann West, was born at Edinburgh on 29 Feb. 1820. His father, who had risen from a comparatively humble position, became treasurer and master of the Merchant Company, an elder in the Secession church, and a zealous Sunday-school teacher. His mother was vigorous in body and mind, and a very independent thinker. ”

“ CAMBRIDGE, Nov. 14, 1901.
Dear Gardiner,—I am still pretty poorly and can't "jine" anything—but, apart from that, I don't foresee much good from a Philosophical Society. Philosophical discussion proper only succeeds between intimates who have learned how to converse by months of weary trials and failure. The philosopher is a lone beast dwelling in his individual burrow.—Count me out!—I hope all goes well with you. I expect to get well, but it needs patience.
WM. JAMES.
On April 1, 1902, James sailed for England, to deliver the second "course" of his series of Gifford Lectures in Edinburgh. ”

“ John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated in theology in 1868, taking the Carus prize for Greek in 1865 and 1869, and the Tyrwhitt Hebrew prize in 1870. In 1868 he became a fellow of St. John's, and in 1874 theological lecturer. He succeeded Creighton as Dixie professor of ecclesiastical history at Cambridge (1891) and in 1903 gave the Gifford lectures at Edinburgh. He died at Cambridge Nov. 14 1916.
His chief works were Studies of Arianism (1882) ; The Knowledge of God (1906, the published version of his Gifford lectures) and Early Church History (1909) . ”

“ His argument can be followed by any fairly well read man without difficulty, and this is no small praise.”
+ Spec 124:51 Jl 10 ’20 1400w “Mr Webb could not, we think, publish a book that did not contain acute and illuminating pages, but he certainly does not show here anything like the constructive force, or the lucidity of exposition, which marked his earlier volume.”
+ − The Times [London] Lit Sup p790 D 2 ’20 980w WEBB, CLEMENT CHARLES JULIAN. God and personality; being the Gifford lectures delivered in the University of Aberdeen in the years 1918–1919. ”

“ Arouse thee, Gifford! be thy promise claim'd,
Make bad men better, or, at least, ashamed.
One curious peculiarity Gifford had. He made his old housekeeper sit in his study doing her needlework whilst he was engaged on his literary labours. To the end he maintained a warm friendship with Dr. Ireland, Dean of Westminster, son of a butcher of Ashburton, and a schoolfellow in former days, and when he died he bequeathed to him his library.
"The last month of Gifford's life was but a slow dying," says Mr. Smiles. ”

“ Gifford is the most obliging and well-meaning man alive, and that he is perfectly ready to be instructed in those points of which his seclusion renders him ignorant; and all that I wish and mean is, that we should strive to open clearly the view which is so obvious to us—that our first number must be a most brilliant one in every respect ”

“ Having attained an university education by private benevolence, and arrived at noble and powerful patronage by a circumstance purely accidental Mr. Gifford possessed advantages which few in humble life dare hope, and fewer aspire to achieve. He improved his learned leisure and patrician aid, till, in 1802, he published his translation of Juvenal, with a dedication to earl Grosvenor, and the preceding memoir. ”

“ His disregard for external show was the more remarkable, as a contrary feeling is generally observable in persons who have risen from penury to wealth. But Gifford was a gentleman in feeling and in conduct, and you were never led to suspect he was sprung from an obscure origin except when he reminded you of it by an anecdote relative to it. And this recalls one of the stories he used to tell with irresistible drollery, the merit of which entirely depended on his manner. ”

“ Among other persons I brought letters to Gifford, the satirist, but never saw him till yesterday. Never was I so mistaken in my anticipations. Instead of a tall and handsome man, as I had supposed him from his pictures, a man of severe and bitter remarks in conversation, such as I had good reason to believe him from his books, I found him a short, deformed, and ugly little man, with a large head sunk between his shoulders, and one of his eyes turned outward, but withal one of the best-natured, most open, and well-bred gentlemen I have met. ”

“ Gifford was an able judge, with strong common sense and little respect for technicalities. He often lectured to literary and philosophical societies. By his will, recorded on 3 March 1887, a sum, estimated at 80,000l., was bequeathed to found lectureships on natural theology, 25,000l. ”

“ It was not in human nature that William Gifford should withhold his hand from turning out some neat lines taking off the sanctimonious and pretentious cobbler, and so revenging himself for slights and insults many. It is not in human nature that he should refrain from showing this product to his fellow apprentices. It is not in human nature that some sneak among them should not apprise the master or that master's son of what the sullen, discontented lad had done. ”

“ Having taken a glimpse of the work accomplished by William Gifford as a critic, a scholar, and an editor in the latter years of his life, let us turn to look at his circumstances in boyhood and youth, when, as a miserable cobbler’s apprentice, he began to yearn after knowledge and to cherish ambitious dreams. The contrast between the first and last scenes in the drama of life could hardly be more wonderful than that which is presented in the history of the man who passed from the cobbler’s stool to the editor’s chair. ”

“ She had tried her experiment, and found out, as she thought, that the true country was not to be reached by earthly winding ways, and she was content to watch it as Gifford painted it, and dream her silent dreams, which no one knew, as she watched. ”

“ Life’s Decay. Sonnet LXXIII. A LETTER TO WILLIAM GIFFORD, ESQ. William Gifford (1756–1826) , the son of a glazier, after a neglected childhood, during which he was at one time apprenticed to a shoemaker, entered Exeter College, Oxford, through the kindness of a friend, and graduated in 1782. His two satires, The Baviad (1791) and The Mæviad (1795) , were published together in 1797, and his translation of Juvenal, upon which he had been working since he left Oxford, in 1802. He became editor of The Anti-Jacobin (1797) , and was the first editor (1809–1824) of The Quarterly Review. ”

“ It is indeed very beau- tiful in parts, and one gladly welcomes such a sunset succeeding the overcast afternoon, as showing that the great light which had been clouded was by no means extinguished, that the genius of the brave old poet could still triumph ere it sank into the night of death; but I can hardly concur in the measureless praise of Gifford, who was perhaps less qualified to judge a purely poetical drama than one abounding in keen observation, satirical humour, and masculine eloquence. ”

“ If Gifford could see me by this fireside, where, like Nicodemus, one candle suffices me in a large room, he would see a man in a coat 'still more threadbare than his own' when he wrote his 'Imitation,' working hard and getting little—a bare maintenance, and hardly that; writing poems and history for posterity with his whole heart and soul; one daily progressive in learning, not so learned as he is poor, not so poor as proud, not so proud as happy. ”

“ Where few and feeble are the Muse’s strains, And no fine frenzy riots in the veins. So he characterizes his environment in his epistle to William Gifford, which was prefixed to the American edition of the Baviad and Maeviad in 1799. ”

“ Edith Morriston smiled, and to Gifford it was the most fascinating smile he had ever seen. "Only let me know how I can serve you," he said, his pulses tingling.
"I am thinking of my brother," she replied, in a tone so friendly that it neutralized the rather damping effect of the words. "He is worrying over this business more than one who does not know him well would think. I had an idea, Mr. Gifford, that you might help us by, in a way, standing between us, so far as might be possible, and this Mr. Gervase Henshaw. He stays at your hotel, does he not?" ”

“ On such an occasion it seems to be not undesirable to inquire what Lord Gifford’s own opinions about natural science may have been, what place in the whole scheme of human knowledge he may have attributed to those branches of it which have become almost the centre of men’s intellectual interest. ”

“ The rector shook his head ruefully. "Denner has two trout. Fate was against me. Any fishing about Lockhaven, Gifford? Ward do any?"
Gifford laughed. "He only fishes for men," he said. "He devotes himself to it day and night. Especially of late; his fear of hell-fire for other people's souls has seemed to take great hold on him."
"Gad!" said Dr. Howe. "He's a queer fellow."
"He's a good fellow," Gifford answered warmly. "And as to his belief, why, you believe in hell, don't you, doctor?" ”

“ Hugh, Smerdon, the master of the school on whose succession I had calculated, died and was succeeded by a person not much older than myself, and certainly not so well qualified for the situation.”
Poor Gifford! hard, indeed, was thy lot; an orphan without friends, helpers, or sympathizers, having no proper leisure or means for study or recreation, and even the little pleasure and profit wrung from a few ciphering books and doggerel verses snatched away by cruel hands; trodden down like a worm in the mire, and every particle of talent and ambition threatened with extinction! ”

“ In 1809 he published his ‘Outlines of Mineralogy’ (2 vols. 8vo, Oxford) , which were reviewed by Dr. Thomas Thomson of Edinburgh in the ‘Quarterly Review’ (vol. ii.) in an article which Gifford, the editor, altered in some parts as being ‘very splenetic and very severe, and much too wantonly so.’ Gifford added: ‘Kidd is a modest and unassuming man, and is not to be attacked with sticks and stones like a savage’ (Smiles, Memoir of John Murray, i. 162) . ”

“ I do not, however, believe but that he will continue to do what he has been used to do for the Review; indeed, unless he makes the newspaper business his excuse, he stands completely pledged to me to adhere to that.
But with reverence be it spoken, even this does not seem to me a matter of very great moment. On the contrary, I believe that his papers in the Review have (with a few exceptions) done the work a great deal more harm than good. I cannot express what I feel; but there was always the bitterness of Gifford without his dignity, and the bigotry of Southey without his bonne-foi. ”

“ The Anti-Jacobin and the editing of divers English classics put Gifford still higher; and when the Quarterly Review was established in opposition to the Edinburgh, his appointment (1809) to the editorship, which he held almost till his death (he gave it up in 1824 and died in 1826) , completed his literary position. Gifford is little read nowadays, and a name which was not a very popular one even on his own side during his lifetime has, since the triumph of the politics and of some of the literary styles which he opposed, become almost a byword for savage and unfair criticism. ”

“ Gifford afterwards moved with his sister and mother to Jersey, where he lived in a very modest way, devoting the greater part of his small income to works of benevolence, and to furthering the cause of unitarianism. ”

“ Little if anything can be added to the excellent critical remarks of Gifford on Every Man out of his Humour, Cynthia's Revels, and Poetaster, or his Arraignment, The first of these magnificent mistakes would be enough to ensure immortality to the genius of the poet capable of so superb and elaborate an error. ”

“ Howe.
"I don't believe," Gifford responded, smiling, "that that would distress John Ward at all."
"Apparently not," said the rector significantly.
"He loves her too much," Gifford went on, "to think of himself apart from her; don't you see? They are one; what difference does it make about the money?" ”