to Caius College, Cambridge, where he
graduated B.A. in 1832, M.A. in 1836. In 1833 he was ordained to the
Suffolk curacy of Tannington-with-Brandish; in 1835 travelled through
Germany as tutor to Rafael Mendizabal, the son of the Spanish
ambassador; in 1839 became curate of Corfe Castle, Dorsetshire; and in
1845 succeeded his father as rector of Monk Soham. Here in the course
of forty-four years he built the rectory-house and school, restored
the fine old church, erected an organ, and re-hung the bells. He was
Archdeacon of Suffolk from 1869 till 1887, when failing eyesight
forced him to resign, and when the clergy of the diocese presented him
with his portrait. He died at Monk Soham, 19th March 1889. Archdeacon
Groome was a man of wide culture--a man, too, of many friends. Chief
among these were Edward FitzGerald, William Bodham Donne, Dr Thompson
of Trinity, and Henry Bradshaw, the Cambridge librarian, who said of
him, 'I never see Groome but what I learn something new.' He read
much, but published little--a couple of charges, a sermon and lecture
or two, some hymns and hymn-tunes, and a good many articles in the
'Christian Advocate and Review,' of which he was editor from 1861 to
1866. His best productions are his Suffolk stories: for humour and
tenderness these come near to 'Rab and his Friends.'"

An uneventful life, like that of most country clergymen. But as
Gainsborough and Constable took their subjects from level East Anglia, as
Gilbert White's Selborne has little to distinguish it above other
parishes in Hampshire, {5} so I believe that the story of that quiet life
might, if rightly told, possess no common charm. I have listened to my
father's talks with Edward FitzGerald, with William Bodham Donne, and
with two or three others of his oldest friends; such talks were like
chapters out of George Eliot's novels. His memory was marvellous. It
seems but the other day I told him I had been writing about Clarendon;
and "Clarendon," he said, "was born, I know, in 1608, but I forget the
name of the Wiltshire parish his birthplace. Look it up." I looked it
up, and the date _was_ 1608; the parish (Dinton) was, sure enough, in
Wiltshire. Myself I have had again to consult an encyclopaedia for both
date and place-name, but he remembered the one distinctly and the other
vaguely after possibly thirty years. In the same way he could recall the
whole plo