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Sit in the Vicar's seat: you'll hear

The doctrine of a gentle Johnian, Whose hand is white, whose tone is clear, Whose phrase is very Ciceronian.

He cherished a grateful recollection of the advantages he gained from his academic course at Cambridge, and his affection for his alma mater was shown in the spirited letter he addressed to a local journal when, a generation later, an attack was made upon the University by Mr. Beverley. "I can never," he says, "be sufficiently grateful for the benefits I received within those college walls; and to the last hour of my life I shall feel a deep sense of thankfulness to those tutors and authorities for the effects of that discipline and invaluable course of study which rescued me from ignorance, and infused an abiding thirst for knowledge, the means of intellectual enjoyment, and those habits and principles which have not only been an enduring source of personal gratification, but tended much to qualify me, from the period of my taking orders to the present day, for performing the duties of an extensive parish."

Having taken his B.A., he made a Continental tour, visiting Switzerland, Italy, Spain, and Portugal. On his return he was admitted to Holy Orders and ordained to the curacy of Windleshaw, in Surrey, where he remained for about three years, when the rectory of Alderley became vacant, by the resignation of the Rev. Ralph Carr, who had held it for the long period of forty-three years, the greater part of which time he had been non-resident. This was in 1805—the year in which he proceeded to his degree of M.A.—and he was then presented by his father to the vacant living and inducted November 15th.

Though little of his early life had been passed at Alderley, the place was endeared to him by many family associations, and from his first entering upon the ministerial office the ardent desire of his heart was to do something for the people, who, through the apathy and long continued absence of his predecessor, had been as sheep having no shepherd.

At that time the religious life of England was at a very low ebb; ministerial neglect was the rule rather than the exception, and the conduct of the clergy generally was not regulated by any very high standard of morality or excellence. Among the changes that have been wrought in our national institutions during the present century none have been more remarkable than those in the Church—not in its abstract constitution, but in the character and conduct of its ministers. The clerical "lights of other days" shone but dimly. Those who resided upon their benefices were content to spend their days in an easy hand-in-glove kind of association with their people, but seldom or never rose above the ordinary routine of the stated services of the Church. With the wise man they believed that "in much study is a weariness of the flesh," and to avoid that "weariness" they were wont to give more time to the foxes than to the Fathers. The typical clergyman of eighty years ago preferred conviviality to controversy; he was more concerned about his pigs than his preaching, and dreaded distemper in his herd a great deal more than he did dissent in his flock. Alderley was no exception to the general condition of the country, and many are the stories of clerical shortcomings that still linger in the memory of the older inhabitants. Rector Carr had made it his boast that he "never set a foot in a sick person's cottage," and it is related that when service was held in the church "the clerk used to go to the churchyard stile to see whether there were any more coming to church, for there were seldom enough to make a congregation."

A parish which had remained so long in a state of spiritual torpor presented many difficulties to a new comer filled with a desire to promote the well-being of his people, and whose creed was—

Of hope, and virtue, and affection full.

Surrounded by so much ignorance and indifference the enthusiasm of his fervent spirit was enkindled, and his ardent nature, combined with his strong sense of duty, acted as an incentive, and increased the desire to minister to the wants, both temporal and spiritual, of his flock, and faithfully to fulfil the sacred trust committed to him in his parochial cure. But those among whom he was called to minister were untaught in the first rudiments of the Christian faith, and upon ground so unprepared it was clear that the seed of the Word read and preached in the church, and the services of the liturgy, however reverently said or sung, could profit little, and that it was only by clothing his thoughts in language suited to their capacity—by giving in the plainest words such simple instruction as should touch their hearts, and by a kindly sympathy in all their concerns that he could hope to become "a father and a leader" to his hitherto neglected parishioners, and sustain among them a higher standard of conduct than was then common among an agricultural population. To be, in short—

A pastor such as Chaucer's verse portrays;

Such as the heaven-taught skill of Herbert drew;

And tender Goldsmith crown'd with deathless praise.

With him duty seemed to be a delight, and piety an instinct; though among the indolent, easy-going divines of the old school, in whom the true liturgical teaching of the Church had withered down into a mere lifeless form, his unwearying devotion to the charge committed to his care was looked upon as only the fervid zeal of an enthusiastic visionary.

Edward Stanley had nearly completed his twenty-seventh year when he entered upon his ministry at Alderley. In his twenty-ninth year he became engaged to the lady who may with truth be said to have been the sunshine of his heart, who took an unfailing interest and pride in his labours, and who was his constant stay and support through life—Catherine Leycester, the eldest of the two daughters of the Rev. Oswald Leycester, at the time rector of Stoke-upon-Terne, but who, in Edward Stanley's boyhood, had been curate of Alderley, a position he resigned on being presented by his brother, George Leycester, to the living of the neighbouring church of Knutsford. They were married in 1810, as Maria Leycester in her family notes, transcribed in "Memorials of a Quiet Life," thus records: "On the 8th of May, 1810, my sister was married in Stoke Church, to Edward Stanley, Rector of Alderley. Upon her marriage I left Leighton Cottage, and until my mother's death I remained at home. My father gave me lessons in—it must be confessed—bad French and Italian, but it was my sister who still directed my studies by letter, constantly sending me questions on the books which I read, and expecting me to write her the answers.... Edward Stanley was to me the kindest of brothers, and great was the amusement he gave by the playful verses he wrote to please me."

The Leycesters of Toft, of which house Oswald Leycester was a younger son, were an offshoot of the Leycesters of Tabley, now represented by Lord de Tabley. The family held high rank among the Cheshire squirearchy, and between them and the Stanleys a friendship had long existed, the intimacy being increased by near neighbourship, for Toft, their ancestral home—a charmingly situated manor-house, where, before his removal to Stoke, Oswald Leycester resided with his widowed mother—was only a few miles distant, and a continuous intercourse was kept up between the two families. "My great delight," wrote Maria Leycester, "was to go to Alderley Park and play with the 'Miss Stanleys;' and it was a joy when, standing by the breakfast table, I heard it settled that the carriage was to be ordered to go to Alderley, and that I was to be of the party." The Leycesters could boast a lineage as ancient as that of the Stanleys, and through the Tofts, whose estates they had acquired by marriage with a heiress of that family in the reign of Richard II., were able to trace their descent from Gunnora, Duchess of Normandy, the grandmother of William the Conqueror.

Edward Stanley was approaching his thirty-second year at the time of his marriage—his wife had then just passed her nineteenth birthday. But, young as she was, she had, owing to the delicate health of her mother, been taught, almost from the time of leaving school, to think and act for herself, and had had moreover the responsibility cast upon her of educating her younger sister, Maria Leycester. "Hers was a porcelain understanding," said Sydney Smith; her journal and the letters written in her earlier life give a true reflex of her mind, and justify the remark of her son that "there was a quiet wisdom, a rare usefulness, a calm discrimination, a firm decision, which made her judgment and her influence felt through the whole circle in which she lived."

To the old rectory house at Alderley, Edward Stanley took his bride, and in that happy home five children were brought up. Of the every-day life in that household we get many pleasant glimpses in the journal of Maria Leycester, to which reference has already been made. She writes upon one occasion:—

We live here (Alderley Rectory) in such perfect retirement and tranquillity that it is more like Stoke than Alderley, and I enjoy excessively the exemption from all interruption to the happiness of my life here. I believe you will not have any difficulty in imagining how great that happiness is, in the society of two people that one loves excessively, with children that are as interesting to one as if they were one's own, and with all the luxury of delicious spring weather (this was written May 10, 1819) in beech woods and green fields. I would defy you to tantalise me with the greatest temptations London could offer; as far as happiness, real true happiness is concerned, nothing in London could present to me half as much as one perfectly retired uninterrupted day at Alderley.

In one of her letters to Miss Clinton, written from Stoke Rectory in the early summer of 1825, she says:—

That I have not written to you before you will easily understand to have arisen from my unwillingness to lose a single hour of my last days at Alderley. They were indeed very precious to me, and after staying there for four months uninterruptedly you may well imagine how painful it was to me to leave all those who were more than usually endeared to me by the comfort they had offered me during a time when nothing else could have pleased or interested. Certainly, too, altogether, with its inhabitants, its abundance of books, of drawing, liberty unrestrained, beautiful walks and rides and seats, luxuriance of flowers, and, in delicious weather, there cannot on earth be so perfect a paradise. During the hot weather we generally went on the mere—or rode in the evenings. Every morning, before breakfast, Lucy and I met in the wood at the old Moss House, where we spent an hour together, and Owen (Edward Stanley's eldest son) came to ferry me home. With so much around to interest and please me, I put away self as much as possible, and endeavoured as much as I could to enjoy the present. You know how dearly I love all those children, and it was such a pleasure to see them all so happy together. To be sure it would be singular if they were not different from other children, with the advantages they have, when education is made so interesting and amusing as it is to them.... While others of their age are plodding through the dull histories, of which they remember nothing, of unconnected countries and ages, K.'s (Katharine Stanley's) system is to take one particular era, perhaps, and upon the basis of the General History, pick out for them from different books all that bears upon that one subject, whether in memoirs or literature, making it at once an interesting study to herself and them.

The old rectory house at Alderley was not the home of the parson only—it was, in a sense, the home of the parish, and became the resort of all who were in trouble or difficulty, or who needed counsel or assistance. The house was, as it were, thrown open, and every one knew that in it they had a friend ready to listen to their little grievances, and equally ready to remedy them where it was in his power to do so—one who could "weep with them that wept, and rejoice with them that rejoiced"—who had a kindly sympathy in all their concerns, and could enter into their interests with the feelings of a father and a friend. The good man's delight in ministering to the temporal comforts of his people was extreme, and he took an especial pleasure in drawing them around him, in order that he might turn any passing circumstance to profitable account, and speak to them more familiarly and more directly upon matters connected with the parish that might be commented upon or set right. He preferred kneeling by the sick bed in a cottage to the cushioned ease of a mansion, and a serious conversation with the poor to the small talk of the drawing-room. It was this feature in his ministerial career that left a never-fading recollection in the minds of those he ministered to, and many a good deed done in secret only came to light when he was removed to another sphere of duty, and but for that removal would probably never have been disclosed. Mounted upon his little black cob, he might be seen daily going his rounds among his parishioners, advising them in their difficulties, comforting them in their sorrows, and encouraging or reproving them as he saw occasion. The sound of his horse's feet was as music in the ears of the rustic cottagers, who would hasten to their doors to greet his approach, while their children, with bobbing courtesies, would stand in eager expectation of the "goodies" that were sure to be the reward of those who were clean and tidy. "When he entered a sick chamber," it was said, "he never failed to express the joy which order and neatness gave him, or to reprove where he found it otherwise," and whatever was proposed for the general good was sure to receive his active support; he took so much trouble, the people said, in whatever he did—never sparing himself in whatever he took in hand. He felt that he was in a measure a temporal as well as a spiritual guide, a leader and encourager of sobriety, good order, and peacefulness, as well as a teacher of sound doctrine and an example of Christian practice, and that his mission was rather to raise the rude and uncultivated to his own level than to lower himself to theirs.

In those days pastoral life was not so charmingly innocent, nor the Colins and Phœbes nearly so amiable and virtuous, as imaginative poets and painters have pictured them to us. In Alderley, as in many other places, drunkenness was the besetting sin; immorality, as a matter of course, followed in its train; and what should have been a kind of Arcadia was oftentimes the scene of riotous disorder. The good rector spared no pains to repress the evil, and whenever he heard of any drunken fight in the village he would, with the dash and daring of an English sailor, hurry off to put a stop to it. It is related that on one occasion word was brought to him that a riotous crowd had assembled on the confines of his parish to witness a desperate prize fight. "The whole field," so a rustic spectator described it, "was filled, and all the trees round about, when in about a quarter of an hour I saw the rector coming up the road on his little black horse as quick as lightning, and I trembled for fear they should harm him. He rode into the field, and just looked quick round (as if he thought the same) to see who there was that would be on his side. But it was not needed—he rode into the midst of the crowd, and in one moment it was all over; there was a great calm; the blows stopped; it was as if they would all have wished to cover themselves up in the earth—all from the trees they dropped down directly—no one said a word, and all went away humble." The following day he sent for the two men, but instead of scolding he reasoned with them, and sent each away with a Bible in his hand.

He was the centre from which whatever there was of spiritual life in the parish emanated. Self-reliant, resolute and unwearied, but kind and conciliatory, and withal cautious and discreet in his operations, he exhibited a thoroughness of character that enabled him to exercise a controlling influence over his charge, and his self-devotedness was often gladdened by the sympathy and encouraged by the affection of those whom he had won from the slavery of sin to the freedom of Christian life. When he settled down with his young wife among the scattered units that in the aggregate constituted his flock, he found them for the most part sunk in ignorance, mental and moral; and the parents, indifferent themselves, had allowed their children to grow up in the same indifference. To reclaim the young, he set about gathering them into the village schools, in the successful working of which he ever manifested the deepest interest. Public elementary education had then made but little progress, and the proverbial three R's, with perhaps a dash of unintelligible geography and history, made up the total of the knowledge usually imparted. Edward Stanley was far in advance of many of his clerical brethren in the desire to place the means of instruction within the reach of even the poorest classes of society, as well as to improve the methods of conveying it; and his zeal in this direction has been testified to by a former Chancellor of the diocese of Chester, the Rev. Henry Raikes.

"He was the first," said the Chancellor, "who distinctly saw and boldly advocated the advantages of general education for the lower classes. Schools had been founded; he had borne his part—and a most active part—in the first movement, but I think that he first set the example of the extent to which general knowledge might be communicated—and beneficially communicated—in a parochial school. I well remember the appearance," he says, "of the school at Alderley, where, in addition to the usual range of desks and books, the apparatus for gymnastic exercises was seen suspended from the roof. I remember the admiration excited at a lecture which he delivered in Chester, where he exhibited a 'hortus siccus' of the plants found in the parish, made by one of the girls in the school; and, though few or none did more than wonder at what was accomplished at Alderley, an impression was created that a large amount of useful secular knowledge might be added without any deduction from what would be considered the proper objects of a school."

His love of learning manifested itself in other ways. When half a century ago the British Association had sprung into existence, causing a flutter among Church dignitaries, who failed to see that Christianity had everything to hope and nothing to fear from the advancement of science, and very reverend deans were addressing letters of remonstrance to its promoters on the "Dangers of Peripatetic Philosophy," Edward Stanley courageously came forward as its advocate, and was enrolled as one of its early vice-presidents. A one-sided development of the mind was then the characteristic of the older universities, and men often-times left college without a single idea concerning the common things of every-day life or the slightest knowledge of any of God's works. The rector of Alderley was in many respects self-educated; dependent in a great measure upon his own resources, he had discovered that dead literature could not be made the parent of living science or active industry, and was one of the first clergymen to direct popular attention to the wondrous history of the stones of the field, the birds of the air, and the "gnats above the summer stream." "The perversions of men," he was wont to say, "would have made an infidel of him but for the counteracting impressions of Divine Providence in the works of nature." Like Gilbert White, at Selborne, he devoted much of his leisure in noting the instincts of animals and the phenomena of ever-changing nature. Ornithology was his favourite subject of study, and the staircases and corridors of his rectory house, adorned as they were with cuttings from "Bewick," bore testimony to his love of birds, while their habits and peculiarities formed a constant source of interest and amusement to him in his rambles through the fields and along the rural lanes of his parish. The result of his labours he embodied in a pleasantly-written work, published by the Christian Knowledge Society—"A Familiar History of Birds: their Nature, Habits, and Instincts"—a work that has passed through several editions—in which are recorded many of the observations made at Alderley.

On the 13th of June, 1811, the rector's heart was gladdened by the birth of a son, who, in compliment to his grandmother, was named Owen. Owen Stanley inherited his father's passionate desire for the naval profession, and the wish was indulged from a recollection of the painful effort it cost the father in his boyhood to overcome the same impulse. Another child, a daughter, was born on the 14th December, 1813, Mary Stanley, and his happiness was added to by the birth of a second son, on the 13th December, 1815—Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, the future Dean of Westminster. Of the home life in the pleasant old parsonage house many glimpses are given us in that tribute of filial affection from the pen of Arthur Penrhyn Stanley to which reference has previously been made, as well as in that delightful chronicle of English domestic life—its comfort, its quiet, and its innocence, written by Arthur Stanley's kinsman—"Memorials of a Quiet Life." Writing to her sister in May, 1818, Mrs. Stanley remarks:—

How I have enjoyed these fine days—and one's pleasure is doubled, or rather, I should say, trebled, in the enjoyment of the three little children basking in the sunshine on the lawns, and picking up daisies, and finding new flowers every day—and in seeing Arthur expand like one of the flowers in the fine weather. Owen trots away to school at nine o'clock every morning, with his Latin grammar under his arm, leaving Mary (his sister) with strict charge to unfurl his flag, which he leaves carefully furled, through the little Gothic gate, as soon as the clock strikes twelve. So Mary unfurls the flag and then watches till Owen comes in sight, and as soon as he spies her signal he sets off full gallop towards it, and Mary creeps through the gate to meet him, and then comes with as much joy to announce Owen's being come back as if he was returned from the North Pole. Meanwhile I am sitting with the doors open into the trellice, so that I can see and hear all that passes.

Two years later the fond mother writes:—

I have been taking a domestic walk with the three children and the pony to Owen's favourite cavern, Mary and Arthur taking it in turns to ride. Arthur was sorely puzzled between his fear and his curiosity. Owen and Mary, full of adventurous spirit, went with Mademoiselle to explore. Arthur stayed with me and the pony, but when I said I would go, he said, colouring, he would go, he thought. "But, mamma, do you think there are any wild dogs in the cavern?" Then we picked up various specimens of cobalt, &c., and we carried them in a basket, and we called at Mrs. Barber's, and we got some string, and we tied the basket to the pony with some trouble, and we got home very safe, and I finished the delights of the evening by reading Paul and Virginia to Owen and Mary, with which they were much delighted and so was I. You would have given a good deal for a peep at Arthur this evening, making hay with all his little strength—such a beautiful colour, and such soft animation in his blue eyes.

Among the letters of Mrs. Stanley is one that has more than a local or domestic interest. She was one of the spectators on the occasion of the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester railway on that memorable 15th September, 1830, when the Duke of Wellington, who was then Prime Minister, came down to preside at the ceremony, and poor William Huskisson, who had been such a strenuous and eager supporter of the enterprise, met his death. After a vivid account of the scene and the incident that gave such a mournful interest to it, she describes a visit she made a year or two after to High Legh. She says:—

We are a party of twenty-six in the house. There are so many that one's presence or absence is perfectly immaterial and unremarked. There is one person who interests me very much—Mrs. Tom Blackburne, "the Vicaress" of Eccles, who received poor Mrs. Huskisson, and immortalised herself by her activity, sense, and conduct all through. She made one ashamed of the ease and idleness of one's own life, compared with hers. They have to deal with such a population—25,000 souls. She has been the ruling spirit evidently; and under her guidance, and the help of a sound head and heart her husband has become the very man for the place, with quickness and presence of mind for any sudden emergency: and she describes the people—all Manchester weavers—as grateful and sensitive, far beyond our agricultural experience. He is in general at home to parishioners from 8 till 12 and from 4 to 6 every day, and often fully occupied all the time; but during the four days Mrs. Huskisson was in the house, none of them entered the gates. She asked afterwards why it was, and one of them said, "Eh, we knowed what you were at, and so we did without."

I made her give me the details of those days. She said the most painful thing she had to do was waking Mrs. Huskisson out of her sound heavy sleep the morning after. She went three times into the room before she had resolution to wake her outright, as was necessary. Mrs. H. went into the most violent hysterics the moment she opened her eyes and saw Mrs. Blackburne. Lord Granville, hearing her screams, came to Mrs. Blackburne's assistance. He and his valet were her chief assistants all through. She said the advantage of having such people to deal with was great. Many would have thought it an additional trouble to have great people in such circumstances—she found it just the reverse; the high breeding and true gentlemanliness that come out smooths over every difficulty and awkwardness of strangers in such close quarters. Lord Granville, in particular, entered into every feeling with a woman's delicacy. Poor Mrs. Huskisson was alternately in paroxysms of grief and a still more dreadful calmness, especially the day after, when it was wished to relieve her of all business, and she insisted on doing everything herself.

Just before she left the house, she locked herself into the room, and after violent hysterics, during which Mrs. Blackburne tried in vain to get to her assistance, she heard her praying for her and her husband, and all connected with them.

She desired Mrs. Blackburne to remember her to Lady Elizabeth Belgrave, and to hope she had not suffered from the shock (she was near her confinement). "What should I have felt if you had been in her situation?" This she said to Mrs. Blackburne, who was at the moment within three months of her time. Of course Mrs. Blackburne said nothing, but wrote to her after her confinement, and Mrs. Huskisson answered her that it was the first ray of sunshine that had come to her, for she had afterwards found it out, and it had weighed heavily upon her.

Some months afterwards she sent Mr. Blackburne a Bible with gold clasps, and in the purple silk lining inside, these words in gilt letters:—"I was a stranger and ye took me in." Both last Christmas and this she sent also £20 to him to distribute amongst his poor, well knowing that she could not make him a more acceptable present.

For thirty-two years Edward Stanley continued to minister to the wants—temporal as well as spiritual—of the population of his pleasant little rural parish, looked up to by the cottage as a father and a friend, and endeared to all by his earnestness, his simplicity, and his geniality; his faithful coadjutor during the whole of that long period being the Rev. Isaac Bell, his curate, the father of the present worthy rector of Alderley, the Rev. Edward John Bell. For a time (1824 to 1829) he enjoyed the friendly co-operation of the rector of the adjoining parish of Wilmslow—the Rev. J. Mathias Turner,[10] who afterwards became Bishop of Calcutta, and many were the schemes of parochial improvement then formed, and which, doubtless, afterwards influenced in no small degree the Church work in the dioceses to which the two rectors were respectively appointed. Stanley could never find happiness in repose; his intervals of leisure, as we have said, were mainly devoted to the study of ornithology, but he also found time for literary pursuits. In addition to the pamphlets which he issued from time to time in the form of addresses to his people—"A Few Words on behalf of our Roman Catholic Brethren," "A Few Observations on Religion and Education in Ireland," and "A Country Rector's Address to his Parishioners"—he contributed to the "British Magazine," to "Blackwood," and to other periodicals, the results of his studies and the records of his brief holiday excursions; one of these latter, an account of an adventure in the Alps, on the "Mauvais Pas," is believed to have suggested to Sir Walter Scott the opening scene in his novel of "Anne of Geierstein." Among the results of his scientific and antiquarian investigations is a history of the parish of Alderley, still preserved in MS., which it is hoped will at no distant day be given to the world.

But the time came when the literary occupations and the scientific investigations with which he had so pleasantly beguiled his leisure hours at Alderley were to be laid aside—when he was to be wrenched out of his rural surroundings to undertake the episcopal supervision of an important diocese. When it was proposed to erect Manchester into a see the rector of Alderley declined the invitation to become its first bishop, but in 1837, at the instance of the then Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, he was, after much deliberation and a severe struggle which almost broke down his health, induced to accept the nomination to the bishopric of Norwich. To leave the quiet, peaceful parsonage where so many happy years had been passed, and where all his children had been born and reared—to part from those among whom he had so long laboured—was a sore trial, and the news of the preferment which was to sever the tie that had so long bound pastor and people was received by the parishioners amidst an uncontrollable outburst of grief.

It is not our purpose to dwell at any length upon the labours of Edward Stanley as a bishop of the Church of England; suffice it to say that on leaving Alderley, where so many years of his useful life had been spent, and which was endeared to him by so many ties of affection and sympathy, he turned with alacrity to the work which lay before him, and with the same spirit of energy, and the same dauntless courage, applied himself to the development of those schemes of practical usefulness that lay within his grasp, in order that his cathedral city might become the centre of the moral and religious life of the diocese. Broad in his sympathies, courageous in his outspeaking, and impetuous in his temperament, he oftentimes brought himself in conflict with those who were content with things as they had been, and in the earlier years of his episcopate he found his diocese anything but a bed of roses, for during the closing years of the long rule of his predecessor, Bishop Bathurst, Norwich had been a byword for laxity among the sees of the English Church, a condition of things the new prelate could not endure. Stanley's whole life had been a protest against the lethargy and inactivity which was then only too common a characteristic of the clergy, yet his broad liberality, his fatherly sympathy, and his geniality and simplicity enabled him, while correcting abuses, always to leave peace behind. His personal kindness won the hearts of the clergy of his diocese as thoroughly as it had previously won those of the cottagers in his parish. "I felt," said one of them, after a visit from the bishop, "as if a sunbeam had passed through my parish, and had left me to rejoice in its genial and cheerful warmth. From that day I would have died to serve him; and I believe that not a few of my humble flock were animated in a greater or less degree by the same kind of feeling."

Amid the cares inseparable from the active supervision of an important diocese, he never forgot his old parish of Alderley, and his attachment for the scene of his early labours continued unshaken. "It would be vain and useless," he said, on commencing his primary visitation, "to speak to others of what none could feel so deeply as myself. What it cost me to leave Alderley, it is for myself alone to feel." On parting with his parishioners he had given a sacred pledge that he would visit them every year, and the annual recurrence of the time when he could again make the familiar round of visits to those he had known and loved during his long ministerial intercourse, and who themselves looked forward to his coming as the greatest pleasure of their lives, was anticipated with fond delight. "I have been," he wrote to a friend, a few months before his death, "in various directions over the parish, visiting many welcome faces, laughing with the living, weeping over the dying. It is gratifying to see the cordial familiarity with which they receive me; and Norwich clergy would scarcely know me sitting by cottage firesides, talking over old times, with their hands clasped in mine, as an old and dear friend."

On the last day of December, 1848, the eve of his seventieth birthday, he wrote in his Journal:—

In a few hours I shall have attained the threescore years and ten and closed the eleventh year of my episcopal life ... and though these latter years have been accompanied with much labour and pain and sorrow, more and more alive as I am to the difficulties presenting themselves, still I feel satisfaction in what I have been instrumental in doing. How many parishes have been supplied with resident clergy, in which no pastoral care had been for years manifested? How many churches have had the full measure of services prescribed, in which from time immemorial the most scanty administration had sufficed? And how many schools have been established for the benefit of the thousands who had been, with the most culpable negligence, permitted to remain brutalised and uncivilised and perishing for lack of knowledge?

Before another year had passed away, the good prelate was numbered among those who "fell asleep and were laid unto their fathers." During the summer the state of his health had been such as to cause anxiety to his family; his overtaxed faculties needed rest, and, after an ordination at Norwich, he was induced to start with his wife and daughters on a short tour in Scotland. While at Brahan Castle, in Ross-shire, a change for the worse occurred; this was on the 3rd of September; on the following day he rallied a little, and expressed a desire to go down to the warm sunshine of the bright autumnal morning which lay on the greensward under his window, and rose to attempt it, but the effort was more than his strength would bear, and he sank down upon the bed never in life to rise again. For two days the struggle with nature continued, and on the evening of the 6th, in the presence of his wife and daughters and his son, Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, calmly and unconsciously, as if in a dream, he passed into his rest.

In life he had expressed a desire to be buried in the churchyard of Alderley, among those with whom he had so long lived, unless that "circumstances and the wishes and judgment" of those on whom he most confided "might decide upon the spot which had been the last scene of his ministerial labours." Their decision was that he should rest within the precincts of his own cathedral; and there, on the 21st of September, his remains were interred, a vast multitude attending to pay the last tribute of respect to his memory. "I can give you the facts," wrote one who was present, "but I can give you no notion of how impressive it was, nor how affecting. There were such sobs and tears from the school children, and from the clergy who so loved their dear bishop. A beautiful sunshine lit up everything, shining into the cathedral just at the time. Arthur was quite calm, and looked like an angel, with a sister on each side."

In the centre of the nave of Norwich Cathedral, where the warm rays of the setting sun as they steal through the great west window which he had desired should be restored as a memorial of him, dye the pavement with rainbow hues, a plain black marble tablet marks the spot where his ashes lie. It is inscribed:—

Installed Aug. 17, 1837

——

Born Jan. 1, 1779.

——

In the faith of Christ

Here rests from his labours

Edward Stanley

32 years Rector of Alderley,

12 years Bishop of Norwich;

Buried amidst the mourning

of the diocese which he had animated,

the city which he had served,

the poor whom he had visited,

the schools which he had fostered,

the family which he had loved,

and of all Christian people

with whom, howsoever divided, he had joined

in whatever things were true, and honest,

and just, and pure,

and lovely, and of good report.

——

Died Sept. 6, 1849, aged 70.

——

Interred Sept. 21, 1849

While the solemn sound from the great bell-tower of the cathedral announced to the citizens of Norwich that the mortal frame of him who had won the hearts of all sorts and conditions of men was being committed to the tomb, a mournful knell echoed from the grey tower of the quiet old church of Alderley, cleaving the silent air with its funereal tone—the tongue of death with mournful accents laden—conveying

A message to the living from the dead

that awoke a feeling of sorrow as touching and unfeigned as that more openly manifested at Norwich; for though twelve years had gone by since Edward Stanley had been withdrawn from the parish, and many changes had taken place, the feeling of affection which had gathered round him during the thirty-two years of his ministry was fresh and green in the hearts of the people, and the tidings of his death were received with a burst of grief that was all the more affecting from the simple language in which it found utterance; a sorrowful gloom spread over the parish, many a cottage was darkened, and many an eye was dimmed with tears at the consciousness that the same hand which had deprived the Church of one of her worthiest sons had reft them of a sincere and devoted friend. When the bishop's papers came to be examined, it was found he had not forgotten those who held him in such loving regard. Among the documents were two addresses, one to the parishioners and the other to the school children of Alderley, with a request that a copy of each might be sent to every house in the parish.

Bishop Stanley was spared one affliction. His youngest son, Charles Edward Stanley, who had entered the service of the Royal Engineers, and was afterwards appointed private secretary to Sir William Denison, Governor of Van Diemen's Land, was suddenly cut off by fever at his official post in Tasmania on the 13th of August, 1849. The news had not reached England at the time of the prelate's decease, and it was not until December that the widowed mother became acquainted with the fact of her son's death. To add to her sorrow, intelligence was received in the course of the following summer that the eldest son, Captain Owen Stanley, had been found dead in his cabin on board ship at Sydney, a few days after receiving the tidings of his father's and his brother's death. The two brothers remain in those distant regions, one in St. George's churchyard, Hobart Town; the other in a secluded spot in the graveyard of St. Leonard's, which Owen Stanley had chosen as his resting-place in the event of his dying in Australia.

Thus, of the three sons of Edward Stanley, only one survived to be a stay and comfort to the widowed mother—Arthur Penhryn Stanley, the profound scholar and the earnest and fearless thinker, who afterwards became Dean of Westminster. Born and brought up in his father's rectory, he to the last retained an affectionate interest in the place where his boyhood was passed; when he had attained to manhood he was in the habit of regularly visiting his old nurse, Ellen Baskerville, and when she died, only a few years ago, he came down from Westminster to read the burial service over her body.

A brief notice of Arthur Stanley's early days may fittingly conclude our notice of Alderley and the Stanleys. The letters already quoted have given us a side glance into the happy home in which his boyhood was passed. Unlike his brothers, who were strong, robust, and full of spirit and adventure, the little Arthur was weak and delicate, thoughtful and reserved in his manner, with a shyness in his disposition that caused him to shun the companionship of other boys of his own age. Mrs. Stanley's happy method of imparting instruction had awakened in his young mind a passion for poetry and romance, and his imagination was stirred by the many weird legends and quaint traditions that gathered around the neighbourhood of his home, and which, though now fast dying from the memories of the inhabitants, were then implicitly believed. His ideas frequently found vent in rhyme, and at the early age of twelve he is said to have written some verses on the occasion of his watching the sun rise from the tower of Alderley church. When nine years of age he was sent to a private school at Seaforth, near Liverpool. Twelve months after his aunt, Maria Leycester, who was on a visit at his father's rectory, wrote to one of the family:—

July, 1825.—You know how dearly I love all these children and it has been such a pleasure to see them all so happy together. Owen, the hero upon whom all their little eyes were fixed, and the delicate Arthur, able to take his own share of boyish amusements with them, and telling out his little store of literary wonders to Charlie and Catherine. School has not transformed him into a rough boy yet. He is a little less shy, but not much. He brought back from school a beautiful prize book for history, of which he is not a little proud; and Mr. Rawson has told several people, unconnected with the Stanleys, that he never had a more amiable, attentive, or clever boy than Arthur Stanley, and that he never has had to find fault with him since he came. My sister finds in examining him, that he not only knows what he has learnt himself, but that he picks up all the knowledge gained by the other boys in their lessons, and can tell what each boy in the school has read, &c. His delight in reading Madoc and Thalaba is excessive.

Again, writing from her father's rectory at Stoke-upon-Terne, under date August 26, 1826, Maria Leycester remarks:—

My Alderley children are more interesting than ever. Arthur is giving Mary quite a literary taste, and is the greatest advantage to her possible, for they are now quite inseparable companions, reading, drawing, and writing together. Arthur has written a poem on the Life of a Peacock Butterfly in the Spenserian stanza, with all the old words, with references to Chaucer, &c., at the bottom of the page.... I never saw anything equal to Arthur's memory and quickness in picking up knowledge; seeming to have just the sort of intuitive sense of everything relating to books that Owen had in ships—and then there is such affection and sweetness of disposition in him.... You will not be tired of all this detail of those so near my heart. It is always such a pleasure to me to write of the rectory, and I can always do it better when I am away from it and it rises before my mental vision.

At the age of thirteen, that is in 1828, Arthur Stanley had his first experience of foreign travel, having in that year accompanied his parents and some other relatives in a tour to Bordeaux and the Pyrenees. The sight of the snow-tipped peaks rising above the masses of cloud filled his mind with wonder, and in a thrill of childish delight he exclaimed, "What shall I do? What shall I do?" In the spring of the following year he was sent to Rugby, where Dr. Arnold had, only a few months before, been appointed to the head-mastership. It was an anxious time for all at the rectory, for the weak, timid, bashful boy, accustomed only to the peaceful seclusion of his native village and the quietude of the private school at Seaforth, was but ill-fitted to cope with the active, strong-limbed youths he would be sure to encounter in a large public school, where might oftentimes takes the place of right, to say nothing of the terrors of prepostors and fagging. Under the judicious training of Dr. Arnold, however, his native diffidence was in a great degree overcome; he began to take his part in the manly exercises in which all Rugbeians were expected to perfect themselves, and made for himself many friends, among them being one who in after life became associated with him by closer ties—the Rev. Charles J. Vaughan, D.D., Master of the Temple, who in 1850 married his youngest sister, Catherine Maria Stanley. We get a glimpse of him during his school life from one of his mother's letters written in February, 1831. She says:—

Charlie writes word from school, "I am very miserable, not that I want anything, except to be at home." Arthur does not mind going half so much. He says he does not know why, but all the boys seem fond of him, and he never gets plagued in any way like the others; his study is left untouched, his things unbroke, his books undisturbed. Charlie is so fond of him and deservedly so. You would have been so pleased one night, when Charlie all of a sudden burst into violent distress at not having finished his French task for the holydays, by Arthur's judicious good nature in showing him how to help himself, entirely leaving what he was about of his own employment.

From a child he had manifested a tender spirit of piety, and it is related on good authority that he was the original Arthur who won the heart of Tom Brown at Rugby, by kneeling down at his little bed in the presence of a rough crowd of boys, and saying his prayers before retiring, the practical effect of which was that several of his schoolfellows who from shame had given up all habit of prayer were emboldened to begin the practice again.

For five years Arthur Stanley was the favourite pupil of Dr. Arnold, but the friendship then formed continued until the great schoolmaster's sudden and memorable death on the eve of his birthday in 1842. In 1834 Stanley entered at University College, Oxford, and was elected a scholar on that foundation in 1837, the year in which his father removed from Alderley to Norwich. On the 7th of June in the same year he recited in the Sheldonian Theatre his Newdegate prize poem, "The gipsies;" his father was a listener, and when he beheld the tumult of applause with which it was received, he burst into tears. In the following year he graduated B.A.; shortly after he proceeded to the higher degree of M.A., and in the Autumn of 1839 was ordained.

It does not come within the scope of this brief sketch to relate in detail his progress at the University, or his career as a divine of the Church of England—they are familiar to everyone. As was truly remarked in a sermon preached in the old church of Alderley by the present rector on the occasion of his death, he "combined in a singular degree not only the excellences of his father and the virtues of his accomplished mother, but he inherited also their combined intellects. It was not, however, so much his high and refined intellect or his graphic writings which endeared him to those who knew him, as the more genial and gentle virtues of his private life." He had the widest sympathies, and he manifested them with remarkable tact and delicacy; indeed, the great work of his life seemed not so much the writing of books or the preaching of sermons as the broadening of the foundations of Christian charity, and the furthering of a spirit of Christian union. Few men were less influenced by theological dogma. He was always ready to draw moral lessons from Christian doctrines, but it is doubtful if he had any very definite conception regarding those doctrines, or subjected them to any serious sifting. It was this loose hold on theology—this indifferentism in regard to inspiration that, while it made him popular among laymen, created a feeling of irritation among those of his brethren who had definite ideas on the most momentous of subjects. To him such questions served mainly as a background to a high morality and wide charity.