In 1867 correspondence and personal intercourse commenced between a distinguished Episcopalian and myself, of an interesting character. In that year I received an invitation to Chichester from Dean Hook. He was much talked of, on account of his High Churchmanship, and his pre-eminent activity as Vicar of Leeds. Dissenters counted him amongst their bitter foes; and I should have been much surprised, years earlier, had I been told I was to be a guest at his house. Yet so it was. Historical sympathies brought us together, and each found that the other wished to be fair in dealing with men who held opposite opinions. Both believed in a spiritual brotherhood reaching beyond denominational bounds. Soon after my arrival at Chichester he asked: “What shall we talk about? If I thought I could make you a Churchman, I would try to do so; and if you thought you could make a Dissenter of me, you would make the attempt.” I replied: “Nothing of the kind; let us leave out ecclesiastical controversy, and talk of literary and religious matters, on which we are pretty well agreed; and when we have exhausted them we will take up points of difference.” He went on to say, that his great friend Lord Hatherley, then High Chancellor, differed from him politically, and yet they had walked up together to the polling booth to record opposite votes, without any breach of friendship. “And so,” he said, “you and I can unite to a certain extent; and when we come to the parting of the way, we can each take our own course, with mutual good will.” I entered into the compact. On historical and social subjects, and as to religion in its spiritual and experimental aspects, we were of one accord, and felt no inclination to unsheath swords.
We had pleasant drives in the country and cheerful chat at the dinner-table, when he included within his party members of the cathedral body. Plenty of anecdotes were related, some about Dr. Wilberforce, when Bishop of Oxford. The Bishop, I heard, used to tell a story, which showed how a man might, unconsciously, make a good pun. He had engaged to dine with somebody whose name was _Hunter_, a cattle grazier, and on his way, as was his wont, the Bishop bethought himself: “What topic of talk can we have together?” At the railway-station his eye caught an advertisement of “Thorley’s Food for Cattle.” That would suit very well. So the bishop asked the grazier his opinion of such provision for beasts of the field. The host replied: “It might do very well for _Oxen_, but not for a _Hunter_.” He did not know he was quoting the diocesan name of his right-reverend guest (Oxon.), and forgot at the moment he was also repeating his own. The Dean gave a conundrum, invented by the Bishop, for the amusement of a young lady:—
