Born, at Holne Vicarage, Devonshire, 12 June 1819. At school at Clifton, 1831–32; at Helston, Cornwall, 1832–36. Family removed to London, 1836. Student at King’s Coll., London, 1836–38. Matric. Magdalene Coll., Camb., Oct. 1838; Scholar, 1839; B.A., 1842; M.A., 1860. Ordained Curate of Eversley, Hampshire, July 1842. Married Fanny Grenfell, 10 Jan. 1844; Rector of Eversley, same year. Clerk in Orders, St. Luke’s, Chelsea, 1844–49. Canon of Middleham, 1845. Prof. of English Lit., Queen’s Coll., London, 1848. Contrib. (under pseud. of “Parson Lot”) to “Politics for the People,” 1848; and to “The Christian Socialist,” 1850–51. Contrib. to “Fraser’s Mag.,” 1848, etc. Ill-health, winter 1848–49. First visit to Continent, 1851. At Torquay, winter 1853–54. Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen, 1859. Prof. of Modern History, Cambridge, 1860–69. Increasing ill-health from 1864. Pres. of Social Science Congress, 1869. Canon of Chester, 1869. Visit to West Indies, winter 1869–70. Resided at Chester, May 1870 to 1873. Pres. of Midland Institute, 1872. Canon of Westminster, 1873. Visit to America, 1874. Died, at Eversley, 23 Jan. 1875. Buried there. Works: “The Saint’s Tragedy,” 1848; “Twenty-five Village Sermons,” 1849; “Alton Locke” (anon.), 1850; “Cheap Clothes and Nasty” (under pseu. “Parson Lot”), 1850; “The Application of Associative … Principles to Agriculture,” 1851; “Yeast” (anon.) (from “Fraser’s Mag.”), 1851; “The Message of the Church to Labouring Men,” 1851; “Phaethon,” 1852; “Sermons on National Subjects” (2 ser.), 1852–54; “Hypatia” (from “Fraser’s Mag.”), 1853; “Alexandria and her Schools,” 1854; “Who causes Pestilence?” 1854; “Sermons for the Times,” 1855; “Westward Ho!” 1855; “Glaucus,” 1855; “The Heroes,” 1856 [1855]; “Two Years Ago,” 1857; “Andromeda,” 1858; “The Good News of God,” 1859; “Miscellanies,” 1859; “The Limits of Exact Sciences as applied to History,” 1860; “Why should we pray for Fair Weather?” 1860; “Town and Country Sermons,” 1861; “A Sermon on the death of … the Prince Consort,” 1862 [1861]; “Speech of Lord Dundreary … on the great Hippocampus question” (anon.), 1862; “The Gospel of the Pentateuch,” 1863; “The Water Babies,” 1863; “What, then, does Dr. Newman mean?” 1864; “The Roman and the Teuton,” 1864; “Hints to Stammerers” (anon.), 1864; “David,” 1865; “Hereward the Wake,” 1866; “The Temple of Wisdom,” 1866; “Three Lectures on the Ancient Régime,” 1867; “The Water of Life,” 1867; “The Hermits,” 1868; “Discipline,” 1868; “God’s Feast,” 1869; “Madame How and Lady Why,” 1870 [1869]; “At Last,” 1871; “Poems,” 1872 [1871]; “Town Geology,” 1872; “Prose Idylls,” 1873; “Plays and Puritans,” 1873; “Health and Education,” 1874; “Westminster Sermons,” 1874; “Lectures delivered in America,” 1875. Posthumous: “Letters to Young Men,” 1877; “True Words for Brave Men,” ed. by his wife, 1878; “All Saints’ Day, and other Sermons,” ed. by W. Harrison, 1878; “From Death to Life,” ed. by his wife, 1887. He edited: Mansfield’s “Paraguay,” 1856; Tauler’s “History and Life,” 1857; Brooke’s “The Fool of Quality,” 1859; Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress,” 1860 [1859]; “South by West,” 1874. Collected Works: in 28 vols., 1880–85. Life: “Letters and Memories,” by his wife, 1877.

Personal

  Charles Kingsley spoke during two hours and twenty minutes, with such earnestness! such conviction! such passion! such beauty! There is nothing like real high eloquence. It is poetry living and breathing, and carrying you on like a torrent, in its magnificent course. Oh, how I longed for you! There was nothing to frighten any body. Of course the principles were large and general; but the whole address was most conciliatory. It was power in all its gentleness. He is a very great man.

  Few men have impressed me more agreeably than Mr. Kingsley. He is original and earnest, and full of a genial and almost tender kindliness which is delightful to me. Wild and theoretical in many ways he is of course, but I believe he could not be otherwise than good and noble, let him say or dream what he will.

  He is tall, slender, with blue eyes, brown hair, and a hale, well-browned face, and somewhat loose-jointed withal. His wife is a real Spanish beauty. How we did talk and go on for three days! I guess he is tired. I’m sure we were. He is a nervous, excitable being, and talks with head, shoulders, arms, and hands, while his hesitance makes it the harder. Of his theology I will say more some other time. He, also, has been through the great distress, the “Conflict of Ages,” but has come out at a different end from Edward, and stands with John Forster, though with more positiveness than he.

  Seems to have a stuttering way with him which one would think would interfere with that eloquence of preaching for which he is celebrated. He is tall, rather thin, with commonplace features, neither handsome nor the reverse, but seems a good fellow, and entirely unparsonical.

  He has a little the look, when he first comes into a room, of a lion—i. e. of one who knows himself to be a lion. But I thought afterwards the impression might be due to the natural restlessness of his eye and manner—something of the same that Keble has. He is a most continuous talker, but fresh and interesting, and without affectation; and his hesitation of speech is not so much of a drawback as you might expect. He gave one the idea of a man who had a real wish to be manly and simple-minded, and made that his standard. He is made, of course, an immense deal of.

  A high noble forehead, large, earnest, deep-set eyes (which the lithograph had made hollow as if with thought and work) a firm, close-shut mouth, and large and powerful jaw; here was a poet as well as a parson, a fighter as well as a writer, a leader as well as a priest. Waving black hair, now thinned by time, adorned the head, and earnest, glowing, lustrous, and true-hearted eyes shone out from beneath the forehead, and seemed to speak openly to whomsoever listened, “Come, let us work together for the good of mankind. Love me, for I love you; or if I can’t convince you, then——” Such was Charles Kingsley, as good and as free-natured a soul as one would care to see.

  Rather tall, very angular, surprisingly awkward, with thin, staggering legs, a hatchet face adorned with scraggy gray whiskers, a faculty for falling into the most ungainly attitudes, and making the most hideous contortions of visage and frame; with a rough provincial accent and an uncouth way of speaking, which would be set down for absurd caricature on the boards of a comic theatre; such was the appearance which the author of “Glaucus” and “Hypatia” presented to his startled audience. Since Brougham’s time nothing so ungainly, odd, and ludicrous had been displayed upon an English platform.

  He was what he was, not by virtue of his office, but by virtue of what God had made him in himself. He was, we might almost say, a layman in the guise or disguise—of a clergyman—fishing with the fishermen, hunting with the huntsmen, able to hold his own in tent and camp, with courtier or with soldier; an example that a genial companion may be a Christian gentleman—that a Christian clergyman need not be a member of a separate caste, and a stranger to the common interests of his countrymen. Yet human, genial layman as he was, he still was not the less—nay, he was ten times more—a pastor than he would have been had he shut himself out from the haunts and walks of men. He was sent by Providence, as it were, “far off to the Gentiles”—far off, not to other lands or other races of mankind, but far off from the usual sphere of minister or priest, “to fresh woods and pastures new,” to find fresh worlds of thoughts and wild tracts of character, in which he found a response to himself, because he gave a response to them.

  I never thought to preach another sermon; but by the freshly covered grave of a friend all scruples and all hesitation vanish. It is a sad, sad task…. “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh;” and if abounding sorrow and earnest love can give me words I will strive to address myself to the thoughts of your hearts…. But whatever his loss to the Church, much greater is his loss to us—whatever he was to others, much more was he to us; for he was the teacher and friend of every one of us. Of every one even of those who would none of his counsel, and despised his reproof; even to them he was the earnest affectionate friend…. We have known more of him than the most constant reader of his works, or the most ardent admirer of his talents. For until lately that the duties of well-deserved appointments took him away, he was always among us, and Sunday after Sunday we received his teaching. You know how we hung on his lips…. Brethren, I have heard many preachers, but I never heard one whose hearty yet quiet manner appealed more earnestly to the mind and heart; or who had in so great a degree the power of explaining the truths of Scripture, and enforcing the practice of its precepts in such plain simple words.

  Charles and Herbert Kingsley were brought to Helston Grammar School, in Cornwall, in the year 1832…. Charles was a tall, slight boy, of keen visage, and of great bodily activity, high-spirited, earnest, and energetic, giving full promise of the intellectual powers, and moral qualities, by which he was afterwards distinguished. Though not a close student, he was an eager reader and enquirer, sometimes in very out of the way quarters. I once found him busily engaged with an old copy of “Porphyry and Iamblichus,” which he had ferreted out of my library. Truly a remarkable boy, original to the verge of eccentricity, and yet a thorough boy, fond of sport, and up to any enterprise—a genuine out-of-doors English boy.

  With regard to his moral qualities, he was a singularly affectionate man—very earnest, very kindly, feeling deeply for the labours and sufferings of others, and thoroughly devoted to the welfare of the poor. He was, indeed, the model of a parish priest; and, considering the temptations to higher flights which genius always offers, that he should have fulfilled these humbler duties so admirably is deserving of the highest praise.

  Kingsley’s conversational powers [1849] were very remarkable. In the first place he had, as may be easily understood by the readers of his books, a rare command of racy and correct English, while he was so many sided that he could take keen interest in almost any subject which attracted those about him. He had read, and read much, not only in matters which every one ought to know, but had gone deeply into many out-of-the-way and unexpected studies. Old medicine, magic, the occult properties of plants, folklore, mesmerism, nooks and bye-ways of history, old legends; on all these he was at home. On the habits and dispositions of animals he would talk as though he were that king in the Arabian Nights who understood the language of beasts, or at least had lived among the gypsies who loved him so well. The stammer, which in those days was so much more marked than in later years, and which was a serious discomfort to himself, was no drawback to the charm of his conversation…. No man loved a good story better than he, but there was always in what he told or what he suffered himself to hear, a good and pure moral underlying what might be coarse in expression. While he would laugh with the keenest sense of amusement at what might be simply broad, he had the most utter scorn and loathing for all that could debase and degrade. And he was the most reverent of men, though he would say things which seemed daring because people were unaccustomed to hear sacred things named without a pious snuffle. This great reverence led him to be even unjust to some of the greatest humourists.

  All I saw of him left upon me the feeling that I was in contact with a powerfully earnest and reverent spirit. His heart seemed overcharged with interest in the welfare, physical, moral and spiritual, of his race. I was conscious in his presence of the bracing atmosphere of a noble nature. He seemed to me one of the manliest of men. I forbear to speak of the high estimate which, in common with all English-speaking people, I place upon his literary life-work. My copy of his “Hypatia” is worn by frequent perusal, and the echoes of his rare and beautiful lyrics never die out of my memory. But since I have seen him, the man seems greater than the author.

  The green turf round the grave was soon worn by the tread of many footsteps; for months a day seldom passed without strangers being seen in the churchyard. On Bank holidays numbers would come to see his last resting-place—little children who had loved the “Waterbabies,” and the “Heroes,” would kneel down reverently and look at the beautiful wreaths of flowers, which kind hands had placed there, while the gipsies never passed the gate without turning in to stand over the grave in silence, sometimes scattering wild flowers there, believing, as they do, to use their own strange words, that “he went to heaven on the prayers of the gipsies.”

  That somewhat severe face belied one of the kindest hearts that ever beat; yet the handsome and chivalrous features not unworthily expressed one of the truest, bravest, and noblest of souls. Kingsley could not have done a mean or false thing: by his make it was as impossible as that water should run up hill.

  I have read every word of Canon Kingsley’s “Life and Letters,” and thought better of him for reading it. He was very decided in his opinions, but very modest in his notion of his own merits; and, though conservative in regard to the Anglican Church, tolerant and kind to those who did not agree with him. He was a friend to the humbler classes, and a most faithful and sympathetic pastor, wearing out his life for his flock; yet I cannot see that he contemplated doing them any good, save by personal effort and kind attentions. I do not find in any part of the memoir that he sought to improve the institutions under which the working class in England had been kept poor and degraded. But his personal attentions with respect to their comfort, their health, their spiritual condition, and their mental improvement, were constant, and these, along with his literary labors, undermined his health and broke it down once in two or three years. He was a worn-out man when he came to America. But read the book, if you can get it. If you skip anything, skip the letters in which he tries to be jocular and runs into slang—mere slang, which he seems to take for fun.

  He appears to us as a man of an extremely vigorous temperament and a decidedly simple intellect, with an appreciation of natural things and a power of expressing the pleasure of natural science that amount almost to genius, together with an adoration of all things English and Anglican which almost assimilates him to the typical John Bull of foreign caricature, and a hatred of “Popery” which strongly confirms this resemblance. His strongest quality was his great personal energy, which evidently had an influence of an agreeable and improving sort upon those with whom he came into contact.

  The life of this almost unique man will do much to give cheer and hope to the world’s toilers of every grade; it will open the hearts of multitudes to the teachings of Christianity who would be repelled by the severities of other schools. We welcome it as a voice of gladness and melody.

  Charles Kingsley, who had shared his [Carlyle’s] reaction in political affairs, kept away from him a good deal in later years because he felt himself to be one of the large number implicitly arraigned in the “Life of Sterling” as the disappointed young ladies who had taken the veil. But Carlyle always spoke affectionately of Kingsley. “I have a very vivid remembrance,” he once said, “of Charles coming with his mother to see me. A lovely woman she was, with large, clear eyes, a somewhat pathetic expression of countenance, sincerely interested in all religious questions. The delicate boy she brought with her had much the same expression, and sat listening with intense and silent interest to all that was said. He was always of an eager, loving, poetic nature.”

  Charles Kingsley has been one of the Forces of the present generation. He literally pitched heart-foremost, if not head-foremost, into all the social, scientific, and political problems, thoughtfully discussed by the more careful thinkers of the time, as a kind of “free lance,” committed from the start to a championship of the emotional side of every question which his calmer contemporaries were inclined to consider from its reasonable side. If the difficulties which trouble all thinking-men in their endeavors to advance the human race could be overcome by gushes of philanthropic sentiment, Kingsley would have rapidly risen to be the first man of his time…. The real lesson taught by Charles Kingsley’s life is this: that he was the most impulsive, the most inconsistent, the most passionate, and, at heart, the most conscientious, of human beings…. Kingsley never arrived at intellectual and moral manhood. He was a boy,—a grand, a glorious boy, when he first appeared as a dogmatic man, assuming to direct English thought; and a boy, a splendid boy, he remained to the last year of his life. All his vagaries of opinion and sentiment, all the strange inconsistencies of his career, all the sense and all the nonsense which alternately shocked or attracted his contemporaries, were properly to be referred to the plain fact that he never became a mature man. All the learning he acquired, all the experience of life he accumulated through long years, all his contacts and collisions with the minds of friends who represented the most advanced intellect of the age, never could cure him of the boyish defect of substituting impulse for intelligence, even in the consideration of those complicated problems in which intelligence should manifestly be the supreme guide and arbiter.

  It is pleasing to recall the distinguished rector’s attachment to dumb animals among the traits of his every-day life. Like Mrs. Somerville, he believed that some of the created beings inferior to man were destined to share the blessings of a future state of existence. His dog and his horse were his friends. As a perfect horseman, possessing the patience and much of the skill of a Rarey, he was a pattern to all who ride, reasoning with the animal he governed, and talking to it in gentle tones, mindful that the panic-fear both of horses and children is increased by harsh punishment.

  No man was ever more sensitive to public opinion—felt its censure more keenly, or enjoyed its applause more frankly than he. He has often lamented his sensitiveness to me, and that he “was bred to think first, not whether a thing was right or wrong but, what Lady A or Mr. B would say about it.” And yet with all this sensitiveness it would be hard to find any man of our time who was less warped by it—who wavered less in saying or doing the word or thing which he felt it was true and right to say or do, looking the storm, which he knew it would bring about his ears, straight in the face all the time. I am not aware that this has ever been fairly brought out, and it deserves a prominent place in studying and estimating his life’s work…. I don’t think anyone can appreciate Charles Kingsley rightly who is not aware of or does not take into account this almost painful sensitiveness.

  In all nature he saw something to admire, and his walks, to him, were as poems. On his lawn dwelt a family of toads, that lived on from year to year in the same hole in the green bank, which the scythe was never allowed to approach. He had two little friends in a pair of sand wasps, which lived in a crack of the window in his dressing-room; one of which he had rescued from drowning in a hand basin, taking it out tenderly and putting it in the sunshine to dry. The little fly-catcher which built its nest every year under his bedroom window was a constant joy to him. He had also a favourite slow-worm in the churchyard, which his parishioners were warned not to kill. Such tastes he encouraged in his children, and in the lads of the village, teaching them to love and handle gently, without disgust, all living things,—toads, beetles, frogs, etc., as being works and wonders from the hands of a living God; and though all this was true, and that he loved such humble creatures, yet to spiders he had the greatest aversion.

  His keen interest in country sport, and in country pursuits generally, enabled him to sympathize with country gentlemen and sportsmen of all grades, and with agriculturists, farmers, and labourers alike; and his soldierly instincts, which he never lost, drew to him the soldier class, both officers and men, whom the neighbourhood of Eversley to Aldershot gave him rare opportunities of influencing. Hence, men were affected by him as they had not been affected by clergymen before; and he was regarded as the apostle of “muscular Christianity,” a term which he thought most offensive, but which was understood at any rate by many, in a complimentary, not an offensive sense.

  At Westminster he preached again many of the sermons which he had preached at Chester, and they produced a profound effect. It was curious to see him stand in the pulpit and gaze round him on the vast congregations with something of anxious curiosity. He felt the responsibility of those occasions, but he managed to create a sort of electric sympathy between his hearers and himself—a sympathy caused by the depth of his sincerity and earnestness.

  Kingsley was a great martyr to stammering, it often was torture to him in a lively conversation to keep us all waiting till his thoughts could break through again. In church, however, whether he was reading or speaking extempore, there was no sign of stammering; apparently there was no effort to overcome it. But when he walked home from church he would say: “Oh, let me stammer now, you won’t mind it.”

The Saint’s Tragedy, 1848

  We stayed at home reading the “Saint’s Tragedy” by Charles Kingsley; the story of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, put into dramatic form with great power. I wish I had hit upon this theme for my Golden Legend, the mediæval part of my Trilogy. It is nobler and more characteristic than my obscure legend. Strange, that while I was writing a dramatic poem illustrating the Middle Ages, Kingsley should have been doing the same, and that we should have chosen precisely the same period, about 1230. His poem was published first, but I never saw it, or a review of it, till two days ago.

  When Mr. Kingsley published his first poem, “The Saint’s Tragedy,” I was vain and conceited enough to write a preface to it. Soon enough the public had sense to perceive that, if recommendations were wanted, I should rather have begged one from him; soon enough I gave such offence to the public as would have rendered any recommendations of mine very damaging to the person who received them. That damage Mr. Kingsley has suffered, and has borne with kindness and generosity of which I may be excused for attempting to speak.

  It contained not only poetry of a very high order, but its character and its comedy are equally good.

  The work by which his reputation in the world of letters was first established, and is likely to be longest maintained.

  When the time has come for the literary history of England in the nineteenth century to be written by a competent hand, the “Saint’s Tragedy” will in it occupy an honoured place as a powerful dramatic expression of the social aspirations, from a religious point of view, in 1848, as conceived not too clearly, but entertained none the less fervently by one of the most generous spirits of that time.

Alton Locke, 1850

  As for “Alton Locke,” I totally forget all the miraculous part, and only read it as an intensely, frightfully practical book, and bought a more expensive pair of boots in consequence!

  Nowhere can you find any proof that the author is able to think about anything. An idea strikes him; he seizes it, and, to use Hawthorne’s expression, “wields it like a flail.” Then he throws it down and takes up something else, to employ it in the same wild and incoherent fashion. This is Kingsley all out, and always. He is not content with developing his one only gift of any literary value—the capacity to paint big, striking pictures with a strong glare or glow on them. He firmly believes himself a profound philosopher and social reformer, and he will insist on obtruding before the world on all occasions his absolute incapacity for any manner of reasoning on any subject whatsoever. Wild with intellectual egotism, and blind to all teaching from without, Kingsley rushes at great and difficult subjects head downwards like a bull.

  “Alton Locke” may be fairly regarded as his best piece of work…. With all the genuine force of “Alton Locke”—and no living novelist has excelled the vividness of certain passages—there is an unsatisfactory side to the whole performance. It is marred by the feverishness which inspires most of his work. There is an attempt to crowd too much into the space, and the emphasis sometimes remains when the power is flagging. Greater reserve of power and more attention to unity of effect would have been required to make it a really great book.

  As a novel it is almost a failure, but not so as a propagandist work of fiction. In its presentation of fact it is a complete success. In the description of fetid and filthy workshops and fever dens of the sweaters, in its exposure of the causes which turned honest and peaceable workmen into conspirators, the author of “Alton Locke” did the work of half a dozen labour commissions, and did it much more effectually by appealing in fervid tones of passionate sympathy to the well-to-do people of his day, calling upon them to rescue their fellow-men from destruction of soul and body, and stimulating private and public philanthropy to set about and face the social problem with honesty of purpose.

  We can make sure of the fact that “Alton Locke” has been potent as a twofold protest: first against the cruel exploitation of labor, and second against the misdirected resentment of the sufferers. Its insurrection is on a far broader ground, and with a much wider intention than that of “Jane Eyre.” It is human and that is personal; but because humanity is still so much weaker than personality, it has probably influenced vastly fewer readers. Then, it has failed of equal influence, undoubtedly, because it is not of equal art. It is a polemic, in which all the characters, of whatever party they apparently are, are always arguing for the author…. Neither Lillian Winnstay, the shallow-hearted, romantic beauty, who flatters the poor poet by her pleasure in his verse and his picturesque personality, nor Eleanor Staunton, who snubs him for his good, but is really his friend, and the faithful friend of all the poor, is more than an illustration.

Yeast, 1851

  Canon Kingsley will be remembered longest by “Yeast” and “Alton Locke,” the works of his “Sturm und Drang” period as “the Chartist Parson,” before he had found a solution for everything. They are too bizarre to be permanently popular, but bizarre as they are, they are unmistakably powerful, and probably did much in their day to loosen the crust of callous prejudice into which the self-complacency of the comfortable classes always tends to harden. If everyone had worked as hard as Canon Kingsley to remedy the grievances which once excited him, it could not be said that he was premature in ceasing to be a revolutionist.

  The verses given to Tregarva in “Yeast” sum up his diagnosis of the social disease with admirable vigour. Many scenes in that rather chaotic story are equally vivid in their presentation of the facts. The description of the village feast is a bit of startingly impressive realism. The poor, sodden, hopeless, spiritless peasantry consoling themselves with strong drink and brutal songs, open to no impressions of beauty, with no sense of the romantic except in lawless passion, and too beaten down to have even a thought of rebellion except in the shape of agrarian outrage, are described with singular force.

  “Yeast” is a book very difficult to classify. It is not exactly a novel, it is more than a “Dialogue,” it is too romantic for a sermon, it is too imaginative for a pamphlet, it is too full of action for a political and social treatise. Incongruous as it is, it is interesting and effective, and contains some of Kingsley’s best work. It has some of his most striking verses, some of his finest pictures of scenery, many of his most eloquent thoughts, all his solid ideas, the passion of his youth, and the first glow of his enthusiasm. It was written before he was thirty, before he thought himself to be a philosopher, before he professed to be entrusted with a direct message from God.

Hypatia, 1853

  “Hypatia” never came; but I cannot afford to be without it. Part of the conclusion seems to me particularly valuable. I mean the talk of the Christianized Jew to the classic boy. Hypatia’s mistreatment by the Alexandrians I found almost too horrible. It is very powerful and tragic; but I objected to the word “naked.” Pelagia’s nakedness has nothing which revolts one … but I really was hurt at having Hypatia stript, tho’ I see that it adds to the tragic, and the picture as well as the moral is a fine one.

  You have performed a great and lasting work, but it is a bold undertaking. You fire over the heads of the public, οἵοι νυν ἅνθρωποι εἵσιν, as Nestor says, the pigmies of the circulating library. Besides, you have (pardon me) wronged your own child most cruelly. Are you aware that many people object to reading or allowing it to be read, because, the author says in the Preface, it is not written for those of pure mind? My daughters exclaimed when they read that in the Preface, after having read to their mamma the whole in numbers to general edification, as they do Bible and Shakspeare every day. I should wish you to have said, that in describing and picturing an age like that, there must be here and there nudities as in nature and as in the Bible. Nudities there are because there is truth. For God’s sake, let that Preface not come before Germany without some modified expression. Impure must be the minds who can be offended or hurt by your picture! What offends and hurts is the modern Lüsternheit, that veiling over indecency, exciting imagination to draw off the veil in order to see not God’s naked nature, but corrupted man’s indecency. Forgive that I take the child’s part against the father! But, indeed, that expression is not the right, and unjust to yourself, and besides highly detrimental to the book.

  He leaves himself very much in the case of him who wrote a severe attack upon himself and neglected the intended vindication. We see the evil in full operation, there is a dramatic exhibition of that; but we discover only from a few didactic hints, that matters would have been mended by a different state of circumstances. With all its gorgeousness of coloring, and sustained intensity of interest, and general correctness of conclusion, “Hypatia” must be pronounced a failure.

  It is difficult to believe that, either in “Hypatia” or in “Two Years Ago,” he had laid his plot beforehand: in “Yeast” there does not pretend to be any plot at all. “Hypatia” especially might have been so grand, and is so disappointing. There is a consummate mastery of the costume and character of the epoch; there are magnificent materials of character and fancy brought together to the workshop; there are gorgeous descriptions of external beauty; there are individual scenes of thrilling interest; there are wonderful glimpses both of thought and passion…. The inconsiderate confusion in which the incidents of the story jostle and stumble over one another, and the indistinctness with which many of them are told, compel us to reserve our admiration for particular scenes and portions, and render it impossible to praise the work as a whole…. Still, with all its faults, it is unquestionably a work of genius; but of genius in a hurry,—of genius, as it were, shut up without fire or candle, like an inharmonious jury, and compelled to complete its task before it can regain its liberty.

  It was his moral enthusiasm, which, in the pages of “Hypatia” has scathed with an everlasting brand the name of the Alexandrian Cyril and his followers, for their outrages on humanity and morality in the name of a hollow Christianity and a spurious orthodoxy. Read, if you would learn some of the most impressive lessons of Ecclesiastical history.—Read and inwardly digest those pages, perhaps the most powerful he ever wrote which close that wonderful story by discriminating the destinies which awaited each of its characters as they passed, one after another, “each to his own place.”

  Among Kingsley’s works, “Hypatia” is probably the one most widely known and appreciated, not only in England, but in Germany, France, and Italy also. Though a mere novel, it represents the struggle of the old Greek world with the new powers of Christendom with truly dramatic art.

  Apart from its other merits, many and conspicuous, “Hypatia” remains a monument of painstaking research. I should hesitate indeed to pledge myself to the accuracy of the minute details—though Kingsley took extraordinary pains to attain it—or even to the broad truth of the historical portraiture; it may be, as some one has said, that a sound historian would shudder at innumerable anachronisms and pick holes in every paragraph, but all I say is, produce me the “sound historian” who knew that period as Kingsley knew it, produce me the man as deeply read as Kingsley was in the Alexandrine mystics, and then we will argue about details. Meanwhile, in “Hypatia” we undoubtedly possess a wonderfully vivid—and in the main an accurate picture of one of the most important, pregnant, fateful epochs in the history of the world—a period which witnessed the death agonies of the Great Empire of the past, which saw the struggling to the birth of the new and vigorous nationalities of the future.

  The summer of 1863 added a third contest, which was provoked by the same theological bitterness. Stanley and Dr. Liddell had proposed that the University should confer the honorary degree of D.C.L. on the Rev. Charles Kingsley. The proposal was resisted by Dr. Pusey, partly on the ground of Kingsley’s universalism, but more particularly on the ground that “Hypatia” was a work not fit to be read by our “wives and sisters.” To Stanley the attack on “Hypatia” seemed the more unjustifiable and offensive because the book had been recommended to him by Mrs. Augustus Hare, and because he had himself urged his mother to read it. He carefully prepared a speech for the Council, in which he demanded “that the aspersions cast upon the moral character of the book, in the gross language which I have copied out from Pusey’s lips, be withdrawn.”

  An ambitious novel, at once historical and philosophical, impressive in parts, but on the whole heavy.

  “Hypatia” still remains the sublimest subject that historical fiction has appropriated to its use—the death struggle between Greek and Christian civilization in the fifth century…. A second purpose is unmistakably conveyed in his sub-title to “Hypatia:” “New Foes with an Old Face.” Kingsley was bitterly anti-Roman, and wished to arrest the movement toward Rome that Newman had given the Church of England. These ulterior aims lent to “Hypatia” a modern tone, making out of it a novel of aggressive purpose. But they stood in the way of real history. What purports to be historical facts in “Hypatia” Leslie Stephen has pronounced a bubble that bursts on the most delicate touch; the Church of Rome as therein represented is not the church of the fifth century, and the Goths are mythical.

  It cannot be said by the unprejudiced reader that his Hypatia is an attractive personality. He has somehow failed to give her charm, though he has given her a beautiful body, perfectly moulded features, with blue eyes and yellow hair, and a glorious intellect. But the truth is his Hypatia remains as cold as the baths of Apollo, and it is not going too far to say that she is rather repellent. Of course she might answer that she did not mean to be otherwise, in her poet’s hands, and that what he had shown her, that she was; rather arrogant in mind, holding matrimony in high scorn, and thinking but little better, if any, of maternity. The passion of the ardent young monk Philammon for this snow-cold divinity is not made altogether credible, and his sister, poor, pretty, Pelagia, who has lived the life of a wanton and is presently the paramour of the Gothic chief Amal, is more winning in some things that take the heart.

Westward Ho!, 1855

  The construction of the romance we think, bears the marks of haste, and may perhaps be pronounced clumsy…. In beauties of detail no work of the author is more rich. Mr. Kingsley rarely constructs a character. But in the honest Jack Brimblecombe, that strange compound of imperfect literature and genuine feeling, of skin-deep valor and heart-sound faith, he has drawn a living man, less adequately developed indeed, but as fresh and original, as the inimitable Saunders Mackey of Alton Locke…. We hail it as a strong and a suggestive work.

  “Westward Ho!” partakes much more of the character of biography and history than of the ordinary sentimental novel. Love plays a great part in the progress of the story, as it does in the lives of most men; but it is as motive influencing character and determining action that it is exhibited, not as itself the sole interest of life, the single feeling which redeems human existence from dulness and inward death. The love which acts on the career and character of Amyas Leigh does not spend itself in moonlight monologues or in passionate discourses with its object; nor does the story depend for its interest upon the easily roused sympathy of even the stupidest readers with the ups and downs, the fortunes and emotions, of a passion common in certain degrees and certain kinds to all the race. It is no such narrow view of life that is presented here, but rather that broad sympathy with human action and human feeling in its manifold completeness which gives to art a range as wide as life itself, and throws a consecrating beauty over existence from the cradle to the grave, wherever human affections act, wherever human energies find their object and their field, wherever the battle between right and wrong, between sense and spirit, is waged—wherever and by whatever means characters are trained, principles strengthened, and humanity developed.

  Finished “Amyas Leigh.” It is an ample and rather grand book, with magnificent passages of description; but too ponderous and melodramatic.

  A finer, nobler story for boys does not exist.

  The most famous, and perhaps the best novel, of Charles Kingsley. Often one has read it since, and it is an example of those large, rich, well-fed romances, at which you can cut and come again, as it were, laying it down, and taking it up on occasion, with the certainty of being excited, amused—and preached at.

  When you read Charles Kingsley’s story of “Westward Ho!” (which you surely should read, as well as such other matter as the same author has written relating to Raleigh) you will get a live glimpse of this noble knight of letters, and of those other brave and adventurous sailors of Devonshire, who in those times took the keels of Plymouth over great wastes of water. Kingsley writes of the heroes of his native Devon, in the true Elizabethan humor—putting fiery love and life into his writing; the roar of Atlantic gales breaks into his pages, and they show, up and down, splashes of storm-driven brine.

  His “Westward Ho!” may be regarded as an ideal example of the historical romance, so equably is a story of private life interwoven with public history.

  A historical romance, the scene of which is laid in the time of Elizabeth, is generally considered Kingsley’s best work; and it is only a small minority, to which the writer happens to belong, who find it dreary. The power of some of the descriptions must be acknowledged; but whether “Westward Ho!” will live is a question on which there may be difference of opinion.

  It is just the author’s sympathy with the times, and with the men of the times, even down to their prejudices and fierce dislikes, that has given to “Westward Ho!” its unique success as a romance of that age of young and energetic enthusiasms. It is a manly book, and therefore pre-eminently a book for boys. From cover to cover there is nothing maudlin or weakly sentimental in it. Its verve and energy are infectious. All through the reader is conscious of that tingling of the blood that accompanies the excitement of a succession of high adventures.

Two Years Ago, 1857

  To us this appears the cleverest and the pleasantest of Mr. Kingsley’s novels.

  Is in many respects a painful performance. It contains, indeed, some admirable descriptions of scenery; but the sentiment is poor and fretful. Tom Thurnall, intended to be an embodiment of masculine vigour, has no real stuff in him. He is a bragging, excitable, and at bottom sentimental person. All his swagger fails to convince us that he is a true man. Put beside a really simple and masculine nature like Dandie Dinmont, or even beside Kingsley’s own Amyas Leigh, one sees his hollowness. The whole story leads up to a distribution of poetical justice in Kingsley’s worst manner. He has a lamentable weakness for taking upon himself the part of Providence.

  The critical judgments on this novel are—as usual—singularly diverse. There are those who place it highest, while others place it lowest on the list of Kingsley’s novels. For my part I should do neither. In construction it is perhaps the worst, but, on the other hand, in characterization and descriptive power it seems to me equal if not superior to the best. And after all it is in that gift of descriptive power, of dramatic delineation, of graphic word painting, that Kingsley surpassed all other novelists of his generation.

Andromeda, 1858

  His “Andromeda” is an admirable composition,—a poem laden with the Greek sensuousness, yet pure as crystal, and the best-sustained example of English hexameters produced up to the date of its composition. It is a matter of indifference whether the measure bearing that name is akin to the antique model, for it became, in the hands of Kingsley, Hawtrey, Longfellow, and Howells, an effective form of English verse. The author of “Andromeda” repeated the error of ignoring such quantities as do obtain in our prosody, and relying upon accent alone; but his fine ear and command of words kept him musical, interfluent, swift.

  In “Andromeda” Kingsley has shown a measure of power with which those who know him only through his lyrics would scarcely credit him. Many a canvas has gleamed with the statuesque figure of that old-world princess, but in none has it stood out more clearly than in the word-pictures of this fine poem. It is presented to us steeped in the clear golden air of the southern day; and the pure Pagan joy of existence, with its refusal to “look before and after,” its absolute satisfaction with the present, and its shrinking even from the shadow of death, characterise most strikingly this late version of the oft-told tale.

  In “Andromeda” he has written the very best English hexameters ever produced, and perhaps the only ones in which that alien or rebel takes on at least the semblance of a loyal subject to the English tongue. The rise of the breeze after the passage of the Nereids, the expostulation of Andromeda with Perseus, and the approach of the monster, are simply admirable.

The Water Babies, 1863

  His last great and spontaneous success.

  Perhaps there is no one book in which so many of the distinctive features of Charles Kingsley are combined as in the delightful “Water Babies,” dedicated to his youngest son, Grenville Arthur, and to all other good little boys. In it we have his eager sympathy with suffering; his love for little children; his hatred of cruelty and injustice; his intolerance of ignorance which masquerades as knowledge; his delight in the wonderful things of Nature, which are the works of God. It is a dull soul who does not feel for poor little Tom, who spent his time between laughing and crying, and who thought it must be a very dirty lady who could need a bath-tub! Cousin Cramchild and Aunt Agitate seem, alas! like familiar friends. There is something as deep as there is delicious in the argument concerning the existence of water-babies.

Hereward the Wake, 1866

  The story of “Hereward the Wake” has one peculiar charm which is not always to be found in stories. It is that charm which is found in matchless perfection in the Greatest of Story-books, and which gives to the life-histories recorded there such wonderful power and influence over our lives of nowadays, helping us, if we use the help rightly, to “make our lives sublime.” It is the charm of perfect truth. The man Hereward is made to live and move before us as he lived and moved before his contemporaries, with all the strength and all the weakness of his character, a man of like passions with ourselves.

  It has two great merits: it reproduces in a marvellous way the impression of the fen country; and, by vivid flashes, though not constantly, the reader seems to see before his eyes the very life of the old vikings.

Poems

  Kingsley’s true poetic faculty is best expressed in various sounding lyrics for which he was popularly and justly esteemed. These are new, brimful of music, and national to the core. “The Sands o’ Dee,” “The Three Fishers,” and “The Last Buccaneer” are very beautiful; not studies, but a true expression of the strong and tender English heart.

  His verse, however, has a great deal of merit, and may be read with some true pleasure. He had a capacity for poetry, as he had capacities for many things beside, and he cultivated it as he cultivated all the others. His sense of rhythm seems to have been imperfect. His ear was correct, and he often hit on a right and beautiful cadence; but his music grows monotonous, his rhythmical ideas are seldom well sustained or happily developed. His work abounds in charming phrases and in those verbal inspirations that catch the ear and linger long about the memory:—as witness the notes that are audible in the opening verses of “The Sands of Dee,” the “pleasant Isle of Avès” of “The Last Buccaneer,” and the whole first stanza of the song of the Old Schoolmistress in “The Water-Babies.” But as it is with his music, so is it with his craftmanship as well. He would begin brilliantly and suggestively and end feebly and ill, so that of perfect work he has left little or none. It is also to be noted of him that his originality was decidedly eclectic—an originality informed with many memories and showing sign of many influences; and that his work, even when its purpose is most dramatic, is always very personal, and has always a strong dash in it of the sentimental manliness, the combination of muscularity and morality, peculiar to its author. For the rest, Kingsley had imagination, feeling, some insight, a great affection for man and nature, a true interest in things as they were and are and ought to be—above all, as they ought to be!—and a genuine vein of lyric song.

  Simple, brave, resolute, manly, a little given to “robustiousness,” Kingsley transfigured all these qualities by possessing the soul and the heart of a poet. He was not a very great poet indeed, but a true poet—one of the very small band who are cut off, by a gulf that can never be passed, from mere writers of verse, however clever, educated, melodious, ingenious, amiable, and refined. He had the real spark of fire, the true note; though the spark might seldom break into flame, and the note was not always clear. Never let us confuse true poets with writers of verse, still less with writers of “poetic prose.” Kingsley wrote a great deal of that—perhaps too much: his descriptions of scenes are not always as good as in Hereward’s ride round the Fens, or when the tall, Spanish galleon staggers from the revenge of man to the vengeance of God, to her doom through the mist, to her rest in the sea. Perhaps only a poet could have written that prose; it is certain no writer of “poetic prose” could have written Kingsley’s poems.

  Kingsley was, above all things, a worker, a worker with a keen moral consciousness, and a worker who sang at his work. His could never have been a life of mere æsthetic production. His best poems are those that he put forth, rhymeless and metreless, as stories; and these are instinct with the desire to promote nobility of conduct and character.

  If Kingsley, with all his literary gifts, was never quite in the first rank in anything, he came nearest to being a poet of mark. Some of his ballads almost touch the high-water mark of true ballad poetry, with its abrupt fierce blows of tragedy and pathos, its simple touches of primitive rude speech, its reserve of force, its unspoken mysteries. At any rate, Kingsley’s best ballads have no superior in the ballads of the Victorian era in lilt, in massiveness of stroke, in strange unexpected turns. “The Weird Lady” is an astonishing piece for a lad of twenty-one.

  Kingsley was one of those darlings—perhaps the rarest—of the Muses to whom they grant the gift not only of doing a little poetry exquisitely, but the further gift of abstaining from doing anything ill; and he seems to have recognised almost at once that “the other harmony,” that of prose, was the one meant for him to do his day’s work in.

General

  The intensity of Mr. Kingsley’s genius always secures to his productions a certain singleness of impression. The most heterogeneous materials, put into the crucible of his thoughts and brought to its white heat, flow down in the forms perfectly characteristic and distinct. The unity, however, is simply that of his own personality, meeting us again and again;—a phenomenon, let us say, ever delightful to us, and rich in whatever it is best to love and admire; but needing for its full power more elaboration of matter and harmony of plan than he exacts from himself.

  In Mr. Kingsley’s volumes the emotions play, we suspect, rather too important a part; yet their prevalence, attuned, as they always are, to nobleness and valor, spreads a general healthfulness around. To read his works, is like travelling in a pleasant hilly country, where the fresh hearty breeze brings you the strength of the mountains, and the clear atmosphere shows you every line, and curve, and streamer, of the clouds that race the wind. You may be compelled to remark that the cornfields are not so heavy as in the rich plain, that perhaps the poppy and the corn-flower, beautiful to the eye, but light on the granary-floor, are somewhat too abundant, and that there is an ample allowance of gay copse, and heath, and fern. But you feel that, at least, there is no miasma, that there is no haze, such as floats suspiciously over the rich, moist meadow, that you are in a land of freshness, freedom, health.

  Whatever objections may be taken to his method, and whatever may be thought of his success, there can be no mistake as to his intention. His very rhetoric is surcharged, to the extent of a vehement mannerism, with the phrases of his Theology; and there is not one of his novels that has not the power of Christianity for its theme.

  He reminds of nothing so much as of a war-horse panting for the battle; his usual style is marvellously like a neigh,—a “ha! ha! among the trumpets!” the dust of the combat is to him the breath of life; and when once, in the plenitude of grace and faith, fairly let loose upon his prey—human, moral, or material—all the Red Indian within him comes to the surface, and he wields his tomahawk with an unbaptized heartiness, slightly heathenish, no doubt, but withal unspeakably refreshing. It is amazing how hard one who is a gladiator by nature strikes when convinced that he is doing God service.

  Men of far greater intellect have made their presence less strongly felt, and imprinted their image much less clearly on the minds of their contemporaries. He is an example of how much may be done by energetic temper, fearless faith in self, an absence of all sense of the ridiculous, a passionate sympathy, and a wealth of half-poetic descriptive power. If ever we have a woman’s parliament in England, Charles Kingsley ought to be its chaplain; for I know of no clever man whose mind and temper more aptly illustrate the illogical impulsiveness, the rapid emotional changes, the generous, often wrong-headed vehemence, the copious flow of fervid words, the vivid freshness of description without analysis, and the various other peculiarities which, justly or unjustly, the world has generally agreed to regard as the special characteristics of woman.

  We cannot help regarding these letters and speeches of 1848–56 as a manly effort for order at a time when so many influences threatened instability and revolution in our country. There is much in them that may even now be found useful in reference to the question of bringing working-men into churches, and making them sober and loyal. Kingsley’s words must have frequently acted as a corrective to the wild and feverish tirades of trades’ leaders. In not a few respects, indeed, the direction which sanitary improvement, as well as wise philanthropical and political effort is taking now, may be regarded as a confirmation of much that Charles Kingsley said in these Reform Speeches and Letters. It is because we owe him such a deep debt of gratitude for pleasure, and for many wise and cheerful words, that we have taken it upon us to try to show that his “Chartism,” which was the outcome of practical sympathy, rather than a reasoned political scheme, in any respect, was not of quite such a mad and dangerous sort as has often been asserted.

  With little subtlety of insight or feeling, with too much tendency to boisterous edification, he was still a most admirable descriptive writer. As a poet, it appears, he took himself too seriously; “Santa Maura” we see now was written with more emotion than it will be read with. The “Three Fishers” will probably live; it is too soon to guess whether the “Bad Squire” and the “Buccaneer” will follow the “Corn-Law Rhymes” to a premature grave. “Andromeda” has most of the merits of a Broad Church tract and an Alexandrian heroic idyll. His mantle as a novelist has fallen upon writers so unlike him as the author of “Guy Livingstone,” “Ouida,” and Miss Broughton.

  Kingsley’s exuberant faith in his own message showed the high spirits of youth rather than a profound insight into the conditions of the great problems which he solved so fluently. At the time, however, this youthful zeal was contagious. If not an authority to obey, he was a fellow-worker in whom to trust heartily and rejoice unreservedly.

  The Chartist movement in England called forth from him two novels, “Alton Locke” (1850) and “Yeast” (1851), which, amidst much that is crude and chaotic, are full of eloquent writing and breathe a spirit of earnest sympathy with the sufferings of the poor…. No more thoroughly healthy-souled man has adorned this generation, and few have been more potent for good.

  In both Lamennais and Kingsley we have the same admixture of humility and audacity, the charm of natural simplicity which attracts friends and attaches disciples, and the leonine defiance of falsities and wrongs which repels time-serving neutrals and opponents. In both, too, we observe the “passionate limitation of view” which looks on human affairs from the ideal standpoint of social reformers, rather than the realistic standpoint of social politicians or economic thinkers. This often impels them to dwell on social wrongs with the forcefulness of undisciplined exaggeration—a fault only partly corrected in Kingsley by his quasi-scientific habits of thought and social sympathies.

  These lectures [“Roman and the Teuton”] throw no light upon any of the difficult and disputed points in the history of the Middle Ages. But this fact does not detract from their value. They were intended not as a history, but rather as a commentary on the significance and influence of historical events. They are to be judged, therefore, simply as the speculations of a remarkably ingenious and interesting mind; and, as such, they form, for the general reader, one of the most stimulating volumes ever written on this somewhat dreary period. Every lecture shows the fertility of imagination, the exuberance of fancy, and the ingenuity of expression that have made Kingsley’s writings so delightful to a large number of readers. Few persons will read the books without being aroused and stimulated to new trains of thought.

  Kingsley was far less intense and theological. He had a broader nature, which took in more of the variety and beauty of life. He had, as Maurice acknowledged, a far higher capacity of natural enjoyment. But he, too, in everything—in his novel-writing, in his social efforts, in his history and science, as well as in his sermons—was a witness to the Divine. He did not glow, as Maurice did, with a Divine radiance in all he did; he had neither his “Master’s subtlety nor his profundity; but he was more intelligible, healthy, and broad-minded, and he carried the spirit of Christianity as heartily, if not as profoundly, into all his work. Maurice was more of the Prophet both in his tenderness and occasional fierceness—Kingsley more of the Poet. Yet with all his more concrete poetic sympathies, the pupil was earnest as the theological master he delighted to honor.

  His novels have fine artistic qualities, but they are really parables rather than novels, pure and simple, and they can only be adequately valued by people who are in sympathy with the ethical thought and sentiment which they hold in solution. Enthusiasm for Kingsley as a novelist is hardly ever found uncombined with enthusiasm for him as a theologian, a politician, and a social reformer; nor would Kingsley have valued even the most ardent appreciation of the body of his work unaccompanied by sympathy with its indwelling soul.

  The minor prophets were many, but Charles Kingsley was the foremost among them.

  Of Kingsley more than of any other contemporary writer, it may be said that his works, in one way or another, are always the reflection of himself. He writes invariably from within, outwards. In what Goethe defines as true dramatic power—the power which is possessed by some men of putting themselves in the place of characters with whom they have nothing in common—“Wilhelm Meister” himself was not more deficient. Such of his creations, as are anything but painted, though often vividly painted, shadows, owe their life to the fact that they enshrine some portion of their creator’s varied personality…. The “Wizard of the North” never makes himself visible amongst the scenes and persons he has conjured up; but the presence of Charles Kingsley, whether under the guise of philosopher, Viking, muscular Christian, gentleman adventurer, or at least as himself acting the part of chorus, can never for a moment be forgotten.

  In the beginning of 1864 Kingsley had an unfortunate controversy with John Henry Newman. He had asserted in a review of Mr. Froude’s “History” in “Macmillan’s Magazine” for January 1860 that “Truth, for its own sake, had never been a virtue with the Roman catholic clergy,” and attributed this opinon to Newman in particular. Upon Newman’s protest, a correspondence followed, which was published by Newman (dated 31 Jan. 1864), with a brief, but cutting, comment. Kingsley replied in a pamphlet called “What, then, does Dr. Newman mean?” which produced Newman’s famous “Apologia.” Kingsley was clearly both rash in his first statement and unsatisfactory in the apology which he published in “Macmillan’s Magazine” (this is given in the correspondence). That Newman triumphantly vindicated his personal character is also beyond doubt. The best that can be said for Kingsley is that he was aiming at a real blot on the philosophical system of his opponent; but, if so, it must also be allowed that he contrived to confuse the issue, and by obvious misunderstandings to give a complete victory to a powerful antagonist. With all his merits as an imaginative writer, Kingsley never showed any genuine dialectical ability.

  To put it plainly, I cannot like Charles Kingsley. Those who have had opportunity to study the deportment of a certain class of Anglican divines at a foreign table d’hôte may perhaps understand the antipathy. There was almost always a certain sleek offensiveness about Charles Kingsley when he sat down to write. He had a knack of using the most insolent language, and attributing the vilest motives to all poor foreigners and Roman Catholics and other extra-parochial folk, and would exhibit a pained and completely ludicrous surprise on finding that he had hurt the feelings of these unhappy inferiors—a kind of indignant wonder that Providence should have given them any feelings to hurt. At length, encouraged by popular applause, this very second-rate man attacked a very first-rate man. He attacked with every advantage and with utter unscrupulousness; and the first-rate man handled him; handled him gently, scrupulously, decisively; returned him to his parish; and left him there, a trifle dazed, feeling his muscles.

  The merits of Kingsley as a writer, and especially as a writer of fiction, are so vivid, so various, and so unquestionable by any sound and dispassionate criticism, that while cynics may almost wonder at his immediate and lasting popularity with readers, serious judges may feel real surprise at his occasional disrepute with critics. The reasons of this latter, however, are not really very hard to find. He was himself a passionate partisan, and exceedingly heedless as to the when, where, and how of obtruding his partisanship. He had that unlucky foible of inaccuracy in fact which sometimes, though by no means always, attends the faculty of brilliant description and declamation, and which especially characterised his own set or coterie. Although possessed of the keenest sense both of beauty and of humour, he was a little uncritical in expressing himself in both these departments, and sometimes laid himself open in reality, while he did so much oftener in appearance, to the charge of lapses in taste. Although fond of arguing he was not the closest or most guarded of logicians. And lastly, the wonderful force and spontaneity of his eloquence, flowing (like the pool of Bourne, that he describes at the opening of his last novel) a river all at once from the spring, was a little apt to carry him away with it.

  If his early socialistic novels begin to be obsolete, “Hypatia” and “Westward Ho!” have borne the strain of forty years, and are as fresh as ever. The vivid style of Kingsley was characteristic of his violent and ill-balanced, but exquisitely cheery nature.

  A popular writer, only superficially acquainted with history, but imbued with a magnificent enthusiasm and a manly and tender religious feeling.

  The fact is that Kingsley was all his life, in everything he thought and in everything he did, a poet, a man of high ideals, and likewise of unswerving honesty.

  Kingsley, a man of aggressive energy, intense enthusiasms, varied interests, and lofty ideals, was one of the most stimulating and wholesome influences of his time.

  There have been many writers, no doubt, of higher literary rank, but few who by their works have given their generation so much pleasure, and still fewer who have given it in such a thoroughly healthy and invigorating way. And certainly no intelligent reader ever rose from a perusal of Kingsley’s books without feeling himself a little stronger, more natural, more sympathetic human being, or without an increased sense of that faith in God and nature which was always at the centre of Kingsley’s thought.

  The passion of strenuous effort in these books has burned away the mist and fog of the earlier day. It is too much to say that “Alton Locke” brought on the political reforms of England—the demands of the Charter, the equal districts, the vote by ballot, the extended suffrage. It is too much to say that “Yeast” or “Alton Locke” freed the apprentice or emancipated the agricultural laborer. But it is not too much to say that they notably advanced the cause of freedom. When the influences are summed up which have made for social and political enlightenment in England, no small share will be found due to these purposeful novels of Charles Kingsley.