A certain, unexpected shallowness in" Mr. Mozley's Reminiscen- ces," even
of the greater companions of his early life, seems to be the most curious " note " of the amusing book which Mr. Mozley has just published. This , characteristic is illustrated by a letter from Dr. Pusey to Canon Liddon, published in last Satur- day's Times. In that letter, Dr. Pusey says :—" T. Mozley, as he describes himself, was not a man to appreciate either John
Keble or Newman Of Keble, he writes as he would of any man of the world He meant no harm, but wrote off-hand. He says of John Keble (1), that he had himself renounced all hope of promotion (Vol. I, p. 222), as if the retiring author of the Christian Year, whose humility puzzled oven his friend and biographer, Judge Coleridge, had ever had any wish for it (3), that he very soon lost his temper in discussion, mistaking for loss of temper the pain which it gave him to hear the truth contradicted." Certainly, both these remarks were unintelligent. The first misses the very essence of Keble, and the second misconstrues altogether the meaning of the shy and shrinking pain which the world's doubt caused him. Keble's was essentially the tender and sensitive nature of a religious poet, and anything which contradicted his religious faith hurt his sensibilities keenly and deeply, first, directly, and next, indirectly, by the discovery that ho had no answer ready at all adequate to the depth of his own convic- tion. To describe that as a "loss of temper" is a Philistine's description, and hardly worthy of a literary man.