John Hare

“ I must send you one of the allegories which I have heard Bradley tell his children; it is such a characteristic specimen:—
“‘Now I will tell you a story about Hare. When Hare was a little child he lived at Rome: you know what we call it?— (“Oh yes, papa, Babylon.”) —Well, he lived at Babylon, and he was a very good little boy then, but he used to walk about dressed in scarlet, for they all wore scarlet there. One day a man was seen in the streets, very beautiful, a stranger with silver wings. And he said, “Are you little Hare, and would you like to go with me and learn how to be good?” ”

“ HARE, HUGH, first Lord Coleraine (1606?–1667) , royalist, born about 1606, was the son of John Hare, by his second wife, Margaret (d. 1653) , widow of Allan Elvine of London, and fifth daughter of John Crowch of Corney-Bury in Buntingford, Hertfordshire (Cooke, Members of Inner Temple, 1547-1660, p. 69) . John Hare (1546-1613) was eighth son of John Hare of Stow Bardolph, brother of Nicholas Hare [q. v.] ; he lived in Fleet Street, London, and at Totteridge, Hertfordshire (will registered in P. C. C. 66, Capel) . ”

“ To the year which Francis Hare passed with Clotilde Tambroni at Bologna, in her humble rooms with their tiled floors and scanty furniture, he always felt that he owed that intense love of learning for learning’s sake which was the leading characteristic of his after life, and he always looked back upon the Tambroni as the person to whom, next to his mother, he was most deeply indebted. When he rejoined his parents at Hurstmonceaux, he continued, under his new tutor, Dr. Lehmann, to make such amazing progress as astonished all who knew him and was an intense delight to his mother. ”

“ Hare do come to us, and he do sit by the bed and hold our hands, and he do growl a little, but he do say nowt.'
His sermons were equally over the heads of his congregation, who used to say: 'Mr. Hare, he be not a good winter parson,' which meant that he kept them so long in church that they could not get home before dark. Hare generally preached for an hour to a nodding audience. But a few of his sermons which had an especial local application were valued accordingly.
Apart from parochial duties nothing could be happier than Hare's life at Hurstmonceaux. ”

“ I went out with a party of friends to play at hare-and-hounds. I was hare, and ran away over hedges and ditches. At last, just as I jumped over a hedge, Macphail caught me, and we sat down to take breath. Just then Hoare ran up breathless and panting, and threw himself into the hedge crying out, ‘We are pursued by navvies.’ The next minute, before I could climb back over the hedge, I found myself clutched by the arm, and turning round, saw that a great fellow had seized me, and that another had got Macphail and another Hodgson Junior. ”

“ In the summer of 1832 all the family went to Baden-Baden, to meet Lady Paul and her daughter Eleanor, Sir John, the FitzGeralds, and the Bankheads. All the branches of Mrs. Hare’s family lived in different houses, but they met daily for dinner, and were very merry. Before the autumn, my fahter returned to Italy, to the Villa Cittadella near Lucca, which was taken for two months for Mrs. Hare’s confinement, and there, on the 9th of October, my sister was born. ”

“ Four years of perfect happiness were permitted them—years spent almost entirely in the quiet of their little rectory in the singularly small parish of Alton Barnes amid the Wiltshire Downs, where the inhabitants, less than two hundred in number, living close at each other’s doors, round two or three small pastures, grew to regard Augustus Hare and his wife with the affection of children for their parents. ”

“ I said “No,” for at that time I had never heard of George Hare or of the Bishop’s youngest son, Francis, who likewise died in India. But my brother insisted that we must have had an Indian relation who died there; and on my inquiring “why,” he told me the following story. He assured me, that being resolved once more to visit the old family home, he had gone down to Hurstmonceaux, and had determined to pass the night in the castle. ”

“ For several years our grandparents carried on a most laborious contest of dignity with poverty on their ruined estate of Hurstmonceaux, where their only daughter Anna Maria Clementina was born in 1799. Finding no congenial associates in the neighbourhood, Mrs. Hare-Naylor consoled herself by keeping up an animated correspondence with all the learned men of Europe, while her husband wrote dull plays and duller histories, which have all been published, but which few people read then and nobody reads now. ”

“ So close was the tie which united them, that, when the rich family living of Hurstmonceaux fell vacant on the death of our great-uncle Robert, Augustus Hare could not bear to leave his little Alton, and implored my father to persuade his brother Julius to give up his fellowship at Trinity and to take it instead.
“Having lived but little in the country, and his attention having been engrossed by other subjects, Augustus Hare was, from education and habits of life, unacquainted with the character and wants of the poor. ”

“ I remember Uncle Julius coming out with tears streaming down his cheeks, and an open letter in his hand, one day when all the family were sitting under the trees. It was the news of the death of Dr. Arnold of Rugby.
In the autumn Mrs. Hare came with her children to spend some time at Hurstmonceaux Rectory. It was then arranged that I should call her “Italima” (being a corruption of “Italian Mama”) , and by that name I will henceforth speak of her in these memoirs, but this must not be taken to imply any greater intimacy, as she never treated me familiarly or with affection. ”

“ In return, he was often loved,frequently detested, but never ignored. His acquaintance with English literature was extraordinary, and his knowledge of German probably unique for an undergraduate. He gave himself up with passionate delight to his classical studies; but his dislike of mathematics prevented him from qualifying to compete for the chancellor's medal. He was elected to a Trinity fellowship in October 1818.
After a winter passed with Francis Hare in Italy, he was persuaded by his elder brother to study the law, and took chambers in Hare Court, Temple. ”

“ She was then living with her mother Lady Boyle in the same house of Millard’s Hill, near Frome, in which my great-aunts Caroline and Marianne Hare had lived before; and, to my great surprise and delight, I was allowed to go by the coach to spend two days with her there. It was on this occasion that I first wore a morning-coat instead of a jacket, and very proud I was of it. Apropos of dress, at this time and for many years afterwards, all young gentlemen wore straps to their trousers, not only when riding, but always: it was considered the ne plus ultra of snobbism to appear without them. ”

“ Hare, you are to sit next to Lord Leven, for you will not see any more of him; so mind you devote yourselves to one another all breakfast time.’
“On Saturday we all went to luncheon at Saltoun, the great place of the neighbourhood, where Mr. Fletcher lives, whose wife, Lady Charlotte, is one of Lady Ruthven’s nieces. It is a large, stately, modern castle, containing a fine library and curious MSS. The tables were loaded with ‘loot’ from the Summer Palace in China.
“Yesterday we all went at twelve o’clock to the Presbyterian church at Pencaitland, one of the oldest in Scotland. ”

“ Hare-Naylor of my own childhood, who was less and less liked by her stepsons as years went on. She became the mother of three children, Georgiana, Gustavus, and Reginald—my half aunt and uncles. In 1815, Mr. Hare-Naylor died at Tours, and was buried at Hurstmonceaux.
The breaking up of their home, the loss of their beloved mother, and still more their father’s second marriage, made the four Hare brothers turn henceforward for all that they sought of sympathy or affection to their Shipley relations. The house of their mother’s eldest sister, Lady Jones, was henceforward the only home they knew. ”

“ Penrhyn [2] and his wife, were sharers by letter in every trifling incident which affected their sister’s life; and with his favourite brother Julius, Augustus Hare never slackened his intellectual intercourse and companionship. But even more than these was Lucy Anne Stanley [3] the life-long friend of Maria Hare, till, in the summer of 1833, the tie of sisterhood, which had always existed in feeling, became a reality, through her marriage with Marcus Hare, the youngest of the four brothers. ”

“ I have copied these fragments from the portrait which Augustus Hare’s widow drew of his ministerial life, [1] because they afford the best clue to the way in which that life influenced hers, drawing her away from earth and setting her affections in heavenly places. And yet, though in one sense the life of Augustus Hare and his wife at Alton was one of complete seclusion, in another sense there were few who lived more for, or who had more real communion with, the scattered members of their family. ”

“ In 1839 Hare delivered his sermons on the 'Victory of Faith' before the university of Cambridge as select preacher. Their prodigious length prevented their being appreciated when they were preached, and provoked such obtrusive symptoms of impatience that his friends got up a petition for their publication to efface the discourtesy from his recollection. Hare intended to have illustrated these sermons with a copious collection of notes, such as were appended to his next course, on the 'Mission of the Comforter,' preached in 1840. ”

“ The hare was bought, and the dreadful inside was disposed of with much the same difficulty and secrecy, and in much the same manner, in which the Richmond murderess disposed of her victims; but we had never calculated how long the creature would take to roast even with a good fire, much more by our wretched embers: and long before it was accomplished, Mrs. Collins, the matron, was down upon us, and we and the hare were taken into ignominious custody. ”

“ Another son, Robert, was father of Francis Hare-Naylor [q. v.] , and a third, Richard, was father of James Hare [q. v.]
Hare was a prolific author. He had been an old friend of Bentley, to whom he addressed in 1713 'the clergyman's thanks to Phileleutherus' (Bentley's pseudonym in the controversy with Anthony Collins [q. v.] ) . They were estranged perhaps by Hare's support of John Colbatch [q. v.] In 1724 Hare published an edition of 'Terence,' founded upon that of Faërnius, and with notes founded partly on previous communications from Bentley, who had intended to publish an edition himself. ”

“ But, in return, the sternness of republican demeanour refuses the outward token of submission—even to Almighty power: a Dutchman always remains in church with his hat unmoved from his head.”
The year 1818 was chiefly passed by Francis Hare in Bavaria, where he became very intimate with the King and Prince Eugene. The latter gave him the miniature of himself which I still have at Holmhurst. For the next seven years he was almost entirely in Italy—chiefly at Florence or Pisa. ”

“ Hare-Naylor’s struggling life in Italy is told in “Memorials of a Quiet Life,” and how, when the Canon of Winchester died, and she hurried home with her husband to take possession of Hurstmonceaux Place, she brought only her little Augustus with her, placing him under the care of her eldest sister Anna Maria, widow of the celebrated Sir William Jones, whom he ever afterwards regarded as a second mother. ”

“ Landor adored her, and rejoiced to bring his friend Francis Hare into her society. The daughters were clever, lively and animated; but the mother was the great attraction to the house.
Defoe says that “people who boast of their ancestors are like potatoes, in that their best part is in underground.” ”

“ Jan. 23.—Yesterday I was in my room, delighted to be alone for once, and very much interested in the book I was reading, when D. came in and found the fire out, so I got a good licking. He makes me his fag to go errands, and do all he bids me, and if I don’t do it, he beats me, but I don’t mind much. However, I have got some friends, for when I refused to do my week-day lessons on a Sunday, and was being very much laughed at for it, some one came in and said, ‘No, Hare, you’re quite right; never mind being laughed at.’ However I am rather lonely still with no one to speak to or care about me. ”

“ The Hare-Naylors settled at Hurstmonceaux, and for years were engaged in reconciling residence in a large and expensive house with an ever-diminishing income. Hare-Naylor's vehement democratic principles made enemies and lost friends. He indignantly rejected, as aristocratic, the distinction of a baronetcy. From 1799 (when the Hare-Naylors went to Italy to fetch home their children) life became an increasing struggle with the requirements of an impoverished estate. ”

“ That day she came down to the table-d’hôte looking very much harassed. Madame de Trafford said to my sister, “Your mother looks very much agitated: what is it?” Esmeralda felt that, whether she told her or not, Madame de Trafford would know what had happened, and she told her the simple truth. Madame de Trafford said, “Now, do not be surprised at what I am going to say; don’t be grateful to me; it’s my vocation in life. Here is £80: take it at once. That is the sum you owe in Geneva, and you have no money. I knew that you wanted that sum, and I brought it down to dinner with me. ”

“ I received at home from every one except my mother and Lea. But the choice of the school to which I was sent at nine years old was very unfortunate. When illness had obliged my Uncle Augustus Hare to leave his beloved little parish of Alton Barnes for Italy, a Rev. Robert Kilvert came thither as his temporary curate—a very religious man, deeply learned in ultra "evangelical" divinity, but strangely unpractical and with no knowledge whatever of the world—still less of the boyish part of it. As Dr. John Brown once said—"The grace of God can do muckle, but it canna gie a man common-sense." ”