Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 44.djvu/73

 he executed only fragments. He was specially attracted by Scaliger as the greatest scholar of modern times. In 1855 he was already contemplating writing Scaliger's life, and had made much preparation for it, when the appearance of Bernays's ‘Joseph Justus Scaliger’ induced him for a time to lay aside the design. But his enthusiastic admiration for ‘the most richly stored intellect that ever spent itself in acquiring knowledge’ increased. He saw in Scaliger the central figure of his age, and imposed it upon himself ‘as a solemn duty to rescue his memory from the load of falsehood and infamy under which the unscrupulous jesuit faction had contrived to bury it.’ In some respects Pattison singularly resembled his hero. The same thoroughness, the same hatred of half learning and of shams of every kind, the same love of learning for its own sake, the same reverence for truth, and, it must be added, the same caustic tongue, characterised both. He was constantly amassing materials for Scaliger's life, and after Bernays's death he formally resumed his project, and had made good progress with the work at the time of his own death. To those who, like Dr. Johnson, love most the biographical part of literature, the loss of Pattison's life of Scaliger is simply irreparable. All that we have of this work, to which he devoted thirty years of his life, is an article in the ‘Quarterly’ and three fragments printed after his death with his collected essays.

But his troubles were not yet at an end. It was never easy for him to work with those with whom he was altogether out of sympathy. Differences arose between him and the new rector, and at the end of 1855 he threw up his tutorship. But though this caused him much vexation at the time, the result was perhaps beneficial, as it enabled him to devote himself entirely to study and to literature. His reputation as a philosophical tutor was so great that when it was known that he was willing for a term or two to take private pupils, the best men in the university desired to read with him. He now began to make long tours in Germany, occasionally spending weeks together at one of the universities, and attending the lectures of a philosophical or theological professor. In 1858 he was for three months the Berlin correspondent of the ‘Times,’ and in 1859 was appointed one of the assistant commissioners to report upon continental education. The results of his inquiries appeared in a blue-book in 1861 (‘Education Commission; Report of the Assistant Commissioners on the State of Popular Education in Continental Europe.’ Vol. iv. (pp. 161–267) contains Pattison's report on the state of elementary education in Germany).

Always earnest in promoting university reform, he contributed to ‘Oxford Essays’ (1855) an article on ‘Oxford Studies,’ now rather of historical and literary than of practical interest, partly owing to the changes since effected, partly because the maturer view of its author is contained in his ‘Suggestions on Academical Organisation’ (1868), and in the essay which he contributed to the volume ‘On the Endowment of Research’ (1876). In these three writings he puts forward his views on university reform. He desired to see the university no longer a mere continuation-school for boys of a larger growth, diligently crammed with a view to passing examinations, but a place of real education, aiming at ‘a breadth of cultivation, a scientific formation of mind, a concert of the intellectual faculties;’ and, further, an institution organised to promote learning and research, so as to carry out ‘the principle that the end and aim of the highest education must be the devotion of the mind to some one branch of science.’ In 1860 he contributed to ‘Essays and Reviews’ ‘Tendencies of Religious Thought in England, 1688–1750.’ Learned, temperate, and impartial, the vehement and bitter haters of the book and its contributors could find little fault with his article, except the fact that it had appeared in company with the others.

On the death of Dr. Thompson in 1861, Pattison obtained the prize he had contended for ten years earlier, and was elected rector of Lincoln. In 1870 he accepted for the third time the office of public examiner, then an unusual post for the ‘head of a house’ to fill. He was also a delegate of the press and of the Bodleian Library, but in 1878 he declined the vice-chancellorship. Although for a time after his election the rector lectured on the ‘Ethics,’ he took a less active part in the administration of the college than might have been expected. The habits of ten years had disinclined him for administrative detail. He showed a keen interest in those undergraduates who possessed a love of study or a desire to succeed in the schools, but he did not much concern himself with the college generally or with the undergraduates.

In the meantime his literary activity was great. His articles in the ‘Quarterly’ on ‘Huet’ (1855), ‘Montaigne’ (1856), ‘Joseph Scaliger’ (1860), ‘The Stephenses’ (1865); in the ‘National Review’ on ‘Bishop Warburton’ and ‘Learning in the Church of England’ (1863); in the ‘North British’ on ‘F. A. Wolf’ (1865), were marked by that thorough knowledge, that maturity of judgment, and