The Henson Journals

[689]

Thursday, March 2nd, 1916.

577th day

The snow was falling briskly when I went to the Cathedral at 8 a.m., for the Holy Communion. Three minor canons present, but no major. The Canon–in–Residence has an excuse, being a Professor.

I wrote some more of the "Judges" sermon, but it goes badly. The scanty congregation of old ladies, & college girls, the one bigotted the other frivolous, is not like the congregation of St Margaret's.

Warburton dilates on the character of Abp. Tillotson in a letter to Hurd written in 1752, the very year of Butler's death.

"As a preacher, I suppose, his established fame is chiefly owing to his being the first City–divine who talked rationally and wrote purely."

What does W. mean by this? The London clergy had been strongly Presbyterian at the Restoration: then they became ardently Anglican, & vehemently Protestant – characters not then thought to be incongruous.

"No orator in the Greek & Roman sense of the word, like Taylor: nor a discourser in their sense, like Barrow; free from their irregularities, but not able to reach their heights. On which account I prefer them infinitely to him. You cannot sleep with Taylor; you cannot forbear thinking with Barrow. But you may be much at your ease in the midst of a long lecture from Tillotson; clear, & rational, & equable as he is. Perhaps the last quality may account for it."

Warburton did not himself excel as a preacher. He was pompous, vapid, & stilted, save when he dealt with historical & political topics when he was as discursive & paradoxical as in his more elaborate compositions.

I walked with Cruickshank & his wife: & attended Evensong. Also I wrote to the Master of Jesus, and to Cummings who is [in] hospital with a leg damaged in a motor accident.

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