my College, and this gave me position; besides, I had
written one or two Essays which had been well received. I began to be
known. I preached my first University Sermon. Next year I was one of the
Public Examiners for the B.A. degree. In 1828 I became Vicar of St.
Mary's. It was to me like the feeling of spring weather after winter;
and, if I may so speak, I came out of my shell; I remained out of it
till 1841.

The two persons who knew me best at that time are still alive, beneficed
clergymen, no longer my friends. They could tell better than any one
else what I was in those years. From this time my tongue was, as it
were, loosened, and I spoke spontaneously and without effort. One of the
two, Mr. Rickards, said of me, I have been told, "Here is a fellow who,
when he is silent, will never begin to speak; and when he once begins to
speak, will never stop." It was at this time that I began to have
influence, which steadily increased for a course of years. I gained upon
my pupils, and was in particular intimate and affectionate with two of
our probationer Fellows, Robert Isaac Wilberforce (afterwards
Archdeacon) and Richard Hurrell Froude. Whately then, an acute man,
perhaps saw around me the signs of an incipient party, of which I was
not conscious myself. And thus we discern the first elements of that
movement afterwards called Tractarian.

The true and primary author of it, however, as is usual with great
motive-powers, was out of sight. Having carried off as a mere boy the
highest honours of the University, he had turned from the admiration
which haunted his steps, and sought for a better and holier satisfaction
in pastoral work in the country. Need I say that I am speaking of John
Keble? The first time that I was in a room with him was on occasion of
my election to a fellowship at Oriel, when I was sent for into the
Tower, to shake hands with the Provost and Fellows. How is that hour
fixed in my memory after the changes of forty-two years, forty-two this
very day on which I write! I have lately had a letter in my hands, which
I sent at the time to my great friend, John William Bowden, with whom I
passed almost exclusively my Under-graduate years. "I had to hasten to
the Tower," I say to him, "to receive the congratulations of all the
Fellows. I bore it till Keble took my hand, and then felt so abashed and
unworthy of the honour done me, that I seemed desirous of quite sinking
into the ground." His had been the firs