Life of John Coleridge Patteson : Missionary Bishop of the Melanesian Islands

CHAPTER IV. FELLOWSHIP OF MERTON. 1852—1854

In the summer of 1852 Coleridge Patteson stood for a fellowship of Merton, obtained it, and moved into rooms there. Every college has a distinctive character; and Merton, if not actually the eldest, is at least one of the oldest foundations at Oxford, and is one of the most unchanged in outward aspect. There is a peculiar charm in the beauty and seclusion of the quadrangle, in the library, still mediaeval even to the fittings; and the church is above all impressive in the extraordinary loveliness of the early decorated architecture, and the space and loftiness of the choir. The whole, pre-eminently among the colleges, gives the sense of having been unaltered for five hundred years, yet still full of life and vigour.

Coley attached himself to Merton, though he never looked to permanent residence there. The Curacy in the immediate neighbourhood of his home was awaiting him, as soon as he should be ordained; but though his purpose was unchanged and he was of full age for Holy Orders, he wished for another year of preparation, so as to be able to study both Hebrew and theology more thoroughly than would be possible when pastoral labour should have begun. What he had already seen of Dresden convinced him that he could there learn Hebrew more thoroughly and more cheaply than at home, and to this he intended to devote the Long Vacation of 1852, without returning to Feniton. There the family were settling themselves, having given up the house in Bedford Square, since James Patteson had chambers in King's Bench Walk, where the ex-Judge could be with him when needed in London. There had some notion of the whole family profiting by Sir John's emancipation to take a journey on the Continent, and the failure of the scheme elicited the following letter:—

'Merton: June 18.

'My dearest Fan,—I can, to a certain extent, sympathise with you thoroughly upon this occasion; the mere disappointment at not seeing so many interesting places and things is a sharp one, but in your instance this is much increased by the real benefit you hoped to derive from a warmer climate; and no wonder that the disappearance of your hopes coupled with bodily illness makes you low and uncomfortable. The weather too is trying to mind and body, and though you try as usual to shake off the sense of depression which affects you, your letter is certainly sad, and written like the letter of one in weak health. Well, we shall see each other, please GOD, at Christmas now. That is better than passing nearly or quite a year away from each other; and some other time I hope you will be able to go to Italy, and enjoy all the wonders there, though a tour for health's sake cannot be too soon. It is never too soon to get rid of an ailment....

'I find that I am getting to know the undergraduates here, which is what I wanted to do; it is my only chance of being of any use. True, that I have to do it at the expense of two half-days' cricketing, which I have quite ceased to care about, but I know that when I went up to Balliol, I was glad when a Fellow played with us. It was a guarantee for orderly conduct, and as I say, it gives me an opportunity of knowing men. I hope to leave London for Dresden on Monday week; Arthur is gone thither, as I find out from Jem, and I hope the scheme will answer. If I find I can't work, from my eyes, or anything else, preventing me, I shall come home, but I have no reason to expect any such thing. My best love to Joan and all friends.

'Your loving Brother,

The 'Arthur' here mentioned was the youngest son of Mr. Frank Coleridge, and became Coley's companion at Dresden, where he was studying German. He writes:—

'Patteson spoke German fluently, and wrote German correctly. He had studied the language assiduously for about two years previously, and so successfully that whilst we were at Dresden, he was enabled to dispense with a teacher and make his assistance little more than nominal. Occasionally he wrote a German exercise, but rather as an amusement than a discipline, and merely with the view of enlarging his German vocabulary. I remember his writing an elaborate description of Feniton Court, and imagining the place to be surrounded with trees belonging to all sorts of climates. The result was very amusing to ourselves, and added to the writer's stock of words on particular subjects. When our master Schier appeared, the conversation was led by a palpable ambuscade to the topic which had been made the subject of Patteson's exercise, and conversation helped to strengthen memory. After looking over a few of Patteson's German exercises, Mr. Schier found so little to correct, in the way of grammatical errors, that these studies were almost relinquished, and gave way to Arabic and Hebrew. Before we left Dresden, Patteson had read large portions of the Koran; and, with the aid of Hurwitz's Grammar and Bernhard's Guide to Hebrew Students, books familiar to Cambridge men, he was soon able to read the Psalms in the original. I remember the admiration and despair I felt in witnessing Patteson's progress, and the wonder expressed by his teacher in his pupil's gift of rapid acquirement. We had some excellent introductions; amongst others, to Dr. –, a famous theologian, with whom Patteson was fond of discussing the system and organisation of the Church in Saxony. Up to the time of his leaving England he was constantly using Olshausen's Commentary on the New Testament, a book he was as thoroughly versed in as Archbishop Trench himself. I think that he consulted no other books in his study of the Gospels, but Olshausen and Bengel's Gnomon.

'In our pleasures at Dresden there was a mixture of the utile with the dulce. Our constant visits to the theatre were strong incentives to a preparatory study of the plays of Goethe, Schiller, and Lessing. What noble acting we saw in that Dresden theatre!

'With regard to the opera, I have never seen Weber or Meyerbeer's works given so perfectly and conscientiously as at Dresden. Patteson's chief delight was the Midsummer Night's Dream, with Mendelssohn's music. He had a tuneful baritone voice and a correct ear for music. We hired a piano for our sitting-room; and, though I failed to induce him to cultivate his voice, and join me in taking lessons, he sang some of Mendelssohn's Lieder very pleasingly, and knew most of the bass music from the Messiah by heart. He began to play a few scales on the piano, and hoped to surprise his sisters on his return to England by playing chants, but the Arabic and Hebrew studies proved too absorbing; he grudged the time, and thought the result disproportioned to the sacrifice.

'In our daily walks we talked constantly of Church matters. Some sharp and sad experiences in the loss of more than one of his Eton and Oxford friends, who had abandoned the Church of England, failed to shake his confidence in the Church he was to serve so faithfully and to die for so gloriously. His faith and daily practice seem to me a protest and warning against the folly, if not the falsehood, of extremes. Moderation, quiet consistency of life, and unswerving loyalty to a faith which had been the joy and comfort of his dear mother, whose loveable nature he inherited and reflected, a blameless life and unfailing charity enabled him when the time came to live a life of incessant toil, and face a martyr's death. I remember the present Bishop of Carlisle inciting Cambridge undergraduates to become, by virtue of earnestness, gentleness, and toleration, "guides not judges, lights not firebrands." He drew a perfect description of Patteson, who came more completely up to that ideal than anyone I ever knew. Here was a man capable of the purest and most tender friendship, with an exquisite appreciation of all that is noblest in life, and he was ready to give up all, and content to lead the forlorn hope of Christianity, and perish in the front ranks of the noble army. "And having been a little tried he shall be greatly rewarded, for God proved him, and found him worthy for Himself."'

I have given this letter almost entire, because it shows the impression Coley made on one, little his junior, in the intimate associations of cousin, neighbour, and schoolfellow, as well as travelling companion.

This year seems to have been a marked stage of development. He was now twenty-five, and the boyish distaste for mental exertion which had so long rendered study an effort of duty had passed into full scholarly enjoyment. The individuality and originality of his mind had begun to awaken, and influenced probably by the German atmosphere of thought in which he was working, were giving him that strong metaphysical bent which characterised his tone through life, and became apparent in his sermons when he addressed an educated audience.

Here is a letter to his eldest sister: 'The weather has been better suited for work, and I feel pretty well satisfied with my Hebrew. What makes it so difficult is principally this, that as it is an Oriental language, it is entirely different in structure, and in its inflections, &c., from any language I ever came across. I can't fall back upon anything already learnt to help me; but I see my way pretty clear now, and shall soon have little more than a knowledge of the meaning of the words to learn, which is only a matter of patience, and can be learnt with a good dictionary and practice. A real complete knowledge of the grammar is of course the great thing.

'The great Dresden fair, called the Vogelschiesser, is going on; it began last Sunday and ends next Sunday. About half a mile from the town there is a very large meadow by the river, where a small town of booths, tents, &c., is erected, and where shooting at targets with wooden darts, sham railway-trains and riding-horses, confectionery of every kind, beer of every name, strength, and colour, pipes, cigars, toys, gambling, organ-grinding, fiddling, dancing, &c., goes on incessantly. The great attraction, however, is the shooting at the bird, which occupies the attention of every Saxon, and is looked upon as the consummation of human invention and physical science. A great pole, nearly 80 feet high, is erected with a wooden bird, about the size of a turkey, at the top; to hit this with a crossbow from a regular stand, about 50 feet from the foot of the pole, is the highest ambition of this great people. The accompaniments are rich in the extreme: cannon firing, drums rolling, for a successful shot, the shooting society, who exist only for the sole honour and glory of hacking this bird to pieces, the presence of the King, I think to-day, and the intense interest taken in the amusement by the whole population; certainly the Germans are satisfied with less than any people I ever saw (barring two things, smoke and beer, in which they are insatiable). I went out to see it all, but it rather bored me after an hour or so. Tom F– and I threw some dice for a pair of braces for Arthur, which we presented in due form; and we had some shots at the targets—mine were eminently unsuccessful.

'Last night we had a great treat. Emil Devrient, who has been acting in London, you know, came back, and acted Marquis Posa in "Don Carlos." The play acts very much better than it reads. Schiller certainly has great dramatic genius; only I agree with Goethe that there is always a longing for exhibiting cruelty in its most monstrous form, and refinement of cruelty and depravity overstepping almost the natural conditions of humanity. I always thought Iago about the most awful character in Shakspeare; but Schiller's Philip II. is something beyond even this, without perhaps so much necessity for the exhibition of this absolute delight in evil. It is long since I have been so excited in a theatre. I was three rows from the stage, heard and understood everything, and was so completely carried away by the grandeur and intense feeling of Devrient (who was well supported by the Don Carlos), that I had some difficulty to keep quiet, and feel to-day rather odd, shaken, as it were, from such a strain upon the feelings.'

Here is a letter, enclosed within one to his sister Fanny on September 9, written on a scrap of paper. The apologetic tone of confession is amusing:—

'My dearest Father,—I have not before told you that I have been at work for just three weeks upon a new subject; reading, however, Hebrew every day almost for three hours as well. Schier is not a great Hebraist; and I found the language in one sense easier than I expected, so that with good grammar and dictionary I can quite get on by myself, reading an easy part of the Bible (historical books, e.g.) at the rate of about twenty-five verses an hour. Well, I began to think that I ought to use the opportunities that Dresden affords. I know that Hebrew is not a rich language; that many words occur only once, and consequently have an arbitrary meaning attached to them, unless they can be illustrated from cognate languages. Now I have a taste for these things, and have in three weeks progressed so far in my new study as to feel sure I shall make it useful; and so I tell you without fear I am working at Arabic. I hope you won't think it silly. It is very hard, and for ten days was as hard work as I ever had in my life. I think I have learnt enough to see my way now, and this morning read the first chapter of Genesis in three-quarters of an hour. It is rich, beyond all comparison, in inflexions; and the difficulty arises from the extreme multiplicity of all its forms: e.g. each verb having not only active, middle, and passive voices, but the primitive active having not less than thirty-five derivative forms and the passive thirteen. The "noun of action,"—infinitive with article (to akonein) of the Greek—is again different for each voice or form; and the primitive can take any of twenty-two forms, which are not compounded according to any rule. Again, there are twenty-eight sets of irregular plurals, which are quite arbitrary. No grammarian has ever given any explanation about them. All mere matters of memory. The very alphabet shows the richness of the language. There are twenty-nine letters, besides vowel points; and each letter is written in four different ways, so that it is different when isolated, when in the beginning, middle, or end of a word. It took me some hours to learn them. In very many respects, it is closely allied to the Hebrew, so that everybody who writes Hebrew grammars and lexicons necessarily has much to do with Arabic; and a knowledge of it may be of great use in clearing up difficulties in the Bible. My year in Oxford will enable me to go on with it, for in three weeks more I hope to be able to go on alone. To-morrow I begin the Koran. My lessons will not in all exceed 31; and I really should have gone on, perhaps, not much faster with Hebrew if I had worked it exclusively; and it is hard to read so many hours at one thing: and I may say, now without doubt, that I have laid the foundation for a study of Oriental languages, if I have time and opportunity that may be fairly given to them. Think what one hour a day is, and the pleasure to me is very great, and I feel that I have a knack rather (if I may say so) of laying hold of these things. Don't mention it to anyone.'

There the fragment breaks off; and in a letter of August 29 there occurs this reply to a message from his eldest sister:—

'Thank dear Joan for her caution: I know I need it sadly, especially now when I am at work upon somewhat out-of-the-way subjects, and feel the danger of forgetting that if I mistake the means for the end, and feel gratified with the mere intellectual amusement, I am doing very wrong, even when I am working very hard at very difficult matters. I like these things, I must confess, and the time is so well adapted to work here, and now that the weather is cool I can secure every day a good long time to myself.' In the enclosed letter he announces that he shall leave Dresden in another three weeks. He says:—

'We have had a steady working time of it here; and as I know some members of the family rather discourage these Continental flights, I just sum up the advantages thereof. Being naturally endowed with a love of music, the probability is, that when you, Clara, and Miss Horsley are together in the house, as soon as a Lied or Sonata began, away would go my books, or at all events my thoughts. You know well that the piano goes at all hours, and always in the morning at home. Then riding, walking with Father, long sitting after dinner, &c. do not improve the chances for reading. In fact, you know that what with visitors from without, friends within, parties, &c., I should have had very little reading in the vacation, and that not through my own fault—not a Stilbehen in the house could protect me from music. Here I make my own time, and last week my eyes were troublesome. I walked twice every day, exactly at the hour when I most wanted it; and without nonsense, I may say that I have in two months done really a great deal more than I could have done at home even with masters. This all applies to Arthur just as much. He has read German exclusively most of the time, and knows as well as I do that it is not possible to work at home. If I could go on just as well as with Mendelssohn ringing in my ears, it would be different, but I can't. You remember how pleasant, but how very idle, last vacation was, and especially the last six weeks of it!'

Then, after much about family matters, commissions, and little gifts which he was collecting for all at home—

I should like to get something for everybody, but that is not possible. Luckily, my lessons are less expensive than I expected, and, considering the work, wonderfully cheap. I make good progress, I can say; but the difficulty is great enough to discourage any but a real "grinder" at such work. I have written a scrap for Father, and you will see that I am working away pretty well. I have finished my introductory book, consisting of forty-one fables; and though difficulties present themselves always to really good scholars from time to time, the Bible is not one of the hardest books, not so hard, e.g. as the Koran. Now I can at any future time, if the opportunity comes, go on with these things, and I hope find them really useful. I know you like to hear what I am doing; but be sure to keep it all quiet, let no one know but Father and Joan. You might carelessly tell it to anyone in fun, and I don't wish it to be known. Especially don't let any of the family know. Time enough if I live out my Oxford year, and have really mastered the matter pretty well. Remember this is taken up with a view to elucidate and explain what is so very hard in Hebrew. Hebrew is to be the Hauptsache, this the Hulfsmittel, or some day I hope one of several such helps. It is very important to accustom one's mind to the Denk and Anschauungswerk of the Orientals, which is so different from that of Europeans or their language. How hard are the metaphors of the Bible for this reason!'

There is something in all these long apologies and strenuous desire for secrecy about these Arabic studies that reminds one that the character was a self-conscious introspective one, always striving for humility, and dreading to be thought presumptuous. A simpler nature, if devoid of craving for home sympathy, would never have mentioned the new study at all; or if equally open-hearted, would have let the mention of it among home friends take its chance, without troubling himself as to their possible comments. Indeed, it is curious to observe how elaborate he was at this period about all his concerns, meditating over the cause of whatever affected him. It was a form of growth; and dropped off when the time of action arrived, and his character had shaped itself. It must be remembered, too, that his habit of pouring out all his reflections and feelings to his sisters, and their preservation of his letters, have left much more on record of these personal speculations than is common.

His father made a much simpler matter of the Arabic matter, in the following characteristic letter:—

'Feniton Court: September 14, 1852,

'My dearest Coley,—So far from thinking you wrong in learning Arabic, I feel sure that you are quite right. However, we shall keep your secret, and not say anything about it. I am heartily glad that you should acquire languages, modern as well as ancient. You know I have often pressed the former on your and Jem's notice, from myself feeling my deficiency and regret at it. I can well understand that Arabic, and I should suppose Syriac also, must be of the greatest use towards a true understanding of much of the Old Testament: a great deal of which is doubtless not understood by those who understand only our translation, or even the Septuagint, which I suspect to have many passages far from a faithful vehicle of the meaning of the original. I was greatly delighted with your theological letter, so to speak, as well as with the first, and look to have some jolly conversations with you on such subjects.

'We have many more partridges than our neighbours, and Jem shoots uncommonly well. Three double shots yesterday. I shoot worse than usual; and cannot walk without much fatigue and frequent pain, so that I shall not be able to work enough to get much sport. I got through the Mary Church affair very well—that is, not making a fool of myself—and if I did not do much good, I think I did no harm. The Bishop of Exeter [Phillpotts] is mightily pleased, and wrote me a letter to that effect. Of course I cannot tell you what I said, it would be too long, nor are you likely to see it. It was fully inserted in "Woolmer," and from him copied into the "Guardian."

'I live in hopes to see you well and hearty at Oxford on the 14th of October, till when, adieu, God bless you.

'Your affectionate Father,