most dauntless and most unshaken of
combatants, he faced his new antagonists with the same determination,
the same unshrinking sense of duty with which he had fought his old
ones. He used the high authority and influence which his position and
his character justly gave him, to resist or to control, as far as he
could, the sweeping changes which, while bringing new life into Oxford,
have done so much to break up her connection of centuries with the
Church. He boldly confronted the new spirit of denial and unbelief. He
wrote, he preached, he published, as he had done against other
adversaries, always with measured and dignified argument, but not
shrinking from plain-spoken severity of condemnation. Never sparing
himself labour when he thought duty called, he did not avail himself of
the privilege of advancing years to leave the war to be carried on by
younger champions.

It is impossible for those who may at times have found themselves most
strongly, and perhaps most painfully, opposed to him, not to admire and
revere one who, through so long a career has, in what he held to be his
duty to the Church and to religion, fought so hard, encountered such
troubles, given up so many friendships and so much ease, and who, while
a combatant to the last, undiscouraged by odds and sometimes by
ill-success, has brought to the weariness and disappointment of old age
an increasing gentleness and kindliness of spirit, which is one of the
rarest tokens and rewards of patient and genuine self-discipline. A man
who has set himself steadily and undismayed to stem and bring to reason
the two most powerful currents of conviction and feeling which have
agitated his times, leaves an impressive example of zeal and
fearlessness, even to those against whom he has contended. What is the
upshot which has come of these efforts, and whether the controversies
of the moment have not in his case, as in others, diverted and absorbed
faculties which might have been turned to calmer and more permanent
tasks, we do not inquire.

Perhaps a life of combat never does all that the combatant thinks it
ought to accomplish, or compensates for the sacrifices it entails. In
the case of the Provost of Oriel, he had, with all his great and noble
qualities, one remarkable want, which visibly impaired his influence
and his persuasiveness. He was out of sympathy with the rising
aspirations and tendencies of the time on the two opposite sides; he
was suspicious and impa