One day he took me with him to stay at Hurstmonceux with Archdeacon Hare, and a delightful time it was. There were books in every room, on the staircase, and in every corner of the house, and the Archdeacon knew every one of them, and as soon as a book was mentioned, he went and fetched it. He generally knew the very place at which the passage that was being discussed, occurred, and excelled even the famous dog, which at one of these literary breakfast parties—I believe in Hallam’s house—was ordered on the spur of the moment to fetch the fifth volume of Gibbon’s _History_, and at once climbed up the ladder and brought down from the shelf the very volume in which the disputed passage occurred. He had been taught this one trick of fetching a certain volume from the shelves of the library, and the conversation was turned and turned till it was brought round to a passage in that very volume. The guests were, no doubt, amazed, but as it was before the days of Darwin and Lubbock, it led to no more than a good laugh. I was surprised and delighted at the honesty with which the Archdeacon admitted the weak points of the Anglican system, and the dangers which threatened not only the Church, but the religion of England. The real danger, he evidently thought, came from the clergy, and their hankering after Rome. “They have forgotten their history,” he said, “and the sufferings which the sway of a Roman priesthood has inflicted for centuries on their country.” I think it was he who told me the story of a young Romanizing curate, who declared that he could never see what was the use of the laity.