send me up at once for matriculation. But, for one reason or another, his name has not occupied a very prominent place in the world now for many years. So my vagrant memory drifted lazily to the name. of the Devonshire hamlet, and to the story of the famous stone said to give the name to the hamlet and to the family. Copleston himself used to explain that this was a coping-stone, or a stone surmounting a gable. But it was hard to see how so ordinary a feature could be the distinction of a place or of a family. Prince, writing two centuries ago, described the stone as a dolmen, twelve feet clear of the ground, standing at the meeting of four parishes, where it probably had stood long before the parishes were constituted. I had also ringing in my ear a familiar Devonshire rhyme

Crocker, Cruwys, and Coplestone

When the Conqueror came were found at home.

Now, as the rhyme does not stand on the consonants, it can only stand on the sound of the vowel, which implies a terminal e. In fact that has now long been the spelling of the place, though I have to admit that Prince going back many centuries does always spell the name Copleston.

But to think of you all-yes, all of you, some dozen doughty knights of the pen-not having found and flung at my head the following passage in the Memoir of the Bishop, by W. J. Copleston, published by Parker, 1851. It occurs in a letter from one of Copleston's quondam pupils to the writer of the memoir :

EDWARD COPLESTON.

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You will smile, I think, at the fo lowing characteristic trait of a relative whose turn of mind you knew so well. A note was delivered to your uncle while we were ' enucleating' (as an excellent friend and olim socius, T——, used to style it) a tough part of the 'Agamemnon.' Having opened and perused the note, Mr. Copleston tossed it indignantly to me, pointing to the direction

'Now look there—as if that man, who ought to know better, and has called here half a dozen times, could not recollect that my name is Copleston, as you may see it over my door, and that I was baptized Edward, which he must know also, or might have found out.'

H. He indulges you, I see, sir, with two superfluous letters. C. Yes the Rev. Mr. Copplestone! Now, I cannot recommend a better habit to a young man, like yourself, entering the world in good society, than to ascertain the exact prefix, spelling, and pronunciation of every man's name with whom you have intercourse-such, I mean, as he and his family choose habitually to adopt. Depend upon it that people in general infer a sort of ỏλywpía from such lapses; as if you took such little interest in their identity, as to forget the minor characteristics of it.

This I quote, indirectly, from a review of the memoir in the 'Christian Remembrancer' of January, 1852, to which my brother Arthur, who wrote the review, has called my attention.

But once upon my mis-spellings I must go on. What a storm there was about my writing Oakley for Oakeley! All the nine villages of the name are spelt Oakley, and the suburban square is Oakley, and no doubt the e is an interpolation. Still I ought to have known the right spelling, even after forty years. It is true that I have myself suffered much persecution in the wanton mis-spelling of my own name half a dozen different ways. The very last letter I had from Ward, for five years my fellow-worker in the 'British

Critic,' and very frequent correspondent, lies before me, spelling my name 'Mozely.' Did I quarrel with him? No. I knew he was too ideal ever to be real. My case could not easily be so bad as that of a departed friend, whose right name was Lewellin, but who kept in a portfolio more than a hundred various spellings of his name actually received through the post.

But I think my mis-spelling of the well-known and much loved Master of University raised the greatest storm of indignant remonstrance. What, not to know how to spell Plumptre! The very insufficient answer is that I had been living twelve years at Plymtree, and had no acquaintance with the living representatives of the Master at Oxford.

Then I have offended a whole college, and a college that thinks something of itself, by allowing myself to be misled by the rules of pronunciation, and giving it only two 's in the course of three syllables. I took inadvertently the old spelling. In Hume I find it John Baliol. In Ecton's 'Thesaurus' I find it Baliol College. The rule certainly is that when a is pronounced as in 'whale' there must be only one l, and when as in the first syllable of' alligator,' with two l's.

My saddest case of mis-spelling, for such it is, I do indeed deeply grieve, and can only plead 'extenuating circumstances.' Of course I ought to have known how to designate Newman's friend, Bowden, and the pope he wrote a life of; especially when I was undertaking to enlighten the public on these points. I had the names, in various connections, lying before me. Had I felt a doubt, five minutes might have settled the question. The true man was John

JOHN W. BOWDEN.

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W. Bowden, and he published a Life of Gregory VII. I described him as Henry Boden, and his subject as Gregory the Great. There could hardly be worse blunders—at least in the eyes of those who happen to be well acquainted with all the personages concerned. I should think that no one of all Newman's friends was so dear to him as John W. Bowden.

Well, what have I to say for myself? I never saw John W. Bowden but once in my life. I never saw his brother, the true Henry Bowden, even once. I am not sure that I ever saw the outside of John W. Bowden's book, and am pretty sure that I never read a page, or a line of it. The only time I saw him was in a mile's walk from Rose Bank to Oxford. in Newman's company. I could not but be struck by the man, and remember him well. He was a very fine figure, graceful rather than stately, very handsome, with a very expressive countenance, a melodious voice, and a fluent utterance. It could be no surprise that any one could become tenderly attached to him. But this beautiful vision I saw and heard once, and never again.

Of course I ought to have known and remembered what John W. Bowden did in his brief career. I now find that, besides his share in 'St. Bartholomew's Eve' and the 'Life of Hildebrand,' he wrote four of the 'Tracts for the Times,' beginning with the fifth, on the Constitution and History of the Church. I have just now run through them. To those who have yet to form an idea of a writer, who, as the fidus Achates of the Cardinal, must be an object of interest, I may say that the tracts recall the man. They are very easy,

graceful, business-like pieces of workmanship; but, though they might possibly secure some young Evangelical already on the move, I cannot think they would bring over any dissenters. Such people object to the doctrine, the discipline, and the secular associations of the Church, and J. W. Bowden leaves these matters just where they were. He affects to start from the mission of the Apostles, but really builds on the foundation of Constantine. However, I recommend the four tracts, which read very musically, if music could win souls.

John W. Bowden married into the family of a great Northern baronet, and was absorbed into it. An aristocratic connection is much admired and much coveted, but it often ends in personal annihilation. Inconsistency, too, even apparent inconsistency, is a destructive process. There certainly was something incongruous in the admirer of Hildebrand, who was for putting his hook in the nose of every prince, power, and potentate in the world, settling into the appendage of a Northumbrian baronet's household.

I have further to confess that a time came when the name had a painful association, which did not allow me to dwell on it. When I went to reside in town in 1848-I forget whether J. W. Bowden was still living-I think not - my wife, upon some encouragement, ventured to call on Mrs. Bowden, whom she had met several times at Oxford, and who was then residing either at or next door to Sir John Swinburne. She was then invited to repeat her call at lunch-time. She made several attempts without being admitted. My own impression at the time was that