Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/543

Rh ALFORD 505 Whatever lie put his hand to he carried out with a zeal that at times looked almost like dogged determination. Thrown from his horse in the February of 1847 when going to deliver his first lecture, although very seriously shaken and disfigured, he nevertheless punctually appeared before his audience with his face and head covered with surgical bandages, and resolutely lectured. His reputa tion as a lecturer of exceptional power was within a few years from that time thoroughly established. Several of his discourses, notably one on Saul of Tarsua, with others on themes as varied as astronomy, music, scenery, and Christianity, acquired in the end a certain amount of celebrity. For two years together, in 1841 and 1842, he held the chair at Cambridge of Hulsean lecturer. As the result of his labours in that capacity, two substantial volumes afterwards made their appearance. Meanwhile, in the midst of his more serious avocations, he was at uncertain intervals making good his claim to be regarded as one of the more subtle and tender of the minor religious poets of England. Adopting an old forgotten title of Quarles s, he brought out, on his arrival at Wymeswold (1835), in two volumes, his School of the Heart, coupled with a reissue of his minor poems and sonnets. In 1838, he edited, in six vols., the works of Donne, prefixing a luminous preface, at once critical and biographical. Throughout the year 1839 and part of 1840 he edited a monthly magazine called Dearderis Miscellany. In 1841 he published, with other new poems, his Abbot of Muclielnaye. A collection of Psalms and Hymns appeared from his hand in the spring of 1844. A couple of years before that, in 1842, he had first entered upon his duties at Somerset House, where he acted for many years as examiner in logic and moral and intellectual philosophy in the university of London. So youthful was his appearance at the date of his first receiving this appoint ment, that on his entering the apartment where lie was awaited by the candidates, he was mistaken for one of themselves. What eventually proved to be the noblest of all his literary undertakings, his new edition, with running commentary, of the Greek Testament, engrossed his atten tion for fully twenty years together, from 1841 to 1861. Originally designed for the use of students in the universities, the work, from its modest first projec tion, grew in his hands to enormous proportions. He fancied at starting that a single year might witness its completion, and that a couple of thin octavos might embrace both text and commentary. By the time the expanding scheme was actually realised twenty years had elapsed, and the work had swollen into four ponderous tomes, the con tents of which were as weighty as they were comprehensive. The idea of the work was suggested to Alford s mind as he listened one day to a sermon at Cambridge. What he pro posed to himself at the outset was simply to adopt the main text, and to combine with it the greater part of the readings of Philipp Buttmann and Karl Lachmann. This, however, led to a more extended plan of critical labour and research, including a comprehensive digest of the various readings founded on the latest collations of the principal manuscripts, the Codex Vaticanus, the Codex Sinaiticus, the Codex Alexandrinus, and others. With a view to illustrate more clearly than ever the verbal and idiomatic or constructional usages of the sacred text, an entirely new collection of marginal references was compiled. Added to this there was a copious abundance of English notes, both exegetical and philological. Conscious of the vast stores of learning that had been accumulating in Germany, Alford from an early date determined to render himself as thoroughly as possible a master of the German language and at home in German literature. This intention was fairly Carried out at Bonn before the close of the summer of 1847. Then, but hardly till then, ho felt himself at last duly qualified to edit the Greek Testament. From that time he prepared in earnest to open up systematically to the contemplation of English readers the wealth of German criticism, actually made plain for the first time in our language through his Prolegomena and subsequent inci dental commentary. In November 1849 (the month the author took his B.D. degree at Cambridge), vol. i. of the Greek Testament was published, containing the four Gospels. Through it theological students in this country had placed within their reach in an epitomised form the latest results of the labours of continental critics on the Greek text, including portions even of those of Constantino Tischendorf. Issued from the press volume by volume, the work, as already remarked, was not completed till long afterwards. In January 1861 the fourth or final volume, beginning with the Epistle to the Hebrews and ending with the Book of Revelation, made its appearance. What is chiefly notice able in regard to the work is its strictly critical character. It is the production of a philologist rather than of a theo logian. Abbreviations, punctuations, elisions of ortho graphy, systematic ellipses, the merest turns of the pen in this or that manuscript, are weighed against microscopic scruples in the balance of his judgment. There can be little question that the work appreciably increased the aggregate amount of the biblical knowledge of Alford s immediate contemporaries. So carefully matured were his researches in the regions of exegesis, already crossed and recrossed by the footprints of countless commentators, that the work is regarded as in many respects authoritative even among those who differ from him widely on many important questions. Early in 1853 Alford first preached in Quebec chapel, London, the building in which his father had been ordained deacon forty years before. Before the year was out, on the 26th September, he had removed from his picturesque church in the wolds of Leicestershire to the plain con venticle in Tyburnia. There he remained for nearly four years, toiling assiduously, preaching twice every Sunday to a large and cultured congregation. Seven volumes, issued from the press at intervals, have, under the title of The Quebec Chapel Sermons, preserved 153 of the more remark able of these discourses those preached by him in the morning all of which were carefully prepared beforehand. As a preacher his style was severe and earnest rather than eloquent or impassioned. Perhaps the finest discourse he ever delivered was the one on the text, &quot; A great multitude which no man could number.&quot; It was preached from the cathedral pulpit shortly after his advancement by Lord Palmerston, in March 1857, to the deanery of Canterbury. Throughout his life, but especially towards its close, his chief delight intellectually appears to have been the rapid alternation of his pursuits. While he was yet in the midst of his biblical researches he was, simultaneously, at the beginning of 1851, translating the Odyssey, arranging his poems, with additions for their American republication, and preparing an article for the Edinburgh Review on the St Paul of Conybeare and Howson. A series of ingenious lectures, delivered by him in his capacity of philologist, on being compacted into a manual of idiom and usage, entitled The Queen s English, attained a high degree of popularity. Nevertheless, in spite of their wholly unpretentious and essentially humorous character, these mere casual notes on spelling and speaking drew down upon their author one of the sharpest criticisms he ever provoked, sarcas tically entitled The Dean s English. The Contemporary Revieiv was inaugurated under his editorship; and from January 1866 to August 1870 was conducted by him as a sort of neutral ground for religious criticism. Under the title of The Year of Prayer, Alford in 1866 published a T. 64