From the British Quarterly Review. BISHOP COTTON. IN MEMORIAM. felt for his predecessor; and he ended in winning a wider respect and a far warmer personal regard. BISHOP COTTON brought with him to On the sixth of October the waters of India a high reputation as a ripe scholar the Ganges suddenly received and closed and a successful teacher. A Westminster over one who for eight years had occupied a scholar, a fellow of Trinity College, Cammost honourable position in the public life bridge, distinguished in classics, he had of India. On that sad day, at the mouth of been a junior master under Dr. Arnold, and the Gorái, returning from the river-bank to the personal friend and colleague of his sucthe steamer on which he had just arrived cessor, Bishop Tait. It was known that he from Assam, without a moment's warning, had taken the mastership of Marlborough the Bishop of Calcutta was drowned. The School when the school was at a low ebb; startling intelligence sent a thrill of anguish that he had raised it to a high position, and and regret through Indian society, at the that he was spoken of by his many successuntimely removal of one so eminently useful, ful scholars with the most profound veneraand whom all classes had learned to regard tion. How would a man with such an with the deepest respect. Most truly did experience deal with the peculiar work the order of the Governor-General, which belonging to the Metropolitan of India. A officially announced the sad event, declare: successful teacher of boys, what would he There is scarcely a member of the entire be as a preacher to men? How would he Christian community throughout India who fit in to the peculiar features of Anglo-Inwill not feel the premature loss of this prel-dian life? What ground would he occupy ate as a personal affliction.' It was not among the influential officials of the emmerely in natural sympathy with his bereaved widow, but with a sincere feeling of personal loss, that the leading native gentlemen of Calcutta presented to her an address of condolence, extolling the varied excellences of the good Bishop, who in so many ways had sought their truest welfare. BISHOP COTTON went to India in the autumn of 1858. His appointment was made under peculiar circumstances. The crisis of the Indian mutiny was just over. Indian society was altogether unsettled: it was uncertain what would be the tone and spirit of Government and people. A vast army of English soldiers had been poured into Upper India, for whose spiritual wants little provision had been made. He was called, too, to succeed Bishop Wilson, who, from his devotional spirit, his bold proclamation of evangelical truth, his zealous exertions, and his sympathy with missionary work, had been regarded, at least by one party in the Church of England, as a model bishop. It was no easy thing to fill the vacant seat of one who had worn the mitre for so many years; and there was a general feeling that no successor could be expected to render a like service, or to occupy the post so well. For a while, the modest demeanour and the diffidence of Bishop Cotton rather confirmed this impression. But there was something so real about his character, bis judgment was so wise, his knowledge so correct and so wide, his grasp of his position and of his duty was so firm, that ere long all were attracted; he began to acquire as complete a confidence as had been pire? What view would he take of the His life in India was a very laborious one. He was the best preacher in his own cathedral, and while residing in Calcutta he visited in turn the eight churches under his authority, in which his services were always welcome. He infused new life into the committees of the various Church societies of which he became president, and gave to them all hearty sympathy and very wise advice. He was President of the Calcutta Bible Society, and took the chair at its jubilee meeting. He soon entered into friendly relations with the chaplains of the Church of Scotland, and with ministers and mission aries of other denominations. One of his earliest visits, on arriving in Calcutta, was paid to a distinguished missionary of the London Missionary Society, whom a few months later, with all the city clergy, he followed in sorrow to the grave. chief difficulty that lay in the way of its establishment; and had fully made up his mind to promote the appointment of one such bishop in South India, within a very limited period. To all plans of that kind he gave time and thought and careful consideration. Nor was he wanting in warmest sympathy for the labours of missionaries of other churches than his own; and these brethren always gave him a hearty and affectionate welcome. Whether they were the German missionaries among the Coles; or the American Baptists in Burmah; or the Basle brethren on the western coast, he had words of sympathy and affection for them all. He watched their proceedings with The journeys he undertook once and again to the various sections of his immediate diocese were very numerous, and involved a great amount of fatigue. He travelled not only by rail, or by the Peninsular and Oriental steamers, in convenience and comfort, but in the small cabins of river steamers and of pilot brigs; in the dawk garie, with its unmanageable horses; on the howúas of elephants; in the slow, shaking palanquin; and, worst of all, in the bullock carriages of Central India and Madras: over North India and the Pun-interest, rejoiced in their prosperity, and jab to Peshawur; in chief cities and small hill stations; away to Singapore and Borneo; up the rivers of Burmah; over the wide scattered provinces of Madras; through the bills of Rajpoothana; during his brief official life, the Bishop had faithfully visited all parts of the Indian empire, and several of the principal places in North India he had visited frequently. While surveying the beautiful scenery with a cultivated taste, or examining the palaces, temples, and tombs of other days, with the scholar's eye, he was everywhere intent on his peculiar work. He made himself personally acquainted with the character and the labours of the episcopal chaplains by no means an able body of men; he held conference with officials; he inquired into the spiritual instruction in English barracks and hospitals, and into the state of regimental schools. He consecrated churches when completed, and stirred up both the Government and the members of the Church to build others where they were required. On one occasion, in the midst of a large assembly of deeply-affected Englishmen, he had the melancholy pleasure of consecrating the monument erected over the WELL at Cawnpore. Wherever he went he showed the deepest interest in missionary work. To both the Propagation and the Church Missionary Societies he gave the most hearty support. All the missionaries of both societies found in him a true friend. He visited their stations, churches, and schools; he inquired fully into their plans; and few men in India more completely appreciated, and were better able justly to criticise them. In the question of a native bishopric, becoming increasingly important from the extension and success of the mission churches, he took the deepest interest. By an ingenious suggestion, he solved the was not slow to give them, when necessary, substantial help. When visiting on one occasion the Tinnevelly Mission, and proceeding thence to the Church Mission among the Syrian Christians, he passed through the prosperous mission of the London Missionary Society in South Travancore: there he was warmly welcomed to the mission-house, and was greatly interested in its various labours. While Mrs. Cotton visited the girls' school and the laceworkers, the Bishop examined the seminary, and gave some admirable Christian advice to the young students who were being trained there for the ministry. On his return to Calcutta, he proposed to give his clergy an account of the Tinnevelly Mission; but one and another heard of his intention, and begged permission to be present, until in his large drawing-room half the elite of Calcutta Society were gathered together, judges and magistrates, secretaries and councillors, as well as clergy, to listen to his story. And there, in the most homely way, with a chalk map on a black board, the Bishop gave a graphic and impressive account of the Christian mission among the devil-worshippers, not forgetting some kindly words for the London Mission, and the family that had received him at Nagercoil. He afterwards published his lecture in the Calcutta Review. There was something in all this very attractive to the broad and liberal views current in the best circles of Indian Society, and something far beyond what the clergy had been accustomed to. Bishop Cotton was really liberal both in mind and heart. This liberality was not merely prompted by Christian feeling, though that was sound; it was also the conclusion reached by a well-informed, well-balanced judgment. It sprang from conviction as well as from Christian principle. He was, therefore, self, he gave the Act his cordial approval. He justly sought to secure the same full privileges for his own clergy, but he put no hindrance in the way of others. Bishop Wilson had resisted all concession for twenty years. And when the CONVERTS' DIVORCE ACT was proposed, which for the first time sought to secure relief to any convert persistently repudiated by a heathen wife or husband, again the Bishop joined the liberal party, and gave the Act his most active support. There were many of the clergy, and some of the Episcopal missionaries on the other side; and they were beaded by Archdeacon Pratt, who pleaded powerfully against a measure which he believed to be fraught with danger to the purity of the young Indian Church. But the Bishop also took up the pen, and presented a more powerful argument in favour of the Act, full of learning, strengthened by all kinds of ecclesiastical authority, and based upon broad considerations of justice. Supported by a memorial, signed by a hundred and sixty missionaries, the Act was carried to a triumphant issue, and became law not quite a year ago. There were two matters connected with education to which the Bishop devoted constant attention. Very soon after his arrival in the country, he noticed the condition of the children of the poorer English and the East Indians of mixed blood. In his journeys to different places he heard much about them, and felt an increasing compassion for their intellectual and spiritual' wants. He knew that there were good schools in Calcutta and Madras for the sons of such as could pay for their education; but he saw that hundreds more were totally neglected, and ran risk of growing up like the heathen. Plan after plan, place after place, were thought of, until a scheme shaped itself out in his mind, that he would advocate and strive for the establishment of one or more schools in the beautiful stations in the hills, at Simla, Mussorie, and Darjeeling, to which these children might be removed, and where, in a healthy atmosphere, they might receive a sound Christian education. The scheme met with hearty approval, and with generous support. He himself wrought hard to secure its success. He wrote to friends in England; he enlisted In the same spirit, when the MARRIAGE the affections of his old students, and of the ACT was brought before the Legislative schools at Marlborough and Rugby. The Council, which would provide increased Government of India engaged to double the facilities for the marriage of Presbyterians sum he should collect. He proposed to and Nonconformists, and give to Noncon- start the scheme with a fund of £12,500, to formist ministers and registrars powers be turned by the Government into £25,000, which they do not possess in England it- and let it grow more perfect in its applica tion as time went on. The plan was still incomplete when he died. But it will not die with him. The loving affection which seeks to perpetuate his memory has fastened on these schools; and both in India and in England his friends have resolved to do their best to secure to them that complete success which his own heart desired. Thus, while for the children of our English_soldiers the LAWRENCE ASYLUMS at Kussowlie and Ootacamund secure a Christian training, and remind their scholars of the lofty virtues of the hero who founded them, so it is hoped the COTTON SCHOOLS will secure the same high end for the scattered children of the English community at large. Of his great love for the UNIVERSITY OF CALCUTTA, and of his earnest exertions to promote its welfare, only those can testify who worked by his side and shared his anxieties on its behalf. A young Institution, extensively criticised by men of very opposite views in education, it ran great risks: and if it has come clear out of its difficulties, and been placed upon a truly sound footing, the credit of such a result is pre-eminently due to two men, who looked upon it with the most yearning regard, viz., Bishop Cotton and Dr. Duff. The Bishop's experience in education was of the greatest value: his presence and counsel were constantly sought on its behalf. He was made President of the Senate and Chairman of the Syndicate whenever able to remain in town. In revising the early regulations, when an attempt was made to give the University a one-sided character, and draw it far too close to the Government Colleges and their system, the Bishop headed the opposition which steadfastly resisted the effort, and succeeded in securing to the University a liberal standard for its examinations, and making it, in truth, the common property of all efficient schools. Nowhere in India will Bishop Cotton be more frequently missed than at the council-table of the young University, which he served so well. For the new school in Bengal the large class of educated native gentlemen who have not yet reached a settled faith the Bishop had warm sympathy. Before his time, the Church of England had done little or nothing for them. Missionaries of other churches and societies had helped to produce them; were always working among them; felt them to be deserving of counsel, instruction, sympathy; had written tracts for them; had lectured to them; and had won many converts from them, whose hearts the Lord had opened. The Bishop looked on them with the same tender regard, and the same yearning desire for their good. He commenced, therefore, a distinct series of new efforts in reference to them, and himself shared the labours that were involved. He arranged a course of English lectures for them, to be delivéred in his own cathedral; and he himself gave the first lecture. He had a noble audience. A very large number of educated men attended from the city itself, including the chief preacher of the Brahmist party; and he had an unusual number of the native pleaders in the High Court (in their white dresses and shawl turbans), as they happened to live in the neighbourhood. His theme was the evidence for Christianity, furnished by the life of Christ, and the early history of the system. Renan's book had just been published, and he discussed it ably. The lecture was not a great success; it was beyond the audience; it was too deep for them; but they did not fail to appreciate the end it had in view, and the ground on which its arguments rested. The Bishop, at the request of Dr. Duff, repeated the lecture in the Hall of the Free Church Institution. On another occasion he delivered to the Bethune Society a most touching lecture, on the Life of Arnold; and yet another on the Clouds of Aristophanes and the work of Socrates. Within the last year of his life he sought to draw these native gentlemen into closer relations with himself, and with English society in Calcutta, by inviting them to his Palace. With the same purpose of giving to the Church of England its due share in the important work of Christian education, he founded the Cathedral Mission College in Calcutta. In his direct work as a Christian minister among his countrymen, and as a Bishop among his clergy, Bishop Cotton took a high position. His preaching was chiefly expository; it was plain, straightforward, very instructive, and eloquent in its earnestness. Evangelical in doctrine, it placed the framework of Christian life and worship in its right place; and its exhortations to holy practice bore the stamp of his own high standard, and his own high attainments. When occasion required he could be very plain-spoken. An assembly of officers in the Punjab winced hard one Sabbath-day, under his faithful exposure of the scandalous vices of which they are guilty in Cashmere; and to the scattered planters of indigo and tea estates he was not afraid to speak kind warnings of the dangers to which they are exposed; the evil many have done; the good they all may do. Two volumes of his sermons have been published. Twice he delivered a charge to his clergy, once in 1859, when Indian life was new to him; and again in 1863, when he had seen much of his diocese, and fully grasped its needs. The latter was a most noble address. It was delivered in the Cathedral to a select audience, in addition to the usual clergy, and occupied in the delivery four hours. It had a lofty tone from the outset, and discussed in a most able manner the controversies then raging about the Prayer Book; the great need of the English regiments in India; the duty of chaplains and of the Church generally to share heartily in missionary work; and the supreme importance to that work of thorough Christian education. would not be strong enough to compel their being read,' while "Malone oracularly pronounces them a jumble of affectation, pedantry, circumlocution, and nonsense!' It was reserved for the deeper feeling, the clearer insight of the poet, to recognize and welcome these exquisite gems; and Wordsworth and Coleridge rejoiced as over the discovery of long-buried treasure, at the re-appearance of Shakespeare's sonnets. By both these true poets the sonnets seem to have been viewed as a miscellaneous collection. Dr. Drake, some sixty years ago, was the first to adopt what has been called the personal theory,' and it was he, too, who pointed out the Earl of Southampton as the 'friend' to whom the greater number were addressed. Mr. Boaden, who also advocated the personal theory, considered that the Earl of PemAnd now he is gone. His living presence, broke was the friend, and in this opinion his great knowledge, his experience, his he is joined by Mr. Hallam. These disvoice, are all lost; lost to the universal coveries, as Mr. Gerald Massey truly reChurch, lost to the land to which he gave a marks, reached their climax' when Mr. whole heart. It is a truly great loss. To Charles Armitage Brown's strange work apIndia Bishop Cotton wished to be "A LIV-peared in 1838, in which he asserts the sonING SACRIFICE." He urged every Englishman to be the same. He wished the English race in India to be a SACRIFICE to that great country, if only it could be born into true liberty and true life. In many things like Heber, like Arnold, in his living; he was like them in his dying. But he was ready. 'Absent from the body, present with the Lord.' Deeply loved, he will be remembered long. To the Church, to the world, his removal is a loss unspeakable. To himself it is only gain. From the British Quarterly Review. Shakespeare's Sonnets, never before Interpret ed; His Private Friends Identified: together with a Recovered Likeness of Himself By GERALD MASSEY. Longmans and Co. AMONG the vexed questions that have engaged the literary world during the last thirty or forty years, that of Shakespeare's sonnets has held a conspicuous place. After having been all but forgotten for more than a century, these sonnets, when republished, so far from awakening admiration, seem to have been viewed by the blundering, selfconceited critics of George the Third's days actually with disgust, Steevens declaring that the strongest Act of Parliament nets to be strictly autobiographical, and devoted to the praiseworthy purpose of celebrating Shakespeare's intrigue with a married woman, whom he, in the sequel, kindly resigns to his friend; a theory,' as Mr. Massey indignantly remarks, adduced without one atom of proof; assuming that Shakespeare was a self-debaser and self-defamer, of a species that has no previous type, no after copy.' It is strange to remember how eagerly this revolting theory was seized upon by some of the critics of that day, and it is strange to see how many commentators, even in the present, still uphold it, although all the careful research of Messrs. Hunter, Dyce, Collier, and Halliwell, have found not the slightest evidence for its support. We cannot but smile when we find some of these later writers, influenced probably by the direct testimony to Shakespeare's moral character, amiably conceding that if he sinned, he also very properly repented, and therefore we must not censure him too severely; while going yet further, a German critic, Dr. Ulrici, considers that with marvellous self-denial, Shakespeare, having fallen, set the matter forth as a warning to the world, and offered himself up for the good of others,' although why he did not make this amende in the more tangible form of a pamphlet, like poor Green's Groat's worth of Wit bought by a Million of Repentance,' instead of a series of sonnets, which have been stumbling-blocks to so |