Benry Airay". PROVOST OF QUEEN'S COLLEGE, AND VICE-CHANCELLOR OF THE ANY men get while alive the dignified title of learned; few-very few deserve it: Henry Airay did both, he acquired and deserved it. Two centuries and a half have swept over his remains, but to give them the hardihood of antiquity. Dr. Collinson, the late Provost of Queen's College Oxford, himself a man of strong head and great industry, used to say, that Henry Airay was the most learned man the House (the College) ever had within its walls from Westmorland or Cumberland. Dr. Fox, the present amiable head of that Institution (if we are rightly informed), thinks so too ;— * See Wood's Ath. Oxon.; Annals of Colleges and Halls, Biog. Brit. indeed, at the Provost's Lodge, it seems to be a matter of tradition. Whether this be his true and proper gradation on the intellectual scale we shall not at this moment step aside to discuss, but content ourselves with the remark, that Bernard Gilpin (the Northern Apostle), Edmund Gibson (the author of the Chronicon Saxonicum), Gerard Langbaine, and Dr. Mill, were born in the same county, and educated in the same house. Let us not, from this passing reflection, be suspected of a doubt of Airay's excellence, or of a wish to extenuate his glory, or to set down aught in malice against him, or against his admirers; for— "Brutus' love to Cæsar is no less than theirs. Be the first College prize awarded to whomsoever it may, the examples of the well-spent lives, and the lessons of wisdom left to the world, will secure for the others the everlasting regard of men, and the high reward-the applauding smile of Heaven! He was, ex parte maternâ, of the ancient family, his mother's blood run on his dexter cheek,—in other words, of Gilpin, of Kentmere Hall. He was the nephew of Bernard Gilpin, being his sister's son; we state this upon the authority of one of the most accurate, luminous, and learned antiquarians in modern times-Surtees, the historian of Durham*. Before stumbling on this valuable passage, it must be owned that our own researches had led us to a different conclusion, and to register him on the short and simple annals of the poor; as one of those boys whom the Great Apostle, in one of his holy pilgrimages into the remote corners of the North (pilgrimages worthy of St. Paul himself) had met with, and adopted as his ownt. That they were strangers in blood seemed in some degree confirmed by the tenour of Gilpin's correspondence, and especially by his last will and testament (dated 27th October, 1582) in which his foster-child is made a legatee, but rather as a friend, than as a near relative. But we kiss the rod, and at once subscribe to so great an authority. But from which sister is he sprung? According to Dr. Burn, there were sisters of the whole blood, and sisters of the half blood,-one of the latter, namely, Cicely, we are unable to trace, and the probability is that he was her son ‡. The alternative is, that some other sister was twice married, and for her second husband married Airay's father. It is somewhere said, that the natural flights of the mind are from hope to hope: in biographical details they are too often from doubt to doubt. One spectre laid, another more startling rises to * Surtees' History of Durham, 161. Tit. Houghton-le-Spring. + See "Life of Gilpin,” p. 253. Dr. Burn's "History" (Kentmere), 137, ch. 6. --- thwart and dishearten us. Where was Airay born? That he was born somewhere within the chapelry of Kentmere, in 1559, we have on the concurring testimony of biographers and historians. Kentmere, it will be borne in mind, is bounded on the East by Long Sleddale,—on the South by Stavely and Ings, on the West by the top of Garburn Fells, and on the North by Patterdale. From Dan to Beersheba of this secluded spot, Industry with her faithful pack has scoured in vain ; in vain-save the health a morning quest never fails to give, May the next generation be more fortunate in the quarry! Two things, however, seem pretty clear, -that he was born, and that he was born in Kentmere; and, therefore, a Westmoreland-born Worthy. With these data, let us proceed from matter to mind, and leave the uncertainty of conjecture for the record of facts. It has likewise been said that Airay was educated at Barton School; but this must be a mistake, probably, for Adam Airay, who, together with Dawes, Langbaine, and Lancaster, many years afterwards founded that school*; or it must have been when he was a very little boy; for certain it is that he was taken by the Great Apostle, as hereinafter mentioned. The charter of the Kepyer School, at Houghton-le-Spring, in the county of Durham, bears date April 2nd, 1574+; and it was in that, * See "Life of Langbaine." + See Surtees. or early in the following year, we find under the great founder's roof Henry Airay, Carleton*, and Hugh Broughton, the best Hebrew scholar of his age, "but one of the chickens he had hatched, who did after seeke to pecke out his eyest." Those who wish to have a just notion of the sublime designs of Gilpin in the foundation, endowment, and superintendence of this school, and above all, in the education of the children of the poor, would do well to consult the work already referred to, namely, the "History of Durham;" and should there be any who think it a modern discovery, to improve the social condition of the people, by enlarging and purifying their minds, will there find that he, nearly three hundred years ago, discovered and attested its truth ;-discovered, if Paley's assertion be right, that "he only discovers who proves‡." Here Airay remained, being clothed, fed, and instructed by Gilpin, until he was nineteen or twenty years of age. Of the progress he there made in his studies we have no note, in the Life of Gilpin," or otherwise. But being chosen by him as part of his grand and godlike design to Christianize the world; being educated under his immediate eye, a favourite pupil, and his own nephew, we may safely infer, that it was at Houghton-le-Spring that he laid the solid foundation of his future glory. Gilpin's Life," 254. + Bishop Barnes. Paley's "Moral Philosophy." |