The Manx language may not be a remunerative study, but the history of the island is full of interest, and the excellent patriotism of the Speaker of the House of Keys has provided the children with a school history, abbreviated from a larger work. I wish it were more generally used. Manx history is tangible; the monuments lie all round; Celts and Scandinavians have left traces everywhere. Saints and martyrs, such as were Patrick, German, Maughold, Bride; kings and warriors, King Orry and and others; Stanleys and Murrays. Murrays. Who would not be proud to be a Manxman? Who was King Orry? I have great gifts of forgetfulness when it comes to history instead of story, and I do not recollect the details of that monarch's career. It is all in that book on the shelf. A Manx boy to whom I put the same question-Who was King Orry ?-replied “ a boot." It was explained that he meant "boat" and that one of the Liverpool steamers is called after the king. That does not carry us any further: but I remember the story of Bishop Wilson, which a colleague told me as we came back from Castle Rushen, and (like an examination candidate) I offer the one in place of the other : Thomas Wilson was for 57 years (1697-1755) the saintly Bishop of Sodor and Man. The Governor's wife had, it was alleged, declared that Mrs. Z. was no better than she should be. Mrs. Z said she was as good as Mrs. Governor. The matter was referred to the Bishop, who decided in favour of Mrs. Z. and ordered her assailant to apologize. On the lady's refusal he excommunicated her. But she "got at" the Archdeacon-(" ploughed with my heifer," said Bishop Wilberforce of his Archdeacon 150 years later) and persuaded the inferior officer to admit her to Communion. Thereupon the Bishop inhibited the Archdeacon. Whereupon the Governor seized the Bishop, and put him in the dungeons of Castle Rushen, till he should be purged of his contempt. There is much to be said for Home Rule. Mansel's 1 That was when the Archdeacon of Oxford acted as "Chairman of Hardy's Committee"; the Bishop favouring Gladstone. epigram is famous, beginning When the versatile Prelate of Oxford's famed city "You have ploughed with my heifer, that is my Archdeacon." &c., &c. (see Burgon's Life of Mansel). CHAPTER XXX RELEASE "We have had enough of action, and of motion we, was seething free, Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea." "Lotos Eaters." THE Psalmist fixed three score and ten years as the limit of man's age; but he did not go into the question of efficiency. That has been settled with less liberality by the rules of the Civil Service, which "pluck away five lagging winters and five wanton springs" from the more generous sum, and decree that survivors shall be put on the Pension List at 65. But this, as Isabella (she of Measure for Measure) would say, is for the soldier: the captain is free. The Prime Minister is five years my senior: the Secretary for India, and the late Secretary for Ireland, now Ambassador at Washington, took their degrees at Oxford in my first or second year. These hoary statesmen, still as I write, flourish like green bay-trees, and I am become a lean and slippered pantaloon. For these high offices, says the Treasury, there is no need of restriction; but for posts requiring activity and intelligence (such as the Inspectorate of schools) there must be an age limit. Nay, more a later circular of the Board regrets that men should be kept on to 65 when "in many cases they have lost that freshness and originality which, &c., &c." And it proposes to cut down the limit by degrees to 60. On the other hand, I have read that the Prime Minister has appointed one right reverend gentleman, aged 67, to be Bishop of A.; another reverend gentleman aged 71 to be Dean of B.; and a third, who graduated a year before me, to be Bishop of C. to be Bishop of C. But the Premier himself is 71, and this alters a man's point of view. I admit that a dean requires little freshness and originality: but in the annals of another branch of the public service I read, that in 1857, when the Indian Mutiny broke out, the Government asked Sir Colin Campbell to take command of the British forces in India, he being then 65, and that he started in 24 hours. "It's Tommy this an' Tommy that, an' Tommy go away, But it's good grey 'eaded 'ero, when the band begins to play." I have taken a slight liberty with Mr. Kipling's lines. However, the arrangement suited me admirably, and it is only to preserve my British right to grumble, that I grumble. I had intended to retire at the age of sixty, when I became eligible for a pension: but, like Andrew Fairservice, whom I have already twice quoted, I had "e'en daikered on frae year's end to year's end." Therefore when the spring of 1906 clearly revealed to me that the coming December would bring me freedom, I made no complaint. That spring had added Salford, with 220,000 people, to my already enormous family. Salford, be it known to southern readers, adjoins Manchester much as Westminster adjoins London, but in part as West minster adjoins Lambeth; for the Irwell is the boundary for some distance. Salford is a County Borough with three members of Parliament: there is no visible boundary between the Manchester and Salford types of M.P. they have all bathed in Irwell. Nor is there any visible boundary between the two styles of school architecture : there, too, Manchester has set the fashion, and Salford, nimium vicina Cremonae, has followed it; but Salford, being the poor relation, is in a more deplorable state. Educationally, however, Salford is now full of zeal. We got on very well together, and so far I should have been glad to stay for another six months, in order to weld together the inspecting machinery of the two towns. "There's aye something to saw that I would like to see sawn, or something to maw that I would like to see mawn, or something to ripe that I would like to see ripen," said the same Andrew; but it could not be. My hands were full. I yearned to empty them, and fold them, and write no more reports with them. The prospect of another November in Manchester was unendurable, and I determined to retire on October 1st, thus incidentally relieving the country of the burden of maintaining me on the active staff for the two months before my birthday. "What loss is it to be rid of care?" said the deposed Richard. But the Board of Education, which would wrangle doggedly for three weeks about a charge of sixpence in travelling expenses, is both considerate and generous in greater matters. It was, they said, convenient to them that changes should be made at the end of the summer holidays, and if I liked to go at the end of September, they would give me "leave of absence" with full pay for the remaining two months. I gratefully accepted this really A A |