I quote this life-like description from Burgon's _Twelve Good Men_, and
Burgon it is who supplies the link with Jowett. "It was shortly after
the publication of _Essays and Reviews_ that Jowett, meeting Coxe,
enquired:--"Have you read my essay?" "No, my dear Jowett. We are good
friends now; but I know that, if I were to read that essay, I should
have to cut you. So I haven't read it, and I don't mean to.""--A
commendable way of escape from theological controversy.

It is scarcely fair to reckon Cardinal Manning among Oxford celebrities;
but during my undergraduateship he made two incursions into the
University, which were attended by some quaint consequences. In 1873 he
was a guest at the banquet held in honour of the fiftieth anniversary of
the foundation of the Union; and it was noted with amusement that,
though he was not then a Cardinal, but merely a schismatic Archbishop,
he contrived to take precedence of the Bishop of Oxford in his own
cathedral city. Bishop Wilberforce had died three months before, and I
remember that all the old stagers said:--"If Sam had still been Bishop
of Oxford, this would not have happened." The Roman Catholics of Oxford
were of course delighted; and when, soon afterwards, Manning returned as
Cardinal to open the Roman Catholic Church in St. Giles's, great efforts
were made to bring all undergraduates who showed any Rome-ward
proclivities within the sphere of his influence. To one rather bumptious
youth he said:--"And what are you going to do with your life?" "I'm
thinking of taking Orders." "Take care you get them, my friend."
Another, quite unmoved by the pectoral cross and crimson soutane, asked
artlessly, "What was your college?" The Cardinal replied, with some
dignity, "I was at Balliol, and subsequently at Merton." "Oh! that was
like me. I was at Exeter, and I was sent down to a Hall for not getting
through Smalls." "_I was a Fellow of Merton._" No powers of type can do
justice to the intonation.

At the time of which I speak Oxford was particularly rich in delightful
and accomplished ladies. I have already paid my tribute to Mrs. Cradock,
Mrs. Liddell, Mrs. Acland, Mrs. Talbot, and Miss Eleanor Smith. Miss
Felicia Skene was at once a devoted servant of the poor and the outcast,
and also one of the most powerful writers of her time, although she
contrived almost entirely to escape observation. Let anyone who thinks
that I rate her powers too highly read "The Divine Master," "La
Ro