d them, could not help feeling
that great ideas, great prospects, a new outburst of bold thought, a new
effort of moral purpose and force, had disturbed the old routine; could
not help being fascinated, if only as by a spectacle, by the strange and
unwonted teaching, which partly made them smile, partly perhaps
permanently disgusted them, but which also, they could not deny, spoke
in a language more fearless, more pathetic, more subtle, and yet more
human, than they had heard from the religious teachers of the day. And
thus the circle of persons interested in the Tracts, of persons who
sympathised with their views, of persons who more and more gave a warm
and earnest adherence to them, was gradually extended in the
University--and, in time, in the country also. The truth was that the
movement, in its many sides, had almost monopolised for the time both
the intelligence and the highest religious earnestness of the
University,[60] and either in curiosity or inquiry, in approval or in
condemnation, all that was deepest and most vigorous, all that was most
refined, most serious, most high-toned, and most promising in Oxford was
drawn to the issues which it raised. It is hardly too much to say that
wherever men spoke seriously of the grounds and prospects of religion,
in Oxford, or in Vacation reading-parties, in their walks and social
meetings, in their studies or in common-room, the "Tractarian"
doctrines, whether assented to or laughed at, deplored or fiercely
denounced, were sure to come to the front. All subjects in discussion
seemed to lead up to them--art and poetry, Gothic architecture and
German romance and painting, the philosophy of language, and the novels
of Walter Scott and Miss Austen, Coleridge's transcendentalism and
Bishop Butler's practical wisdom, Plato's ideas and Aristotle's
analysis. It was difficult to keep them out of lecture-rooms and
examinations for Fellowships.

But in addition to the intrinsic interest of the questions and
discussions which the movement opened, personal influence played a great
and decisive part in it. As it became a party, it had chiefs. It was not
merely as leaders of thought but as teachers with their disciples, as
friends with friends, as witnesses and examples of high self-rule and
refined purity and goodness, that the chiefs whose names were in all
men's mouths won the hearts and trust of so many, in the crowds that
stood about them. Foremost, of course, ever since he had