that the anonymous little book of poems was published
which has since become familiar wherever English is
read, as the
Christian year. His serious
interests were public ones. Though living in the
shade, he followed with anxiety and increasing disquiet
the changes which went on so rapidly and so formidably,
during the end of the first quarter of this century,
in opinion and in the possession of political power.
It became more and more plain that great changes were
at hand, though not so plain what they would be.
It seemed likely that power would come into the hands
of men and parties hostile to the Church in their
principles, and ready to use to its prejudice the advantages
which its position as an establishment gave them;
and the anticipation grew in Keble’s mind, that
in the struggles which seemed likely, not only for
the legal rights but for the faith of the Church, the
Church might have both to claim more, and to suffer
more, at the hands of Government. Yet though
these thoughts filled his mind, and strong things were
said in the intercourse with friends about what was
going on about them, no definite course of action
had been even contemplated when Keble went into the
country in 1823. There was nothing to distinguish
him from numbers of able clergymen all over England,
who were looking on with interest, with anxiety, often
with indignation, at what was going on. Mr. Keble
had not many friends and was no party chief. He
was a brilliant university scholar overlaying the
plain, unworldly country parson; an old-fashioned
English Churchman, with great veneration for the Church
and its bishops, and a great dislike of Rome, Dissent,
and Methodism, but with a quick heart; with a frank,
gay humility of soul, with great contempt of appearances,
great enjoyment of nature, great unselfishness, strict
and severe principles of morals and duty.
What was it that turned him by degrees into so prominent
and so influential a person? It was the result
of the action of his convictions and ideas, and still
more of his character, on the energetic and fearless
mind of a pupil and disciple, Richard Hurrell Froude.
Froude was Keble’s pupil at Oriel, and when
Keble left Oriel for his curacy at the beginning of
the Long Vacation of 1823, he took Froude with him
to read for his degree. He took with him ultimately
two other pupils, Robert Wilberforce and Isaac Williams
of Trinity. One of them, Isaac Williams, has
left some reminiscences of the time, and of the terms
on which the young men were with their tutor, then
one of the most famous men at Oxford. They were
on terms of the utmost freedom. “Master
is the greatest boy of them all,” was the judgment
of the rustic who was gardener, groom, and parish
clerk to Mr. Keble. Froude’s was a keen
logical mind, not easily satisfied, contemptuous of
compromises and evasions, and disposed on occasion
to be mischievous and aggressive; and with Keble,
as with anybody else, he was ready to dispute and try