THE Reverend Reginald Heber, father of the Bishop, originally an inhabitant of Marton, in Yorkshire, for a short time held the living of Malpas, in Cheshire, and was afterwards Rector of Hodnet, in Shropshire, the latter living having come with the estate into the possession of the family by a marriage with an heiress of the name of Vernon. The rector's first wife left him one son, Richard, who became Member of Parliament for the University of Oxford. The second Mrs. Heber, Mary, daughter of the Reverend Dr. Cuthbert Allanson, was the mother of three children, Reginald, Thomas Cuthbert, and Mary. The eldest, Reginald, was born at Malpas, on the 21st of April, 1783. For a

brief season he was instructed at the Whitchurch Grammar School. When thirteen years of age, he was placed under the care of Dr. Bristowe, a clergyman, who took about twelve pupils, at Neasdon, near London. In November, 1800, he was entered at Brasenose College, Oxford, where he respected with a dutiful compliance the judicious arrangements of his parents for his comfort, safety and progress during his college life. To John Thornton, Esq., with whom, when his school-fellow for three of his years at Neasdon, he had contracted an intimate friendship, he wrote a month before going to college, "I am to have a private tutor, which I am very glad of. It is, I believe, principally a contri

vance to keep me out of drinking parties, and to give me the advantage of reading to another person instead of to myself." His father died at the advanced age of seventyfive, in the beginning of 1804, from which period his wise and good brother Richard became to him as a second father. In November of the same year he was elected a Fellow of All Souls College.

In 1805, with his friend Thornton, he undertook a journey which extended through Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Russia, the Crimea, Hungary, Austria, Prussia, and other parts of Germany. For this tour his relatives gladly released him, fearing that his amiable disposition might be injuriously affected if he were not removed for a season from the admiration which his talents had excited. He returned from the Continent in September, 1806.

In 1807, he entered into holy orders, and was instituted by his brother to the family living of Hodnet. He then immediately repaired to Oxford, and took his degree as Master of Arts. In April, 1809, at the age of twenty-six, he married Amelia Shipley, daughter of a Dean, and granddaughter of a Bishop of St. Asaph, and no longer delayed to undertake the duties of his parish. He was Bampton Lecturer for 1815, appointed in 1817 to a stall in the St. Asaph Cathedral, and elected to the Preachership of Lincoln's Inn in 1822. In January, 1823, when only thirty-nine years

of age, he was chosen to succeed Dr. Middleton in the Bishopric of Calcutta. In February, of the same year, the University of Oxford presented him by diploma with his degree as Doctor of Divinity. He was consecrated on the 1st of June, and on the 8th of that month, in St. Paul's Cathedral, before the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, he preached his last sermon in England. The valedictory address of the same Society was delivered to him on the 13th, by Dr. Kaye, Bishop of Bristol, at a special meeting. On Monday the 16th, he sailed with his family for India. He reached Calcutta on the 10th of October, and on the 18th was installed in the cathedral of that city. From the 15th of June in the following year, to the 21st of October, 1825, he was engaged in an official visitation of the North and West of Hindustan, and the island of Ceylon. He sailed for Madras and the South of India, with the same object, February 2nd, 1826, and on the 3rd of April, when not quite forty-three years of age, after being in the country only two years and a half, he died at Trichinopoly.

Let us more closely inspect the character of him whose career we have given in outline. Reginald Heber, when a child, was remarkable for thoughtfulness. In the midst of playfellows he would become grave and silent, and apparently insensible to all that was going on around. As a school-boy he was sometimes more troubled with wandering thoughts than with the lesson in hand. Hence his class-mates occasionally had the credit of surpassing him in the race. When they were reaping the profit of school routine or "bodily exercise," his faculty of abstraction enabled him to add to his sub

It was

stantial intellectual stores. no "brown study" that caught him, but the lure of some definite object worthy of steady thought. To all that was inconvenient in the habit he happily grew superior when he left life's early stage. Only as a help and a virtue he retained the power; in after years, when necessary, he could in a moment pass or return, without any seeming effort, from study to conversation, from sociality to research.

Of a modest and retiring disposition, he was yet not deficient in self-respect. He ever paid ready homage to moral and intellectual excellence; but was not willing to be ruled by brute force. Life through, he showed a love of adventure, the noblest courage, and great power of endurance. When a boy, he braved the bull in the field; when a man, he dared the tiger in his lair. He was equally happy, rambling at home, contending with Russian snows, piloting his pinnace on the Ganges, crossing the terrible jungle, climbing Himalayan slopes, or toiling beneath the Southern sun. Bashful as are all who with reason respect themselves, he blushed with the modesty of genius. No doubt he must learn by blundering; but, reluctant to have his errors needlessly conspicuous, he would try, before he would exhibit, his powers. He endeavoured to keep his youthful compositions secret. He gathered knowledge in all circumstances, and from all sources. The unconscious mechanic was his teacher, as well as the bending or unbending philosopher; and he drew wisdom from the lips of the stammering peasant, scarcely less than from those of the voluble scholar. He remembered easily; not everything; not numbers, names or faces; historical events and personages completely, but not always

dates; the politics of the day exactly, but not perhaps the day of the month; whatever in learning he valued, but little that he disesteemed. His reputation was dear to him. He hastened and laboured to improve opportunities, as he once expressed himself, quoting from an American newspaper, to "display his talents in the eloquential line;" and he was not ashamed, once and again, with the help of his friends to "make a push", as he phrased it, for a coveted post of influence and honour. He spoke from the heart when in his Bampton Lectures he used the words: "Our cheek has burned, it may be, with that delightful glow which is communicated by the world's approbation."

Heber was from childhood heroically self-controlled. When he felt the rising of anger, the pang of grief, the bitterness of disappointment, his face would become paler, his eye would glisten with an involuntary tear, the sigh would escape his agitated breast; but his lips uttered the fewest possible expressions of impatience, sorrow or despondency. It was often remarked by the servants in his father's house that "Master Reginald never was in a passion." At school, where he was a pattern and check to the other boys, such was the sweetness of his disposition that though he seldom shared in their ordinary sports, yet he was admired and loved by them all. An eager competitor in study, he was never resentful or discontented when surpassed. He was forward to put a charitable construction upon questionable acts. In several instances where the reconciliation of persons at variance had seemed impossible, he reaped the blessedness of the peacemaker. he advanced in life, his command over his passions and feelings be

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a conscientious respect for the property of others, especially that of the poor, he was not too careful of his own. His kindness of heart was excessive; and in the bestowment of charity he was generous to a fault. He often delicately administered unsolicited relief. When selfish and unjust persons chanced to be his debtors, he patiently listened to their excuses for non-payment, and too readily cancelled their obligations; and he even extended his aid to individuals whom he had reason to suspect of ungrateful and iniquitous conduct.

Young Heber's love of books and proneness to abstraction by no means disqualified him for cheerful and profitable intercourse. Some regarded it as a pity that, when he opened his lips, he had a fixed and downcast look; but that was because, unlike many young people, he talked thoughtfully.

In the midst of a group of boys in the dull schoolroom, he could make a long winter evening short by repeating, partly invented, partly remembered, in earnest and measured tone, ballads and wild stories. In advanced youth and afterwards, with all his sweet humility, he was the heart and spirit of the social circle, without ever being one of those unpleasant creatures who study "how to shine in society," are at the trouble to get themselves up for a party, and are unhappy when they fail to command

attention. The charm of his conversation was that it was natural and unpretending. Cheerful while diffident, eloquent if not always fluent, he could with equal ease amuse the vulgar and captivate the learned. His presence drove gloom away, and made the fireside or the sunshine seem brighter; and the lengthy sea-passage was less wearisome when he was a fellow-passenger. A great talker he uttered no absurdities, and was not more communicative than attentive. He drew his companions out, conversing on subjects suited to their age and position. Often, while imparting, he appeared to be seeking instruction.

He mortified no one by proving his superiority. He was a man of innocent humour, frequently agreeably pungent in speech, in his journals and many of his letters pleasantly facetious, and in some of his lighter poetry abundantly entertaining. He was witty without malice, and satirical without coarseness. If he wounded any, he equally felt the stroke. We are bound to say that he considered a moderate participation in social amusements better than harmless; but to card-playing, dancing and masquerading he had a settled aversion. He felt it a delight to feed the pleasure of others. The grave clergyman gladdened with gay effusions the evening circle.

In the private relations of life, Heber was loved and loving. As a friend, he was true and faithful. He was a most dutiful son. Having hurried from those who, with outstretched hands and eager voices, congratulated him after his recitation of "Palestine," he was found by his fondly impatient mother in his own room upon his knees thanking Almighty God that he had been enabled to bring his parents so much happiness. He lamented with deep grief the decease of his aged father,

and carefully cherished his dying counsels. When on the Continent, he could not, without first obtaining by letter the express sanction of his widowed mother, decide upon giving, as he wished, a new direction to his travels. He wrote to her, "I would not for the world that my amusements should cause anxiety to my friends." To use words of his own in his Bampton Lectures, he was ever sensible of his obligations "to those maxims and precedents of heroic excellence with which our childhood and our youth are chiefly conversant, those lessons from which, next to the Sacred Oracles themselves, we form our tempers and enlarge our understandings." As a brother, he was open-hearted, confiding, helpful and devoted. When

the Rev. Thomas Cuthbert Heber died, hearing in the bereavement the voice of God, he testified with selfreproach, in a stanza omitted in the published collection from a hymn for the fourth Sunday after Epiphany,"He call'd me by a brother's bier,

As down I knelt to prayer,
But ah! though sorrow shed the tear,
Repentance was not there."

His widow being his biographer, we are told no more of him as a suitor than that the first present he made her was a Bible. To his worth as a husband she has erected monumental testimony, in her publication of his Sermons, Hymns and Journals, and especially in her Life of the Bishop. When absent from home, he valued a letter from her, he said, more than the finest scenery; and he did not realise all the bitterness of his banishment from England until he had left his family for his visitation. A few weeks after quitting Calcutta, with the expectation of meeting Mrs. Heber at Bombay, he addressed to her the touching lines commencing:

"If thou wert by my side, my love, etc."