.]

In the autumn, at Oxford, he took up his parable again. His lectures on
"The Pleasures of England" he intended as a sketch of the main stream of
history from his own religious standpoint. It was a noble theme, and one
which his breadth of outlook and detailed experience would have fitted
him to handle; but he was already nearing the limit of his vital powers.
He had been suffering from depression throughout the summer, unrelieved
by the energetic work for St. George's Museum, which in other days might
have been a relaxation from more serious thought. He had been editing
Miss Alexander's "Roadside Songs of Tuscany," and recasting earlier
works of his own, incessantly busy; presuming upon the health he had
enjoyed, and taking no hints nor advice from anxious friends, who would
have been glad to have seen the summer spent in change of scene and
holiday-making.

At Oxford he was watched with concern--restless and excited, too
absorbed in his crusade against the tendencies of the modern scientific
party, too vehement and unguarded in his denunciations of colleagues,
too bitter against the new order of things which, to his horror, was
introducing vivisection in the place of the old-fashioned natural
history he loved, and speculative criticism instead of "religious and
useful learning."

He was persuaded to cancel his last three attacks on modern life and
thought--"The Pleasures of Truth," of "Sense," and of "Nonsense"--and to
substitute readings from earlier works, hastily arranged and re-written;
and his friends breathed more freely when he left Oxford without another
serious attack of brain-disease. He wrote on December 1st, 1884, to Miss
Beever:

"I gave my fourteenth, and last for this year, lecture with vigour
and effect, and am safe and well (D.G.) after such a spell of work
as I never did before."

To another correspondent, a few days later:

"Here are two lovely little songs for you to put tunes to, and sing
to me. You'll have both to be ever so good to me, for I've been
dreadfully bothered and battered here. I've bothered other people a
little, too,--which is some comfort!"

But in spite of everything, the vote was passed to establish a
physiological laboratory at the museum; to endow vivisection--which to
him meant not only cruelty to animals, but a complete misunderstanding
of the purpose of science, and defiance of the moral law. He resigned
his Professorship, wi