Item 183 - Letter from Julius Charles Hare

8 pp

Herstmonceux, Hailsham - JCH would like to add a few more lines to his last letter [see JCH to WW, 8 April 1843]: 'As to your attempt to repell the three men whom I had sent to assail your position, you seem to me to have mist your aim'. For example, JCH does not think anyone could have ever have taken the least offense at his [William Wilberforce] behaviour personally; indeed the exceeding severity of his manners tended greatly to aid him and his cause'. If Bishop Otter was wanting in firmness then this only strengthens JCH's argument. WW's 'proposition about the examinations seems to be clearly a very good one, and may become a step to still greater ulterior good'. JCH's uncertainty concerning Connop Thirlwall and the Welsh sees arose from what he had been told [see JCH to WW, 8 April 1843]. Since Thirlwall has been a Bishop he now knows 'how much an active Bishop may effect, in his own Diocese, and if he had not been so strongly in favour of the Reform Bill, I should have fancied that he would generally be desirous of modifying old institutions rather than of destroying them'. Thomas Carlyle stayed with JCH while he was trying to write his Commemoration sermon which dampened his enjoyment of Carlyle's company.