386 PRÆTERITA-II

housemaids were wanted in that establishment,” and on the other hand, I expressed myself respecting the virtues of diplomatists, and the value of the opinions of the British Peerage on Art and Science, in a manner which caused Newton to observe (not without foundation) that “there was the making of Robespierre in me,”-not till then, I repeat, did it become clear to either of us that the decisions of Minos were irrevocable.

We yet examined the castle of Verres together, as once the aisles of Dorchester;¹ and compared in peace, at Milan, the Corinthian graces of St. Lorenzo with the Lombardic monsters of St. Ambrogio.² Early the next morning Newton left me, in the Albergo Reale, not without inner tears on both sides, and went eastward, I know not where. Ever since, we have been to each other, he as the Heathen, and I as the Publican, both of us finding it alike impossible to hear the Church.³

157. The transition to Denmark Hill had, however, in the first pride of it, an advantage also in giving our family Puritanism, promotion to a distinguished pew in Camden Chapel, quite near the pulpit. Henry Melvill, afterwards Principal of Haileybury, was the only preacher I ever knew whose sermons were at once sincere, orthodox, and oratorical on Ciceronian principles.⁴ He wrote them from end to end with polished art, and read them admirably, in his own manner; by which, though the congregation affectionately expected it, they were always deeply impressed. He arranged his sermon under four or five heads, and

¹ [The abbey church of Dorchester, near Oxford.]

² [See Vol. XVI. p. 276, and Plate XIV. there.]

³ [Matthew xviii. 17.]

⁴ [Henry Melvill, 1798-1871; second wrangler, 1821; principal of Haileybury College, 1843-1857; chaplain to Queen Victoria, 1853; canon of St. Paul’s, 1856-1871; rector of Barnes, 1863-1871. Gladstone was similarly impressed by his preaching. “His sentiments,” he wrote in his diary (1833), “are manly in tone; he deals powerfully with all his subjects; his language is flowing and unbounded; his imagery varied and immensely strong. Vigorous and lofty as are his conceptions, he is not, I think, less remarkable for soundness and healthiness of mind” (Morley’s Life of Gladstone, vol. i. p. 100). For another reference to Melvill, see Vol. XXXIV. p. 365. Several volumes of his sermons were published by Rivingtons, 1853, 1870, 1872 (with a memoir).]

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