Volume 2, Number 11 · July 9, 1964
A Saint at Oxford
By Christopher Ricks
John Keble
by Georgina Battiscombe
Knopf, 395 pp., $8.50
This is apparently the first full-length life of John Keble (1792-1866), but there is nothing to be surprised at in the placid patience of the years. Of the dignitaries of the Oxford Movement, Keble was the dullest, lacking either the sharpness of intellect of Newman or the stubborn hardihood of Pusey. The Movement itself now has a tinge of the tragicomic. Determined to restore to a dusty Church of England the color, traditions, and authority of a 'Catholic Church,' the worthies watched with pained bemusement as one by one their supporters decided that if you really wanted the virtues of a Catholic Church, you have to seek them in the Roman Catholic Church. There is a tellingly compact account of Keble in Sir Geoffrey Faber's classic study, Oxford Apostles—a book more effective than Mrs. Battiscombe's in relating Keble to the Movement as a whole. Not that she tells the life ineptly. We pass from the dim religious light of Keble's childhood to his faintly priggish years at Oxford, culminating in the Fellowship at Oriel College which was then the highest of honors. So begins the friendship with Newman, a friendship never shattered though often imperiled. (The most moving moment in the book is when, long after Newman's defection to Rome, the two old men meet again with awe and affection.) Then Keble's winning of a larger fame and influence with his best-selling 'poems,' The Christian Year (1827). And the first fine careless rapture of the Tracts for the Times, their aspiration that the Church of England could be protected against all its encircling enemies: Romish beguilements, Low Church aridity, Broad Church liberalism (i.e. impiety). Then the shock of Newman's remorseless strictness with himself, ending in his departure. And so into a series of tarnished controversies: the Gorham case (he being unsound on baptismal regeneration), the Colenso case (he doubting the literal accuracy of the Pentateuch).
Review, 1774 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |