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 mother followed the daughters after long perplexity. Painful religious controversies thus divided the family while Frederick was still a child. As he came to understand the state of the case he received strong and permanent impressions. A profound desire for religious unity, and the conviction that a ‘society founded upon opinions had no real cohesion’ (, Life, ii. 276), were embodied in all his teaching. Maurice was educated by his father in puritan principles. He read no fictions, except, apparently, Miss Edgeworth; he studied the Bible and Neal's ‘History of the Puritans,’ and attended meetings of the Anti-Slavery Society, the Bible Society, and similar institutions. He was a thoroughly ‘good boy,’ industrious and truthful; he cared little for games, read in time a good deal of miscellaneous literature, and had ambitions of rivalling Brougham, Sir Francis Burdett, and Joseph Hume, then the idols of the radicals (ib. p. 31). A letter written at the age of ten shows that he must have been very precocious, and perhaps a little self-conscious.

His mother finally abandoned unitarianism in 1821. Maurice, who had been intended by his father for the ministry, had by this time revolted against unitarianism and the narrowness of the dissenters generally (Life, i. 175). To escape from the difficulties of his position he resolved to become a barrister. Thomas Clarkson, son of the philanthropist, offered to take him as a legal pupil gratuitously. He wished to gain the wider culture obtainable at the universities, although his friends generally regarded them with dislike, and chose Cambridge, because no test was there imposed upon the students at entrance. He began residence at Trinity College, Cambridge, in the October term of 1823. He attended Julius Hare's lectures upon the Greek drama and Plato. Hare saw little of him personally, but recognised his remarkable aptitude for metaphysics. His private tutor was Frederick Field (1801–1885) [q. v.] He spoke at the Union, was one of the founders of the well-known ‘Apostles' Club,’ and formed a close intimacy with John Sterling, also a favourite pupil of Hare. With Sterling he migrated in October 1825 to Trinity Hall, where the fellowships were tenable by barristers and given for a law degree. He kept the terms for the LL.B. degree. He went to London to read for the bar in the long vacation of 1826, and in the following term returned for the examination, and took a first-class in the ‘civil law classes’ for 1826–7. He would have had a fair chance of election to a fellowship at Trinity Hall, but he felt himself unable to make the subscriptions then necessary for a degree, and at once took his name off the books, saying that he would not ‘hang a bribe round his neck to lead his conscience.’

Although shy and reserved, Maurice had become an intellectual leader among his ablest contemporaries. While still at Cambridge he with his friend Whitmore edited the ‘Metropolitan Quarterly Magazine,’ which first appeared in November 1825, and lived through four numbers. He wrote several articles, attacking Bentham sharply, praising Byron, Wordsworth, Shelley, De Quincey, Scott, Keats, and Southey, and expressing unqualified admiration for Coleridge, at this time his chief guide in philosophy. Maurice contributed to the ‘Westminster Review’ in 1827 and 1828, and joined the debating society of which J. S. Mill was a member (Autobiography, pp. 123–9). The society had originated in a discussion with Owen's disciples. Maurice opposed both the Benthamites and the tories. In January 1828 he contributed some ‘Sketches of Contemporary Authors’ to the ‘Athenæum,’ just started by James Silk Buckingham [q. v.] He and some friends bought the ‘London Literary Chronicle,’ which he edited from 1 May following. On 30 July it was amalgamated with the ‘Athenæum,’ which was purchased from Buckingham, Maurice continuing to be editor. The paper was in favour of reform. Maurice's own articles, however, were strongly anti-Benthamite. He wrote warmly in support of the constitutional party in Spain. Some sons of Spanish exiles had been pupils of his father. He dissuaded Sterling, however, from joining the rash expedition in 1830. The ‘Athenæum’ did not pay under his management, and he was dispirited by home troubles. His father had lost much money by investments in Spanish bonds. He was no longer able to take pupils. The family had to move into a smaller house in Southampton, where they now lived. His sister Elizabeth became for a time companion to Mr. Gladstone's sister. She died in April 1839 (Life, i. 264). Mary decided to be a schoolmistress. Emma soon became dangerously ill. Frederick Maurice gave up his editorship, returned home, taught his sisters, and wrote for the ‘Athenæum.’ He gradually made up his mind to take orders, and resolved to go to Oxford, where Jacobson, a friend of Sterling (p. 179), then tutor of Exeter, had arranged that he should be allowed to count his Cambridge terms. He entered Exeter in the beginning of 1830, hoping to pay his expenses by a novel upon which he was now employed, with the warm encouragement of his sister Emma. There were delays in disposing of it, and he was only enabled to keep the last term of