Samuel Wilberforce (1805-1873). Library of Literary Criticism. 1901-05

Samuel Wilberforce (1805-1873). Library of Literary Criticism. 1901-05 Dictionary Biographies Literary Criticism Welcome Terms of Service ⧏ Previous Next ⧐ Contents Bibliographic Record Charles Wells Moulton, ed.  Library of Literary Criticism.  1901–05. Samuel Wilberforce (1805–1873) Was born at Clapham, Sept. 7, 1805. In 1826 he graduated from Oriel, Oxford, with first-class honours in mathematics and second-class in classics. In December he was ordained curate of Checkendon near Henley, and in 1830 became rector of Brightsone, Isle of Wight; in 1836 was a rural dean there, and in 1839 archdeacon of Surrey. In 1840 he was appointed rector of Alberstoke and canon of Winchester, in 1841 chaplain to the Prince-Consort, in March 1845 Dean of Westminster, and in October Bishop of Oxford. He shared in the troubles of the Hampden, Gorham, “Essays and Reviews,” and Colenso cases, and suffered many domestic trials, yet so governed the diocese for twenty-four years as to earn the title of “Remodeller of the Episcopate.” He instituted Cuddesdon theological college (1854), and was mainly instrumental in reviving Convocation (1852). The charm of his many-sided personality, his administrative capacity, his extraordinary faculty of work, his social gifts, and his gifts as an orator were too much forgotten in the versatile ecclesiastic, nicknamed “Soapy Sam.” He suffered keenly from the secession to Rome of his brother-in-law, his two brothers, his only daughter, and his son-in-law. He edited “Letters and Journals of Henry Martyn” (1837), wrote along with his brother the Life of his father (1838), and himself wrote “Agathos” (1839), “Rocky Island” (1840), and “History of the American Church” (1844), and contributed to the Quarterly. In 1869 he was transferred to the see of Winchester, and on 19th July 1873 was killed by falling from his horse near Dorking. He is buried at Lavington, Sussex, which he inherited through his marriage in 1828 to Emily Sargent, Cardinal Manning’s sister-in-law. See “Life” by Ashwell and his eldest son (1879–82), shorter Lives by that son (1888) and Daniell (1891), and the sketch by Dean Burgon in his “Twelve Good Men” (1888).—Patrick and Groome, 1897, eds., Chambers’s Biographical Dictionary, p. 970.    

1 Personal

  Compounded of many simples—full of fire and impulse, yet perfect in social tact; full of drollery, but governed by a competent measure of discretion; bright, sharp and subtile, ready and graceful and full of resource in conversation; with a cordiality of manner which is very true to his nature, I dare say, though it might lead to a mistake if it were understood as expressing more than mere sociable cordiality. I can easily suppose, however, that there are depths in his nature, and that there may be some genuine and powerful feelings and affections dwelling in them.—Taylor, Sir Henry, 1855, Autobiography, vol. II, p. 110.    

2   On the Sunday we had a sermon from the Bishop of Oxford, and I was immensely struck by his consummate style of pulpit eloquence—familiar without approaching the verge of vulgarity, didactic without the slightest boredom, fervid and touching without bombast, altogether a maître accompli, and one could not help lamenting that he should not have been at the Bar, or in the House of Commons, for he certainly would have been Prime Minister or Lord Chancellor by this time. He is a capital story-teller, too, inimitable at the breakfast table or when the dinner cloth is removed. Altogether too strenuous, too good and too bad for the feeble rôle of an Anglican bishop. As a cardinal in the days when Rome had power, or a prize fighter in the great political ring, he would have had scope for his energies.—Motley, John Lothrop, 1867, Letter to his Wife, Aug. 20; Correspondence, ed. Curtis, vol. II, p. 285.    

3   He was a man of great mark, and now that he is gone, people admit this more freely than they did. He took such a leading part, that of course he came into violent collision with great numbers; and he was so abounding in resources of all kinds, that it was easy to say that he was too clever in all ways. But the truth is that he was a statesman, and a statesman’s ways in great religious divisions are liable to offend people of strong, simple, perhaps one-sided, religious ideas. He was, I believe, a thoroughly sincere man, with a very lofty and large idea of the religious aims to which he devoted his life. He was a man of very large sympathies, of untiring interest in all that interested mankind—too extensive, perhaps, in his interests for any deep and accurate knowledge—a very strong, bold, and earnest man. Of all men of his time he comes next to Gladstone as a man of inexhaustible powers of work.—Church, Richard William, 1873, To Dr. Asa Gray, July 25; Life and Letters of Dean Church, ed. his Daughter, p. 284.    

4   I altogether sympathize in what you say of poor Sam of Winchester. The event is pitiful, tragical and altogether sadder to me than I could have expected. He was far from being a bad man, and was a most dexterous, stout, and clever one, and I have often exchanged pleasant dialogues with him for the last thirty years—finished now—silent for all eternity! I find he was really of religious nature, and thought in secret, in spite of his bishophood, very much in regard to religion as we do.—Carlyle, Thomas, 1873, Letter to Froude, July 29; Thomas Carlyle, A History of His Life in London, ed. Froude, vol. II, p. 358.    

5   Those who witnessed the Bishop’s power and prowess in debate might think that he was nothing more than a Parliamentary debater; those who knew nothing but the brilliancy of his social qualities—exceeded by none, if equalled by any, in his generation—might fail to appreciate the loftiness of his aims, and the true purpose and constant employment of his life. In these things he was great; but those who formed their judgment of him from these things alone, or from these things mainly, would misunderstand the man…. Were I asked to name the most remarkable of all the characteristics of Bishop Wilberforce, I think I should state it to be this—that while, to a degree surpassing every other man, his time and his mind were apparently absorbed in the great concerns of his diocese and of the Church at large; he, more than any other person I have ever known, seemed to retain a close, intimate, and detailed knowledge of all that was happening in the circles of private life to every one whom he knew. These things never faded from his memory, and he entered into them from day to day with a strength of sympathy and a minutely clear recollection that would have been astonishing even in an unoccupied man…. Who can count the numbers—they are not in hundreds, they are not in thousands, they are in hundreds of thousands—who in every part of this country listened from time to time to the tones of that silver voice now stilled among us, sometimes like a murmuring brook, sometimes like a trumpet-call? No spot in this land, I may say, can be found—certainly none where there is any considerable concentration of the people—in which that extraordinary influence of his has not been brought to bear, and there was not one in which, when he visited it, he did not seem to spend his entire self on the purpose which he had before him, as though nothing had come before it in his life, and nothing was to come after it.—Gladstone, William Ewart, 1873, Speech on the Inauguration of the Wilberforce Memorial Fund, Dec. 3.    

6   Of a temperament peculiarly mobile and sympathetic, his nature answered to every touch from without as instantaneously as the æolian harp answers to each breath of air. Each character with which he came in contact drew forth its own response, so that there were almost as many estimates formed of him as there were persons with whom he had to do. Intensely affectionate, and with a passionate craving for the sympathy which he gave so readily, he was capable also of the sternest severity and of a tenacity of purpose which no desire for the approbation even of his dearest friends could divert for a moment. Singularly honest in his own purposes, he was not unfrequently mistaken in placing confidence in others, although usually a keen judge of character; and he was capable of the most vehement indignation when face to face with meanness or duplicity. Similar traits marked his intellectual character. Great power of concentration was combined with an incessant readiness to turn aside to fasten upon any new object which came before him. He took an interest in everything. His observation was sleepless, and made him an excellent naturalist. If you were driving with him across a country that was new to him, the conversation would be again and again interrupted by some remark upon its geology or its vegetation. His inquisitiveness of mind was extreme, and habit had developed the natural faculty of extracting from every one whom he met whatever special information could be derived from him. In his earlier days he may have been somewhat over-bold in action, but from the first he was cautious in counsel, and his balance of judgment would have made him an admirable casuist.—Ashwell, A. R., 1879, Life of the Right Reverend Samuel Wilberforce, D.D., Introduction, vol. I, p. xiv.    

7   Wilberforce had quite a royal memory of persons and trivial associations which was essentially useful to him in his episcopal intercourse, and not without its advantage in the general London world where small people were flattered by his immediate recognition of themselves and their concerns.—Milnes, Richard Monckton (Lord Houghton), 1880, Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford and Winchester, Fortnightly Review, vol. 33, p. 355.    

8   In his own generation—the generation which is now just disappearing—he was one of the most conspicuous and remarkable figures—remarkable not more for the quantity of his powers than for their surprising variety. He was a good preacher and a still better platform speaker, who drew immense audiences wherever he went; moving men, and still more women, not so much by his argument as by his skill in touching the emotions. He was an unwearied ecclesiastical politician, always involved in discussions and controversies, sometimes, it was thought, in intrigues; without whom nothing was done in Convocation, nor, where Church interests were involved, in the House of Lords. In literature he was not idle, for besides producing a Life of his father, the famous philanthropist and abolitionist, he wrote religious tales, and not seldom contributed articles, whose anonymous character was soon stripped off, to the Quarterly Review. However, it was as a man of society that his fame was perhaps greatest. He was not merely a brilliant talker, full of anecdotes and ideas, admirably quick in repartee, but also, what many good talkers are not, a most agreeable companion, whose charm of manner could hardly be resisted even by those who came inclined to distrust him. There was a brightness and flow about his conversation, together with a sympathetic way of putting things, which made him more sought after for dinner parties, or as a guest at country houses, than any one else in England. There was probably no other public man, and certainly no other ecclesiastic, who was so constantly in the public eye, whose doings were watched with so much curiosity and excited so much controversy. In spite of his winning ways, he had many enemies; for he was a strong partisan, dealt hard blows, and was deemed, not only by his opponents, but by some of his friends, to be neither straightforward nor trustworthy. His abilities no one could deny. But was he sincere? Was he truthful? Was his ecclesiastical zeal the outcome of real religious feeling or only an engine of personal ambition? Could a man externally so worldly, and at least as welcome among worldlings as to the good, be really pious? These were the questions which the mention of his name never failed to raise, and which were debated with that zest which specially belongs to personal questions.—Bryce, James, 1883, Two Biographies, The Nation, vol. 36, p. 250.    

9   He was neither a great reader nor a mere student nor a profound thinker, but he was a man of action, and public questions were his delight. If he had any relaxations he found them in botany, and especially in ornithology. Then, as all his life through, his love of birds as well as his knowledge of their notes and habits were most remarkable. Once indeed he was known to have forgiven a little boy for the heinous offence of breaking through a hedge because he did it to show the bishop a rare bird…. Our view is that Samuel Wilberforce, after his adversaries have said their worst of him, was a very great man, an honour to the Church, and, what is better still, an ornament and even a glory to England in his generation.—Dasent, Sir G. W., 1883, Samuel Wilberforce, Fortnightly Review, vol. 39, pp. 184, 195.    

10   I do not think that any of the numerous photographs of Bishop Wilberforce ever did him justice. How should they? You may photograph a man’s features, but you cannot convey much conception of his expression. And this was his special characteristic, that his countenance changed with every emotion as his thoughts passed rapidly from the grave to the gay and from the gay to the grave. Then, no one who had not seen and heard him could have an idea of the music of his voice, the charm of his conversation, or the fascination of his manners…. As an orator, in spite of some mannerisms, Bishop Wilberforce was, to my thinking, never surpassed certainly by any prelate of the Church of England. Yet I never thought that his printed sermons conveyed the same impressions.—Huntington, George, 1888, Some Recollections of Bishop Wilberforce, Temple Bar, vol. 83, pp. 246, 248.    

11   Soapy Sam. A nickname given to Bishop Samuel Wilberforce while at Oxford, and which clung to him throughout his life.—Frey, Albert R., 1888, Sobriquets and Nicknames, p. 326.    

12 General

  If Wilberforce judged himself severely he judged others no less so. He was never satisfied with the effect of his first speeches, either at public meetings or in the House of Lords, perhaps because he prepared for his first appearance more elaborately, and in the preparation excited himself with expectations which it was impossible to satisfy. And in his diary he repeatedly accuses himself, not only of worldliness and ambition, but of indolence and covetousness, faults which no one else, however malicious, would have thought of detecting. He was from the first one of the busiest and most generous of men. He believed that the clergy of a rich country ought to be richly endowed, and that any sacrifices they made should be purely voluntary. He certainly practised what he preached: during the five years that he held the rich living of Alverstoke he gave away more than two-thirds of the income, so that he might with a very good conscience obey his bishop, who thought it a plain duty to retain the living with the Deanery of Westminster.—Simcox, George Augustus, 1880, Bishop Wilberforce, Macmillan’s Magazine, vol. 41, p. 403.    

13   He was a very admirable preacher, though his sermons do not read as well as they “heard;” some of his devotional manuals are of great excellence; and in the heyday of High Church allegory (an interesting bywalk of literature which can only be glanced at here, but which was trodden by some estimable and even some eminent writers) he produced the well hit-off tale of “Agathos” (1839). But it may be that he will, as a writer, chiefly survive in the remarkable letters and diaries in his “Life,” which are not only most valuable for the political and ecclesiastical history of the time, but precious always as human documents and sometimes as literary compositions.—Saintsbury, George, 1896, A History of Nineteenth Century Literature, p. 372.    

14   His wit and power of expression find their best outlet in the letters which give to his “Life” a zest rare in ecclesiastical biography.—Walker, Hugh, 1897, The Age of Tennyson, p. 155.    

15   Wilberforce was at once too energetic and too resourceful a man to have justice done him till after his death. In spite of the accusation of ambition often brought against him, it is plain that the interest of the church of England alone occupied his best thoughts. He was, as he said, “no party man,” but a churchman of the type of Hooker and Cosin, and had no sympathy with those whose love for ceremonial led them to favour ritualistic innovations on the suggestion of Roman doctrines. “I hate and abhor the attempt to Romanize the Church of England,” were almost the last words spoken by him in the House of Lords four days before his death, and the words formed a fitting summary of the policy which he had unfalteringly pursued throughout his life. At the same time, he was quick to see in the Anglo-catholic movement a means of infusing life into a church which had not yet shaken off the apathy of Georgian times. Hence he was long hated by the evangelical party, who saw their hitherto dominant position every day slipping from them, while the firm though kindly hand with which he ruled his diocese stirred up against him many jealousies. Yet he lived down the feeling against him, and came to be recognised as in a peculiar way the representative of the English episcopate, and the prelate to whom Scottish, colonial, and American bishops naturally resorted for advice and counsel.—Legge, Francis, 1900, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. LXI, p. 207.    

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