1873 Letter to William Gladstone

I venture to ask if you would take me into consideration when you dispose of the vacant canonry at Westminster. I ask because my literary work necessitates my being near the libraries, as many of the books I am obliged to consult are not producable by me. I have not been idle since you so kindly presented me to this living, for in the two years I have written ten volumes.


 * Talmudic Legends of the Old Testament Characters, 2 vols.


 * Lives of the Saints, 4 vols. Published and 6 written out of 13 that will complete the series


 * One Hundred Sermon Sketches for Extempore Preachers


 * Village Conferences on the Creed, (in the press).

Besides editing a quarterly review of Ecclesiastical Art "The Sacristy".

My ‘Lives of the Saints’ will occupy me two or three years more and will be, I really think, a useful contribution to Ecclesiastical history and biography. In addition I have been collecting for two other works I have in view, a History of the Hussite wars in Bohemia and a History of Anabaptism.

I have now to make at times a journey to London merely to verify a quotation and this takes up time and is expensive; I am twelve miles from a railway and with high tides cut off from the mainland occasionally.

I can promise that preferment will not make me idle, for I only seek it to enable me to get more among books and use my pen more nimbly