As well set a man like myself, who could not translate a line of Homer, to be the classical master at Eton, as set a man without spiritual experience in dealing with souls to rule a diocese and lead the flock to the waters of life.
That was, and had been for long, the type of man authorized to wear a mitre on the panels of his carriage, and vest himself in the plumage of a magpie when engaged in any ecclesiastical function. Happily it is not so any more.
During the years that I had been under tuition at home and abroad, I had been taught no Greek, in fact I was never given a Greek book to read, except during the winter when we were at Bayonne, when, on Sundays, Mr. Hadow set me to translate a few verses from the New Testament. Consequently Goodwin sent me to a classical tutor, who set me to Xenophon. But I was with him for only three months.
In the autumn of 1853 I entered Clare Hall.
The Master of Clare was named Webb. His wife was a Gould of the Amberd and Lustleigh family, no relation that I could discover, though they bore our arms and called us cousins. Hannah Gould was my mother's most intimate friend. She was one of the old saintly members of the Early Tractarian party, clinging to her principles to the last. Related to these Goulds were the Oxenhams, and Anne was another of the same quality, also a close friend of my mother. I saw a good deal, as a boy, of Henry Nutcombe Oxenham, who was a few years older than myself. He was a specially handsome young fellow. Eventually he went over to Rome, but with a difference. He would not allow that his Orders in the English Church were invalid. We had a quarrel as boys. I was in the street before the house of the Oxenhams, and he at an upper window, when he shouted to me: "Here are some chocolates for you." He threw them down to me. They were pills. I ate one that was very bitter, and was angry. Many years after, when he was a Papist, we met. "Ah, Gould," said he, "you should join the Catholic Church—the Roman you would call it. There you get the real thing." "Like those chocolates," said I; "they upset my stomach." He winced. He had not forgotten them.
Old Webb and his wife were very kind to me, and I was often at the Master's lodge. Webb obtained the nickname of Buckets.
