Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 3.djvu/341

 lecture as regius professor early in 1859. It was an eloquent and temperate plea for widening the old curriculum. Here, as in nearly all his subsequent public professorial lectures, his aim was to stimulate the thought and ethical sense of his hearers rather than to teach history in any formal way. His elevated intellectual temper broadened his pupils' outlook while his political fervour won adherents to his opinions. In private classes he was suggestive in comment, but he failed to encourage research, for which he had small liking or faculty. Controversy was for him inevitable, and he did not confine his controversial energy to the domain of history. In an early public lectnre on the ’Study of History' he somewhat ironically imputed an agnostic tendency to H. L. Mansel's metaphysical Bampton lectures of 1858. Mansel complained of misrepresentation, and Smith retorted, with a thinly veiled sceptical intention, in 'Rational Religion and the Rationalistic Objections of the Bampton Lecturer of 1858.' With Bishop Wilberforce he was even in smaller sympathy than with Mansel. In 'The Suppression of Doubt is not Faith, by a Layman' (Oxford, 1861) he attacked some of the bishop's sermons and pleaded openly for the rights of scepticism. In a second tract, 'Concerning Doubt' (Oxford, 1861), he defended his position against the published censure of 'A Clergyman.'

In 1861 Smith collected into a volume five lectures on modern history. The fourth, 'On some Supposed Consequences of the Doctrine of Historical Progress,' was a suggestive contribution to political philosophy, and the fifth, 'On the Foiuadation of the American Colonies,' approached nearer than any other to the historical sphere and gave him an opportunity of proclaiming his democratic ardour. In Michaelmas term 1859 King Edward VII (then Prince of Wales) matriculated at Oxford, and Goldwin Smith gave him private lectures in modern history at the prince's residence at Frewen Hall. Goldwin Smith expressed a fear that he bored his royal pupil, but he was impressed by the prince's admirable courtesy, and the prince always treated him with consideration in later life ( Life of Liddell). An invitation to accompany the prince on his Canadian tour of 1860 was declined, on the ground of Smith's duties at Oxford. In general university politics he continued to act with the advanced party, and warmly pleaded for a fuller secularisation of endowments. In regard to national politics he proved, in the university an effective radical missionary. He supported Gladstone through the period of his liberal development. 'Young Oxford,' he wrote to the statesman (June 1859), 'is all with you; but old Oxford takes a long time in dying' ( Gladstone, ii. 630). His 'wonderful epigrammatic power' won him respect. 'With all his bitterness,' wrote J. B. Mozley to his sister, 'he is something of a prophet, a judge who tells the truth though savagely.' Prof. George Rolleston, Prof. H. J. S. Smith, and Prof. J. E. Thorold Rogers were his closest friends among resident graduates of his own way of thinking, but he maintained good relations with some leaders in the opposite camp. With (Canon) William Bright [q. v. Suppl. II], who was a fellow of University during Smith's residence there, he formed, despite their divergences of opinion, a close intimacy.

Public affairs distracted Smith's attention from the work of his chair, and he soon flung himself with eager enthusiasm into the political agitation of the day. From the Peelites he had transferred his allegiance to Cobden, Bright, and the leaders of the Manchester school, With a persistence which never diminished he preached the school's doctrines of universal peace and freedom, and the duty of refusing responsibilities which condoned war or persecution. His admirable style, his power of clear and eloquent expression, and his passionate devotion to what he deemed to be righteous causes fitted him for a great pamphleteer, and he developed some capacity for carefully premeditated public speaking. The imperialistic trend of public opinion, which he identified with a spirit of wanton aggression, and the Irish discontent first brought him prominently into the political arena. In 1862-3 he contributed to the ’Daily News' a series of letters on The 'Empire' which were collected with some additions in a volume in 1863. He argued for what he called 'colonial emancipation' — for the conversion of the self-governing colonies into independent states. He advocated the abandonment of Gibraltar to Spain, declared his belief that India would be best governed as an independent empire under an English emperor, and described the Indian empire in its existing guise as 'a splendid curse’ (letter to John Bright). Smith hailed the cession by Lord Palmerston's government of the Ionian Isles to Greece in 1862-3 as a step in support of his own principles. His views, which attracted much attention,