Transcribed from the 1889 Macmillan and Co. edition by DavidPrice,
A SERIES OF LECTURES
deliveredbefore
THE UNIVERSITY OFCAMBRIDGE
by
CHARLES KINGSLEY, M.A.
newedition, withpreface, by
PROFESSOR F. MAX MÜLLER
London
MACMILLAN AND CO.
1889
[All rights reserved]
OXFORD:
horace hart, printer to the university.
DEDICATED
to
The Gentlemen of the University
who did me the honour
to attend these lectures.
Contents
Preface by Professor F. Max Müller
The Forest Children
The Dying Empire
Preface to Lecture III
The Human Deluge
The Gothic Civilizer
Dietrich’s End
The Nemesis of the Goths
Paulus Diaconus
The Clergy and the Heathen
The Monk a Civilizer
The Lombard Laws
The Popes and the Lombards
The Strategy of Prividence
Appendix—Inaugural Lecture: The Limits ofExact Science as Applied to History
Never shall I forget the moment when for the last time I gazedupon the manly features of Charles Kingsley, features which Deathhad rendered calm, grand, sublime. The constant strugglethat in life seemed to allow no rest to his expression, thespirit, like a caged lion, shaking the bars of his prison, themind striving for utterance, the soul wearying for lovingresponse,—all that was over. There remained only thesatisfied expression of triumph and peace, as of a soldier whohad fought a good fight, and who, while sinking into thestillness of the slumber of death, listens to the distant soundsof music and to the shouts of victory. One saw the idealman, as Nature had meant him to be, and one felt that there is nogreater sculptor than Death.
As one looked on that marble statue which only some weeks agohad so warmly pressed one’s hand, his whole life flashedthrough one’s thoughts. One remembered the youngcurate and the Saint’s Tragedy; the chartist parson andAlton Locke; the happy poet and the Sands of Dee; the brilliantnovel-writer and Hypatia and Westward-Ho; the Rector of Eversleyand his Village Sermons; the beloved professor at Cambridge, thebusy canon at Chester, the powerful preacher in WestminsterAbbey. One thought of him by the Berkshire chalk-streamsand on the Devonshire coast, watching the beauty and wisdom ofNature, reading her solemn lessons, chuckling too over herinimitable fun. One saw him in town-alleys, preaching theGospel of godliness and cleanliness, while smoking his pipe withsoldiers and navvies. One heard him in drawing-rooms,listened to with patient silence, till one of his vigorous orquaint speeches bounded forth, never to be forgotten. Howchildren delighted in him! How young, wild men believed inhim, and obeyed him too! How women were captivated by hischivalry, older men by his genuine humility and sympathy!
All that was now passing away—was gone. But as onelooked on him for the last time on earth, one felt that greaterthan the curate, the poet, the professor, the canon, had been theman himself, with his warm heart, his honest purposes, his trustin his friends, his readiness to spend himself, his chivalry andhumility, worthy of a better