Ionica | Page 2

the Whigs as saying to

their adversaries, "You are in a majority now: if I were an
ultra-democrat or counter of noses, I should submit to you as having a
transcendental --sometimes called divine--right; if I were a redcap, I
should buy dynamite and blow you up; if I were a Tory, I should go to
church or to bed; as it is, I go to work to turn your majority into a
minority. I shall do it by reasoning and by attractive virtue." He
intended in his university days, and for some time after, to take
Anglican Orders, though he had also some thought of going to the Bar;
but he accepted a Mastership with much relief, with the hope, as he
wrote in an early letter, "that before my time is out, I may rejoice in
having turned out of my pupil-room perhaps one brave soldier, or one
wise historian, or one generous legislator, or one patient missionary."
The whole of his professional life, a period of twenty-seven years, was
to be spent at Eton.
No one who knew William Cory will think it an exaggeration to say
that his mind was probably one of the most vigorous and commanding
minds of the century. He had a mental equipment of the foremost order,
great intellectual curiosity, immense vigour and many-sidedness,
combined with a firm grasp of a subject, perfect clearness of thought,
and absolute lucidity of expression.
He never lost sight of principles among a crowd of details; and though
he had a strong bias in certain directions, he had a just and catholic
appreciation even of facts which told against his case. Yet his
knowledge was never dry or cold; it was full to the brim of deep
sentiment and natural feeling.
He had a wide knowledge of history, of politics, both home and foreign,
of political economy, of moral science. Indeed, he examined more than
once in the Moral Science Tripos at Cambridge.
He had a thorough acquaintance with and a deep love of literature; and
all this in spite of the fact that he lived a very laborious and wearing
life as a school-teacher, with impossibly large classes, and devoted
himself with whole-hearted enthusiasm to his profession. His
knowledge was, moreover, not mere erudition and patient accumulation.
It was all ready for use, and at his fingers' ends. Moreover, he

combined with this a quality, which is not generally found in
combination with the highly-developed faculties of the doctrinaire,
namely an intense and fervent emotion. He was a lover of political and
social liberty, a patriot to the marrow of his bones; he loved his country
with a passionate devotion, and worshipped the heroes of his native
land, statesmen, soldiers, sailors, poets, with an ardent adoration; the
glory and honour of England were the breath of his nostrils. Deeds of
heroism, examples of high courage and noble self-sacrifice, were the
memories that thrilled his heart. As a man of fifty he wept over
Lanfrey's account of Nelson's death; he felt our defeat at Majuba Hill
like a keen personal humiliation; his letter on the subject is as the
words of one mourning for his mother.
But his was not a mere poetical emotion, supplying him with
highly-coloured rhetoric, or sentimental panegyric. He had a technical
and minute acquaintance with the detailed movement of wars, the
precise ships and regiments engaged, the personalities and characters of
commanders and officers, the conduct of the rank and file.
Many delightful stories remain in the memories of his friends and
hearers to attest this. His pupil-room at Eton, in what was formerly the
old Christopher Inn, was close to the street, and the passage of the
Guards through Eton, to and from their Windsor quarters, is an incident
of constant occurrence. When the stately military music was heard far
off, in gusty splendour, in the little town, or the fifes and drums of
some detachment swept blithely past, he would throw down his pen and
go down the little staircase to the road, the boys crowding round him.
"Brats, the British army!" he would say, and stand, looking and
listening, his eyes filled with gathering tears, and his heart full of proud
memories, while the rhythmical beat of the footsteps went briskly
echoing by.
Again, he went down to Portsmouth to see a friend who was in
command of a man-of-war; he was rowed about among the hulks; the
sailors in the gig looked half contemptuously at the sturdy landsman,
huddled in a cloak, hunched up in the stem-sheets, peering about
through his spectacles. But contempt became first astonishment, and

then bewildered admiration, when they found that he knew the position
of every ship, and the engagements in which each had fought.
He was of course a man of strong preferences and