Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol III (1901).djvu/69

Jowett lectureships' in Greek philosophy and history (or literature) at Balliol College.

He received the honorary degree of doctor of theology at Levden, 1875, of LL.D. at Edinburgh, 1884, and of LL.D. at Cambridge, 1890.

There are several portraits of Jowett: (1) In crayons, by George Richmond, R.A., about 1859, at Balliol College ; (2) in crayons, by Laugée, 1871, in the possession of Professor Dicey; (3) in oils, by Mr. G. F. Watts, R.A., in the hall of Balliol College ; (4) in pastels, by the Cavaliere C. M. Ross, at Balliol College ; (5) in water-colours, by the Lady Abercromby, 1892, in the hall of Balliol College ; the head was subsequently repainted by the same lady, and is at the master's lodge.

Jowett's energy and industry in literary work were more than equalled by his devotion to his pupils and friends. 'He had the genius of friendship,' and was never so happy as when visiting and entertaining friends, or contributing in any way to their happiness. A long succession of pupils regarded him with the greatest affection, and at the close of his life the friends of his youth were his friends still, for he never lost them. Among the earliest were Lord Farrer, Professor W. Y. Sellar, Sir A. Grant, T. C. Sandars, F. T. Palgrave, Theodore Walrond, Professor H. J. S. Smith. These were followed by Lord Bowen, W. L. Newman, Justice Wright, Professor T. H. Green, Lyulph Stanley, Sir C. P. Ilbert, and later still by Sir W. R. Anson, Sir F. H. Jeune, Lord Lansdowne, Sir Arthur Godley, Andrew Lang, Professor W. Wallace, Professor Caird, Lord Milner, Sir G. Baden-Powell, and many others. It was his delight to have some of these pupil friends at the master's lodge for Sunday, where he also brought together, whenever he could, some of the most distinguished men of his time. Such were Lowell, W. W. Goodwin, O. Wendell Holmes, Huxley, M. Arnold, Turgenieff, Browning, Froude, H. M. Stanley, Dr. Martineau, G. Eliot, Renan, Ruskin. As a host he was most careful and solicitous of the comfort of his guests, but in his conversation he was often reserved. A competent judge wrote of him : 'A disciple of Socrates he valued speech more highly than any other gift, yet he was always hampered by a conscious imperfection and by a difficulty in sustaining and developing his thoughts in society. . . . He was seldom more than the third party intervening' (, see Life, ii. 157). In a tête-à-tête conversation he was often perversely silent, and gaps were almost painful. But with one or two congenial friends he would talk unremittingly till midnight, and even in his serious illness he insisted on coming down to breakfast that he 'might have a little cheerful conversation.' He loved to tell stories and to have them told to him, or to discuss subjects in which he had an interest, in the hope of gaining clearer insight. He had a wonderful power of fixing a discussion in a phrase : 'Respectability is a great foe to religion,' he said at the close of a discussion on chapel and church ; 'The practice of divines has permanently lowered the standard of truth' was his severe sentence on theological criticism. In his letters to friends he felt able to pour himself out with less restraint than in conversation, and here we often find him at his best, light-hearted, cheerful, amusing, and devoted to his friends, endeavouring to comfort them in distress or bereavement, and to help them in difficulty.

Jowett formed no school, and was not the leader of a party in religion or philosophy. A leader in the church he could not be after the publication of his 'St. Paul,' and he never wished to leave the church for any form of nonconformity. His critical instincts led him in one direction, his religious feeling drew him in another. Thus his speculations led him to 'irreconcilable contrasts' (, op. cit. ii. 141), but he did not ' pretend that such contrasts did not exist ; 'it was because he pointed them out with unusual force and freedom that he was regarded as heretical. In philosophy he was content to be critical (see above); he saw that one philosophy had always been succeeded by another, and the leader of to-day was forgotten tomorrow; each therefore, he concluded, had grasped part of the truth, but not the whole truth. His speculations ended in compromise, and thus, here also, he was unfitted to be a leader. For himself he had almost a horror of falling under one set of ideas to the exclusion of others. 'He stood at the parting of many ways,' and wrote 'No thoroughfare ' upon them all, says Mr. Stephen, severely but not unjustly (loc. cit. p. 143) ; and after all, in doing so, Jowett only went a step beyond the philosopher who condemns all systems but his own. Yet indirectly he left his mark even on philosophy. By him his pupil T. H. Green was stimulated to the study of Hegel, and no influence has been greater in Oxford for the last thirty years than Green's. But the chief traces of Jowett's influence will be found in other spheres. His essays and translations must secure him a high place