In the year 1830 I went to Trinity College, Cambridge, one of the finest places for education. My dear brother Gurney was there at the time. Goulburn followed a year afterwards. Canon Carus was in his years a Fellow of Trinity, and my beloved friend Bishop Perry was there as a tutor. I had many friends, and we were a happy party. I have outlived almost all of them. I owe more than I can express to my College life. I read hard, and I have often observed that hard-reading men look back upon their College days with the greatest pleasure. I was surrounded by a set of steady men, and, above all, I had the advantage of Mr. Simeon’s ministry. There was something very wonderful about his preaching; it was not eloquence, and he had none of the brilliance of Mr. Elliott. But it was as clear as a noonday; his statements of truth were unmistakable. He was raised up to preach at Cambridge the great Evangelical doctrines of Scripture. And he taught them with a clearness, a distinctness, and a courage such as could not well be surpassed. Many and many a time did I return to my rooms after church, “sport” my door, and kneel down in earnest prayer under the solemn conviction produced by his most spiritual and awakening ministry. Thus the three years of my University life passed rapidly by. I was very eager in boat-racing, and very keen at the game of cricket, although I could not play much of it, as it took too long a time. But I am thankful to say I had the ministry always in view; and I remember well that on the morning I went into the Senate House for my degree, I knelt down to pray for success, and I thought at the time how much higher gifted I would be if the Lord would make me wise to win souls.
University Letters.
Although the autobiography contains but a brief reference to his career at Cambridge, it seems a pity to pass too hastily over this most important time of a young man’s life. A great many of his letters to his mother were written at this period, and, like his boyish letters, they are all carefully stitched up into a series of sets, as if his parent foresaw that one day they would be valued by others. They form delightful reading, and it is unfortunate that want of space forbids more than a summarising of their contents and a few extracts.
The first of these, written to his mother, October 22nd, 1830, two days after he had taken up his residence at Trinity College, describes the purchase of cap and gown, the first dinner in Hall, the rooms in which he was settled, the prospects of College life, which he greatly relished, and the determination to keep clear of “harum-scarum fellows.” A characteristic sentence is worth quoting: “There is only one point I really dislike, which is the profane manner in which the Lessons are gabbled over at chapel, so that you can only hear a hurried mumble, and not one word of the sense.”
Various incidents enliven the letters at this time: descriptions of his friends, a very nice set; allusions to some “glorious sermons” of Mr. Simeon, who was then the great power at Cambridge; his resolution to join a boat; and the excitement caused “by an attack on the Anatomy Schools, when the Vice-Chancellor sent round to the Colleges to call the men out to fight, which summons we obeyed with great alacrity, though little necessity.” Surely the last item must make Cambridge men of this generation envy their predecessors of sixty years ago! On his nineteenth birthday young Hoare thus writes to his mother:—
“I don’t know whether you recollect that I shall never again see nineteen years. So I am now entering a new year—oh how earnestly I do hope that, through His grace who alone can keep me, it may be a year of profit and advancement in holiness! I have thought a good deal about it, though not so much as I could wish. How many blessings I have to be thankful for that I have received during the past year, when sorrow and affliction have been scattered all around me! How wonderfully all of us have been preserved in perfect health and enjoyment!”
A few months after this, in a letter from Hampstead, he mentions walking across the fields one Sunday morning to St. John’s and hearing a sermon from Mr. Noel that greatly impressed him; the subject was “The necessity and efficacy of diligence in religion.”
“He really seemed as if he had meant it for me, for I had been thinking a great deal how far more diligently I pursued my mathematics than my religion.”
Yet at this time he was teaching in a Sunday School every Sunday—rather a rare thing for an undergraduate in those days.
Here occurs an allusion to one who was destined to occupy a warm share in his affection during years to come:—
“I met the other day Perry, who was Senior Wrangler and fifth on the Classical Tripos, and finding that he was going to take pupils I have engaged him for next term, provided my father intends to be so liberal as to let me have a tutor.”
For over sixty years the friendship was strong and deep, and after Bishop Perry’s resignation of the See of Melbourne their intercourse was frequent and loving up to the end. In the Lent Term of 1832 he writes:—
“I have been getting on this week tolerably in my reading, and intolerably in my rowing, having been bumped by the Johnians on Thursday for the first time in my life, and that too when we might have got away with the greatest ease if all our crew had exerted themselves.”
Half a century afterwards his curates were often exhorted to work together with a will, and the exhortation was enforced by allusions to the disasters experienced by a crew whose members were not absolutely one in “go” and sympathy.
The following letter from his father has reference to College events at this time:—
“London, March 19th, 1832.
“Dear Edward,—A hasty opinion is not always worth having, but you may safely take my advice and try the new boat, bump the first Trinity, and wait for further orders. Let your mother’s letter compel you to watch yourself, and if you find the effects of rowing at all prejudicial give it up, but if you find your health and strength on the wax go on, tempering your zeal with moderation, and I will do my best to make peace at home—a work which I shall accomplish with more ease and in less time than you will be at the head of the river. It came across me that, after having vanquished all Cambridge, you might wish to carry your victorious oars to Oxford!”
A fortnight after the last quoted letter from the young collegian, there was another which recounted that, although his boat, of which he was stroke, had gone down as low as fifth, yet on the last race-day it had recovered its old place of second. Then follows a groan concerning the difficulties that attended his post as captain over a discordant body of twenty men: “The crew, when successful, get all the credit, and in the time of misfortune make me their scapegoat.”
Fortunately he did not adhere to his original intention of resigning the captaincy, and ultimately his boat attained the proud position of head of the river. Edward Hoare’s success in rowing did not make him idle, however: nothing could do that; into whatever he undertook he threw his whole heart and soul, and the very next letter, a few weeks later, May 4th, 1832, begins thus:—
“Here I am a scholar of Trinity safe and sound, as the master calls it ‘discipulus juratus et admissus,’ and not a little pleased am I at the thought. But what pleases me most of all is that, so far from being last of all, as our list declares, I have come in very high on the list. I do not know exactly where I am, but, as you wish for all the reports, I tell you one which I don’t quite believe, which is that I was the second in both years. I beat all the third year, and all my own except the great lion Stevenson, and I got within a respectable distance of him, and Peacock says I have gained upon him since the last examination, whereas I never expected to get within miles of him. In fact I am altogether happier than I can express, and really think that I never spent so joyful a night and day in all my life.”
Referring to this success his father writes again:—
“Hampstead, May 8th, 1832.
“My dear Edward,—Of advice and congratulations you will partake abundantly without an addition from me, but your mother wishes me to write, what I have no doubt Sam has already written. What may be the best course for you to pursue I have not made up my mind, but as you are at Cambridge it is as well to remind you that a man may be happy without mathematics, and that the glory of being Senior Wrangler (supposing the possibility of such an event) may be purchased at too high a price. I attribute the greatest proportion of your late honours to solid understanding and reading, some part to good luck or accident. Had you not then better see the result of the class examination before you take the plunge? With the blessing of God you will be rooted more deeply than ever now in all our hearts, and, what is far beyond extending growth here, you attain that eminence which is quite out of the sound of wrangling.
“I am most affectionately yours,
“S. Hoare.”
A few days later he receives the news of the sudden death of a relative, Mr. Powell, [24] and various letters describe the effect that this event had upon him. His sympathy was warmly expressed for all the mourners; and then, as was natural to a thoughtful mind, the remembrance of the shortness of life made itself felt. Strong and athletic as he was, he too might be cut off suddenly: was he ready for the call?
But his recent success at the scholarship examination, and his future hopes, seem to have had a strange light thrown upon them by this bereavement, and he began to ask himself the question which some of us have had to face in hours of success or failure—“What are College honours? Are they an end, or only a means?” He writes thus:—
“I never felt so strongly as I do now the utter worthlessness of the objects at which I have been aiming with so much zeal. What does it signify whether I am fourth, fifth, sixth, or anything else in this examination, when at one stroke all one’s honour and all one’s learning may be dashed from you? It has impressed me very strongly with the feeling that to read because it is my duty and because it is an admirable preparation for after-life is a glorious object, but to read (as I must confess I have done) for a place and a place only, and slur over higher things for it, is indeed vanity of vanities.”
The summer of 1832 was spent with a reading party in Wales. The start was made from Highgate, where the coach “Wonder” took in its passengers and conveyed them to Shrewsbury “with wonderful rapidity,” the journey commencing at 6.40 a.m. and the destination being reached at 10.30 p.m., or one hundred and fifty-six miles in nearly sixteen hours!
Thence sometimes on coach, sometimes on foot, they made their way to Llangollen, Llanrwst, Conway, and Bangor. The beautiful suspension bridge was an object of immense interest. The travellers went over to the Anglesea side, and down into the chambers and passages of the rock where the chains are fixed that uphold the structure; the letter recounting this visit contains diagrams descriptive of it all, showing the fascination that it exerted on the mind of the writer. Various accounts of the magnificent scenery fill pages in these interesting letters, and also allusions to the kindly way in which Welsh tracts were taken by the people, and the excited gratitude which the gift sometimes caused. At last Barmouth, the “ultima Thule” of their wanderings, was reached, lodgings were taken, and the party set steadily to work.
They were fortunate in the parish clergyman, whose name was Pugh, and young Hoare’s letters often speak with gratitude of the guidance from above which led them into the parish of this excellent man. Michaelmas Term found them back at Cambridge, and now his younger brother Joseph [26] joined the party, and Edward’s feelings with regard to his duties towards him are expressed in a letter to his mother, of which nearly the whole is taken up with a loving interest in his brother’s plans and prospects. He writes:—
“I most earnestly hope that I may be able to assist him, and, what is far more, that he may have that far better assistance which can alone be all-sufficient. . . . I have had a most happy vacation, and cannot say how I have valued it. I only trust that I may be able to repay a hundredth part of your and my father’s kindness to me by fraternal affection towards Joe. My motto with regard to him is—
“‘Men must be taught as if you taught them not,
And things unknown proposed as things forgot.’”
During the month of September, in the year before this, his elder brother Samuel was married to Miss Catherine Hankinson. [27] There was a warm attachment between the brothers. Edward often writes in terms of great admiration of “Sam,” and now the new sister was received with equal affection into his heart. It was a feeling which grew and strengthened to the last day of his life, and was returned by her, being specially manifested in the tender care which she bestowed upon his motherless children more than thirty years afterwards. This, however, is anticipating, and it is suggested only by a letter from Cambridge dated November 9th, 1832, full of delight—
“at the joyful news of the week. I am highly proud of my new avuncular honours. I begin to feel quite a strong affection to my new niece, which I never expected to do, at all events till I had seen her!”
The same letter writes thankfully about the interest which he had been able to arouse in the University in connection with the British and Foreign Bible Society.
There had been one collector in Cambridge previously, but young Hoare set to work and had the gratification of sending in more than a hundred guineas, fifty of which came from Trinity. He says, “I only hope that this success will encourage us to work hard during the next year.” His interest in the Society never waned, and it did well many years afterwards in making him one of its Vice-Presidents.
We have an insight into a College Sunday in one of his letters at this time:—
“We have had a delightful Sunday, and a most edifying sermon on the Conversion of St. Paul. After Hall I had a large party in my rooms, and we read one of Blunt’s Lectures on St. Paul. Our party after Hall has become rather a burden to me, it has grown so very large, as I have invited any persons who I thought would come and employ their time better than elsewhere; and now I feel that it is an opportunity which ought to be employed to good purpose, and I don’t know exactly how to go to work to do so.”
In a letter written early in 1833 he refers to all the dignities of the third year upon his head, and his desire to use them aright; it will probably be the opinion of any who read the extracts above quoted that the young collegian rose nobly to the ideal which he had set before him. There are those now living who can testify to the rich harvest of good which sprang up in his generation from the seed of manly Christian influence so freely scattered round him in those undergraduate days. Yet a crisis in his life was approaching, which we must leave to the next chapter to describe.
