MEMOIR OF C. E. VAUGHAN

CHARLES EDWYN VAUGHAN was born at St. Martin's Vicarage, Leicester, on the 10th February 1854. He was the son of the Reverend E. T. Vaughan, who was then Vicar of St. Martin's, a living in the gift of the Lord Chancellor, previously held by his father (till 1829), and by his younger brother, afterwards the famous Dean of Llandaff, and subsequently by his youngest brother. Vaughan's father was a First Class mathematical and classical scholar, courteous, wise and sympathetic. In 1860 he removed. to Harpenden, and became Canon of St. Albans in 1877, having previously been Canon of Peterborough. Among more distant relatives (all descended from Dr. James Vaughan of Leicester) may be mentioned Henry Vaughan, afterwards Sir Henry Halford, Baronet, the Court Physician (d. 1844); Henry Halford Vaughan, Professor of Modern History at Oxford from 1848 to 1858, who, in his philosophical view of history, his interest in literary criticism, the thrilling' character of his lectures, and his reforming spirit, seems to have resembled the subject of this memoir; and finally Professor T. H. Green, who was Vaughan's cousin.

Vaughan's mother was Mary, daughter of the Reverend J. Rose, Vicar of Rothley, and his wife Lydia, daughter of Thomas Babington, Esq., of Rothley Temple. Mrs. Babington, Vaughan's great-grandmother, was sister of Lord Macaulay's father. Mrs. Vaughan was of a peculiarly winning nature, ' and sweet attractive grace.'

Charles was the youngest child of the family and the only son. His youngest sister, Margaret (Mrs. Walter Smith) writes of his childhood: He had a very marked and leading character even as a small child, and I remember that at five years old he used to be called "the Governor-General " by our elder sisters. He was frail

and delicate, but very keen in perception and quick in repartee. We moved to Harpenden when he was only five, and this was very happy for him, for he loved all country things, especially flowers. He did not go to school till he was thirteen, but was taught by our

father, who took two or three other boys of the same age to teach and live with us. He went to Marlborough in February 1867, and had a very successful career there, getting scholarships, so that my mother has told me that his education cost them very little after his first year there. Games were not then compulsory, and I am afraid he was quite uninterested in that side of school life, except in running. I have been told he was the fastest "hare" at Marlborough. He became head of the " Junior House," and eventually head of the school, and these positions of responsibility consolidated his character and brought out the power of dealing with boys which afterwards proved so remarkable. His love of English literature was very marked through the later years at Marlborough, and still more at Oxford. I remember delightful readings of Wordsworth's lesser poems and of Browning on Sunday afternoons. Of foreign masters, Victor Hugo, both in verse and prose, took the first place. How many of his novels we used to discuss as we tramped for miles in the beautiful Hertfordshire country-with such passionate force of conviction on his side! All through these years we at home had the most delightful intercourse with him in holidays and vacations. He was so bright and affectionate-so ready to enter into home things-so brimful of ideas on all sorts of subjects which he delighted to talk over with our father, and even with my ignorant self, that after all these long years those days stand out crowned with a golden glory.'

From Marlborough, where he imbibed accurate scholarship from Bradley and literary enthusiasm from Farrar, Vaughan went to Balliol, by the advice of his cousin, T. H. Green, then tutor of the College. He will do best at Balliol,' Green wrote to Canon Vaughan (8th November 1871), the tuition there is more thorough than elsewhere and the general society better; nor is the liability to be "unsettled in belief," of which many parents now are not unnaturally afraid, greater there than it is everywhere else, where men meet who read the books of the day'; and with 'real carefulness,' the cost at Balliol could be kept down to £150 a year. Vaughan won the third scholarship at Balliol in November 1872. 'It was so good a year,' wrote Green to Canon Vaughan, ' that we have given an extra exhibition, but there was no question about his place. He wrote a very good essay, and was in the front rank on all the classical papers, though not absolutely first on any.' Among the successful candidates this year was Alfred (now Viscount) Milner.

Vaughan was at Oxford from 1873 to 1877; he obtained a First in Mods,' and a First in 'Greats,' and was twice bracketed for the College Jenkyns Exhibition, for which the leading Greats' men used to compete. He did not obtain any of the University Prizes,

though he probably competed for some. The strongest influence under which he came at Oxford was that of T. H. Green; it was probably to him more than to any one else that he owed his abiding interest in political philosophy. It is indicative of the high opinion held of him by his tutors, Green and R. L. Nettleship, that both named him as executor.

College friendships are notoriously long-lived, and Vaughan's were no exception. With his old schoolfellow, J. M. Rendel, who came up to Balliol from Marlborough with him, he kept up an affectionate, if intermittent, correspondence to the end, in spite of the divergence in their lives. With other College friends he was kept or brought in touch by his work and subsequent career-with Professor A. C. Bradley (who was lecturing at Balliol when Vaughan was up), with W. W. Asquith, Principal J. V. Jones, Professor W. P. Ker, Sir Harry Reichel, Professor Tout and others.

Perhaps the man who attracted and impressed him most among his contemporaries was Arnold Toynbee; and the attraction seems to have been mutual. You are one of the best friends I ever had,' Toynbee wrote to him in 1878. During the long vacation in 1875 the two friends worked together in Whitechapel under the direction of S. A. Barnett-sharing a workman's lodging, which may be regarded as the nucleus of Toynbee Hall and many similar institutions. With Toynbee, too, he joined the gang of undergraduate navvies who were set to make a road at Hinksey by Ruskin. Breakfasts with Ruskin at Corpus were probably more attractive and perhaps more valuable than the work itself. And Vaughan came to the conclusion that neither 'slumming' nor digging helped a man who was reading for honours.

A wise and understanding letter from his father, dated 30th August 1877, shows that Vaughan's beliefs had been sufficiently ' unsettled' to make it impossible for him to take orders, if this had ever been intended. Vaughan's letter, to which this was an answer, has not been preserved (indeed, even at the time, Canon Vaughan had difficulty in recovering it, because Margaret had taken possession of the letter itself'). Vaughan did not often talk directly about religion, but his faith in an immortal purpose to be worked out in and through humanity shone out in his life, and formed the foundation or background of his philosophy. Nor did he find his beliefs inconsistent with the habit and practice of prayer, which he retained through life. And though he ceased to communicate for many years, he was a fairly regular attendant at church, and resumed the practice of attending communion in his later years at Manchester. But from what he counted the superstitions of ritualism of any kind he stood somewhat fiercely aloof.

After taking his Finals in 1877, he went to Switzerland to

study German, staying chiefly at Zürich, and spending spare time in learning Italian and improving himself on the piano.' These delights he reluctantly gave up to take the post of Master of the Upper Fifth at Clifton College, which was offered him by Dr. Percival, in May 1878.

Vaughan's friends and admirers have often expressed surprise that he did not obtain a tutorial fellowship at Oxford. He sat for a fellowship more than once. The following extract from a letter of T. H. Green to Canon Vaughan may explain his failure at Merton in 1878: C. has got into what is thought a crabbed, obscure, way of writing, and fails to make a due impression in consequence. The explanation, as I sincerely believe, is that the thoughts which he wants to express are more his own than is the case with most men; that thus they do not pass readily into phraseology acquired from books or lectures, and that under pressure of examination he has not time to beat them out fully and clearly. I trust he will do his best, when he tries at New College, to remedy this defect; though perhaps to say this is almost like asking him to change his skin. In the interval he had better be rubbing up Greek and Latin Prose, if he will condescend to that.' Two or three years later he made another-very half-hearted-attempt to obtain a tutorial fellowship; but on this occasion he was asked in an interview some questions which he interpreted as an attempt to probe into his religious beliefs and impose a test-and one may well imagine that his answers were not conciliatory.

He never regretted these failures in after years. Looking back towards the end of his life, he said once that he regarded his ten years at Clifton as perhaps the least unfruitful' part of his career. Certainly the beginning must have been trying enough. It was some time before he felt his feet'; a rowdy set of boys seemed determined to make the new master's life a burden to him. Vaughan was naturally sensitive, quick-tempered and impatient, but he kept control over himself, and before long won not only control over his class but their interest and admiration.

In his teaching he laid special emphasis on English literature and history, and the great questions underlying politics. And during his ten years at Clifton he did much to bring the teaching of these subjects into the ordinary curriculum, not only of Clifton, but of English Public Schools generally. A good many Clifton boys would endorse what one of them (an old Clifton and Balliol man) wrote to him later: As the years go on, I feel more than ever my indebtedness to you and Nettleship, as the two men who taught me not anything in particular, but everything.' 'Please do not think that my recollection of the Upper Vth at Clifton is too generous or in any way exaggerated—it is just the simple truth that you first

turned my eyes to the light (by the by, I first read that bit of Plato with you).'

It is worth remarking that though he would hurl denunciations at the head of a delinquent, Vaughan never indulged in that sarcasm which withers the sympathies and makes one feel small.

He saw much of individual pupils out of school hours, and treated them as friends and equals discussing the opinions of raw school-boys as if they were really worth something, and thereby both developing their intellectual independence and giving them a lesson in the truest courtesy. He used often to come to our house,' writes a Clifton boy, and I recall how on his first visit he seemed to my childish imagination the most gifted and beautiful of beings. When I sat for the first time in Va, I felt a sense of pride and exultation, and had sense enough to know that here was a spirit "touched to fine issues." He was an impassioned teacher, kindling quickly into flame at anything noble in literature or history, and into scorn and anger at all that was spurious and bad.... His Sunday breakfasts in Canynge Square were one of the joys of school life. I would gladly have watched him all the morning rolling his cigarettes, snapping his fingers at " Flip " (his fox terrier), and letting himself go in laughing comments on men and books and politics.' Often at the end of term he would take one or two boys for a walking tour, which opened out new sources of pleasure and interest and left lasting memories. He was fond of travelling, and paid many visits to Switzerland, Germany and Italy, and not a few of his pupils owed their first taste of that delightful experience to

him.

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During his time at Clifton, Vaughan published (in 1883 and 1884) in the now defunct British Quarterly Review, articles on two of his favourite authors-Victor Hugo and Robert Browning. Among his papers was found another article on Goethe and Victor Hugo, dating from about this time, which does not seem to have been printed. He was, however, already working at his History of Political Philosophy; and his literary output would probably have been greater but for the death in 1882 of Professor T. H. Green, and the work which consequently devolved on Vaughan as one of his executors. To a former pupil, who seems to have written to him professing weariness of life, he writes in 1887: The best pick-me-up which I can suggest, is that you should begin writing. I have always found that the surest refuge from boredom, so long as health holds out; a sure testimony to the natural vanity of man.'

About this time Vaughan himself was becoming restless. He was perhaps unduly sensitive to the moral atmosphere around him, and felt that he had lost the confidence of some of his colleagues. The circumstances are obscure, but a guess may be hazarded that