Item 148 - Letter from Julius Charles Hare

4 pp.

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.