The Henson Journals

[70]

Thursday, October 2nd, 1930.

["]As to the composition, it bears a striking and whimsical resemblance to a funeral sermon, not only in the pathetic prayers with which it concludes, but in the style & tenor of the whole performance. It is piteously doleful, nodding every now & then towards dullness: well stored with pious frauds, and, like most discourses of the sort, much better calculated for the private advantage of the preacher than the edification of the heavens.["]

Burke, 'Observations on "The Present State of the Nation' 1769.

[v. Works. I. p.274]

I received a letter from Mrs. Hodgson about Kenneth, and I replied to it at once repeating my decision to waste no more money on his residence at Oxford. Then I prepared some notes for an address at the Dedication of the Tower in Hartlepool: and did an hour's work on Virgil.

Bailey and his wife came to lunch. They are evidently extremely delighted at the prospect of getting back to the Country.

[71]

Charles drove me in his little car to Eldon, where I committed to the grave the body of old Greenway, the late incumbent. There was a considerable gathering of the parishioners, & about a dozen of the clergy. Meanwhile Ella took the old Talbots into Durham. Conversation with them reduces itself into a fearful succession of frenzied screams, in which coherence & even intelligibility are sacrificed to the single purpose of making oneself heard!

[symbol]

Lord Birkenhead's death was announced yesterday. He was only 58, and had run a long course in short time. I liked him, and I think he liked me, though we were never more than acquaintances. In some respects, though I have neither his ability nor his vices, I am not wholly dissimilar.

Charles & I motored to Hartlepool, where I dedicated the Tower after Restoration & clergy & choir stalls. The Major & Corporation attended, & there was a large congregation. I preached from Psalms, 46.7.

Jack Carr came back to Auckland with us to talk with me about his plans, and to stay the night. We got back to the Castle shortly before 10 p.m.

[72]

Ad Maronis mausoleum

Ductus fudit super eum

Piae rorem lacrimae:

Ouem te, inquit, reddidissem

Si te vivum invenissem,

Poetarum maxime.

These lines used to be sung at Mantua in the Mass of St. Paul. The Christian elements in the great pagan writers were emphasized by Christian apologists. Hence grew the legends of the conversion of Seneca, Pliny and others, which were taken seriously by enlightened men & lasted a long time. "I myself remember hearing as a boy at a school in Rome that the dying words of Cicero were, 'Causa causarum, miserere mei!' [The cause of causes [God] have pity on me] [Comparetti]

A Christian interpretation of the 4th Eclogue exalted Virgil to a place among the Christian prophets. 'Vergil, as prophet of Christ, is a common enough object of Christian Art.' The Times Literary Supplement (Oct. 2nd 1930) says, "The Fourth, or Messianic Ecologue has had more to do with Vergil's fame even than the Aeneid". This, perhaps, is excessive but it contains much truth.

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