Herstmonceux - WW's letter was such a comfort to JCH at a time when he thought he was alone - 'It made me feel sure I was right' [presumably over the Renn D. Hampden affair. See JCH to WW, 20 Dec. 1847]. JCH has subsequently 'had the satisfaction of finding that almost all the competent judges agreed with us' [see also JCH's A Letter to the Dean of Chichester, on the Agitation Excited by the Appointment of Dr. Hampden to the See of Hereford, 1848]. JCH has heard that WW has been in numerous places this winter. Ma-man has been very ill since she returned to Exeter. Esther Hare thanks WW for his volume of sermons [Butler's Three Sermons on Human Nature, 1848]: 'I am glad you have publisht them, & very glad the young men have such solid substantial intellectual food along with their spiritual food'. What impression did the memoir of Sterling [John Sterling] make on Cambridge?
Herstmonceux - WW's letter was a great help and encouragement to JCH: 'When I was called upon by divers of my clergy to draw up some kind of remonstrance agst Hampden's appointment [Renn D. Hampden], as I never read a word of his writings, I of course replied that, before I took any step, I must read them, especially the Bampton Lectures [The Scholastic Philosophy Considered in its Relation to Christian Theology, 1833] carefully: whereat they marveled, esteeming it, I suppose, a rationalistic work of supererogation, & a heresy almost as dangerous as any of Hampden's. However I was obstinate, & thus was led to read the B.L. & was quite annoyed to find the utter groundlessness of the charges brought agst him, & how they had all arisen mainly from an incapacity to enter into his philosophical habits of thought, & his love for etymological speculations, from the notion that, when he was merely explaining the word, he was denying the thing'. Nevertheless JCH was concerned that such a misunderstanding should have been so general. Even more odd is the fact John H. Newman, a man grounded in logic and metaphysics, should have been the one who first started the accusations. Hence JCH 'set to work at a Pamphlet the moment I got back from London; & it was a great comfort a morning or two afterwards to get your letter, & thereby to gain an assurance I was right'. JCH hopes to send WW his pamphlet on Thursday [A Letter to the Dean of Chichester, on the Agitation Excited by the Appointment of Dr. Hampden to the See of Hereford, 1848]. He is dismayed at the 'faculty of lying' which 'is cultivated by this new Oxford religionism. They really seem to have an incapacity of speaking the truth. In this respect our dear University has an immense advantage over them'.
Lacks a close, which is possibly Add.MS.a.77/161.
Hopes he will meet up with a travelling companion, visit to Gloucestershire without J H Monk who was ill, Mr Waddington has sent Trinity audit ale, R D Hampden's supposed appointment to the see of Hereford disapproved of, Sir Edwyn Stanhope's Christmas party, restoration of Hereford Cathedral hampered by the unpopularity of the John Merewether, the Dean, [who had wished to be bishop himself], Hereford Ball, Gibbons carvings