Ionica | Page 4

to enable him to give a little scientific
lecture, for he was one of the first to appreciate the educational value of
science; he spent money on chemical apparatus, and tried to interest the
boys by simple demonstrations. His educational ideals can best be seen
in an essay full of poetical genius, on the education of the reasoning
faculties, which he contributed to the "Essays on a Liberal Education,"
edited in 1867 by F. W. Farrar. Any one who wishes to understand
Johnson's point of view, should study this brilliant and beautiful
discourse. It is not only wise and liberal, but it is intensely practical,
besides containing a number of suggestive and poetical thoughts.
He loved his Eton life more and more every year. As with Eumelus of
Corinth, "dear to his heart was the muse that has the simple lyre and the
sandals of freedom." He took refuge, as it became clear to him that his
wider ambitions could not be realised, that he would not set the mark
he might have set upon the age, in a "proud unworldliness," in
heightened and intensified emotion. He made many friendships. He
taught, as the years went on, as well or better than ever; he took great
delight in the society of a few pupils and younger colleagues; but a
shadow fell on him; he began to feel his strength unequal to the
demands upon it; and he made a sudden resolution to retire from his
Eton work.
He had taken some years before, as a house for his holidays, Halsdon, a
country place near his native Torrington, which belonged to his brother,
Archdeacon Wellington Furse of Westminster, who had changed his
name from Johnson to Furse, on succeeding to the property of an uncle.
Here he retired, and strove to live an active and philosophical life,
fighting bravely with regret, and feeling with sensitive sorrow the
turning of the sweet page. He tried, too, to serve and help his simple
country neighbours, as indeed he had desired to do even at Eton, by
showing them many small, thoughtful, and unobtrusive kindnesses, just
as his father had done. But he lived much, like all poetical natures, in
tender retrospect; and the ending of the bright days brought with it a
heartache that even nature, which he worshipped like a poet, was

powerless to console. But he loved his woods and sloping fields, and
the clear river passing under its high banks through deep pools. It
served to remind him sadly of his beloved Thames, the green banks
fringed with comfrey and loosestrife, the drooping willows, the cool
smell of the weedy weir; of glad hours of light-hearted enjoyment with
his boy-companions, full of blithe gaiety and laughter.
After a few years, he went out to Madeira, where he married a wife
much younger than himself, Miss Rosa Caroline Guille, daughter of a
Devonshire clergyman; and at Madeira his only son was born, whom he
named Andrew, because it was a name never borne by a Pope, or, as he
sometimes said, "by a sneak." He devoted himself at this time to the
composition of two volumes of a "Guide to Modern English History."
But his want of practice in historical writing is here revealed, though it
must be borne in mind that it was originally drawn up for the use of a
Japanese student. The book is full of acute perceptions, fine judgments,
felicitous epigrams--but it is too allusive, too fantastic; neither has it the
balance and justice required for so serious and comprehensive a task.
At the same time the learning it displays is extraordinary. It was written
almost without books of reference, and out of the recollections of a man
of genius, who remembered all that he read, and considered reading the
newspaper to be one of the first duties of life.
Cory's other writings are few. Two little educational books are worth
mentioning: a book of Latin prose exercises, called _Nuces_, the
sentences of which are full of recondite allusions, curious humour, and
epigrammatic expression; and a slender volume for teaching Latin
lyrics, called _Lucretilis_, the exercises being literally translated from
the Latin originals which he first composed. _Lucretilis_ is not only, as
Munro said, the most Horatian verse ever written since Horace, but full
of deep and pathetic poetry. Such a poem as No. xxvii., recording the
abandoning of Hercules by the Argonauts, is intensely autobiographical.
He speaks, in a parable, of the life of Eton going on without him, and of
his faith in her great future:
"sed Argo
Vela facit tamen, aureumque

"Vellus petendum est. Tiphys ad hoc tenet
Clavum magister; stat
Telamon vigil,
Stat Castor in prora, paratus
Ferre maris salientis
ictus."
After some years in Madeira, he came back to England and settled in
Hampstead; his later days were