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162 mSTOBY OF BISHOP AUGKLANB. HiB constitution is said, however, to have suflFered from the irregularities of his rather fast life, and having slept in a damp bed at Cambridge, he never recovered the effects of it He once more sought the quiet home of his father, who had retired from professional life to Snow Hall, on the banks of the Tees, a little to the east of Gainford, where he quietly made his exit from the stage of life, and was interred in the family burial-place, in the graveyard attached to the church of Staindrop, of which place his father was a nativa F. W. FABER, D.D. Frederick William Faber, better known in later times as Father Faber, and Superior of the Oratory of St Philip Neri, at Brompton, was bom on the 28th of June, 1814, at the Vicarage of Calverley, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, of which place his grandfather, the Rev. Thomas Faber, was the incumbent His father, Thomas Henry Faber, having been appointed secretary to Bishop Barrington in the same year, removed to Bishop Auckland with his family when the subject of this memoir was only six months old. The first educational establishment he attended was King James's Grammar School, at Bishop Auckland, then under the head mastership of the Rev. Robert Thompson ; and hence many of his boyish days, and much of his leisure time, was spent about the Castle and Park at Auckland. Evidences of this fact are to be found in miny of his minor poems, and more par- ticularly in one which appeared in his second volume on the death of Bishop Van Mildert, the last Count Palatine. The poem in question shows to some extent the pitch to which his imagination was excited by the splendour he constantly witnessed ; for in those days the Bishops of Durham maintained a state of magnificence quite unknown at the present time, travelling from Bishop Auckland to Durham or other places in a stately coach drawn by six horses, and attended by outriders having holster-pipes for pistols at their saddle bows, and recalling something of the tbne when travelling was dangerous and the prelates themselves warlika Upon a young and highly poetic temperament like his, the beautiful palace at Auckland, with its rich accompaniment of rock, wood, and water ; and Durham, with its old feudal castle and its fine Norman cathedral, with all its surroimdings, were most likely to leave a lasting impression. In the poem above alluded to he thus apostrophises Durham Cathedral : — O venerable Pile ! whose awful gloom From my first boyish days hath been the sign And symbol to me of the Faith divine Of which thou art a birth ! from out the womb Thou springest of the old majestic past, Colossal times, which daily from the heart Of this dear land with lingering steps depart, Furling the mighty shadows that they cast. After leaving the Grammar School at Bishop Auckland,* he was removed to Kirkby Stephen, in Westmoreland, where he was placed under the care of the Eev. John Gibson, This choice of locality was also destined to have some effect on his after-life and writings ; for it was there he first beheld the mountain scenery, which was afterwards one of the greatest pleasures of his existenca On leaving Kirkby Stephen he passed a short time at Shrewsbury School, and then proceeded to Harrow, where, under Dr. Longley, he made rapid progress, and was one of his favourite scholars. He matriculated at Balliol College, Oxford, in 1832. In 1834 he was elected scholar of University College, in company with Mr. Donkin, who became the distinguished Professor of Astronomy in the University. He also gained the prize in 1835 for the best • His pareiits died at Anckland, bis mother in 1829, and hiB father in 1833. They both lie buried tinder the shade of the loath wall of the tower of St. Andrew's. Digitized by Google