Origines Liturgicae_, published at
the University Press in 1832. It was a book to give a man authority with
divines and scholars; and among those with whom at this time he acted no
one had so compact and defensible a theory, even if it was somewhat
rigid and technical, of the peculiar constitution of the English Church
as Mr. Palmer. With the deepest belief in this theory, he saw great
dangers threatening, partly from general ignorance and looseness of
thought, partly from antagonistic ideas and principles only too
distinct and too popular; and he threw all his learning and zeal on the
side of those who, like himself, were alive to those dangers, and were
prepared for a great effort to counteract them.

The little company which met at Hadleigh Rectory, from 25th to 29th July
1833, met--as other knots of men have often met, to discuss a question
or a policy, or to found an association, or a league, or a newspaper--to
lay down the outlines of some practical scheme of work; but with little
foresight of the venture they were making, or of the momentous issues
which depended on their meeting. Later on, when controversy began, it
became a favourite rhetorical device to call it by the ugly name of a
"conspiracy." Certainly Froude called it so, and Mr. Palmer; and Mr.
Perceval wrote a narrative to answer the charge. It was a "conspiracy,"
as any other meeting would be of men with an object which other men
dislike.

Of the Oriel men, only Froude went to Hadleigh. Keble and Newman were
both absent, but in close correspondence with the others. Their plans
had not taken any definite shape; but they were ready for any sacrifice
and service, and they were filled with wrath against the insolence of
those who thought that the Church was given over into their hands, and
against the apathy and cowardice of those who let her enemies have their
way. Yet with much impatience and many stern determinations in their
hearts, they were all of them men to be swayed by the judgment and
experience of their friends.

The state of mind under which the four friends met at the Hadleigh
conference has been very distinctly and deliberately recorded by all of
them. Churchmen in our days hardly realise what the face of things then
looked like to men who, if they felt deeply, were no mere fanatics or
alarmists, but sober and sagacious observers, not affected by mere
cries, but seeing dearly beneath the surface of things their certain and
powerful tendenc