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INTRODUCTION. ' xi
speech, and his keen sense of the ludicrous, brought upon him the reputation of being rather arrogant. In spite of frequent attacks of excruciating headaches, he studied faithfully, and laid an excellent foundation of learning. During the first year of his undergraduate career he wrote one of his most popular poems, "The Cherwell Water-Lily."
Faber's family was of Huguenot origin, having taken refuge in England on the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. His early Calvinistic views were, so to speak, hereditary. With such a training, it was not strange that he took a keen interest in the theological questions that were then beginning to agitate the English Church. He was greatly pleased with the preaching of the Rev. John Henry Newman, Vicar of St. Mary's. But before he followed Newman to his full length, he had a strong reaction. He wrote, with a fine application of Horace's ode, " He who hung his dripping garment and votive tablet to the ocean god has no doubt a keener sense of the perils of the sea than any one else; and this perhaps leads me to regard with deep sorrow the spread of this amiable devotional mysticism in Oxford." In retrospection, he speaks of this period as a painful, a dreadful struggle.
In 1835, Faber took up his residence at University College, to which he was elected; but his preparation for "the schools," which at Oxford required much |
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