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KINGSLEY, CHARLES (1819-1875)

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Originally appearing in Volume V15, Page 818 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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KINGSLEY, See also:CHARLES (1819-1875) , See also:English clergyman, poet and novelist, was See also:born on the 12th of See also:June 1819, at Holne vicarage, See also:Dartmoor, See also:Devon. His See also:early years were spent at Barnack in the Fen See also:country and at See also:Clovelly in See also:North Devon. The scenery of both made a See also:great impression on his mind, and was afterwards described with singular vividness in his writings. He was educated at private See also:schools and at See also:King's See also:College, See also:London, after his See also:father's promotion to the rectory of St See also:Luke's, See also:Chelsea. In 1838 he entered Magdalene College, See also:Cambridge, and in 1842 he was ordained to the curacy of Evers-ley in See also:Hampshire, to the rectory of which he was not See also:long after-wards presented, and this, with See also:short intervals, was his See also:home for the remaining See also:thirty-three years of his See also:life. In 1844 he married Fanny, daughter of Pascoe Grenfell, and in 1848 he published his first See also:volume, The See also:Saint's Tragedy. In 1859 he became See also:chaplain to See also:Queen See also:Victoria; in 186o he was appointed to the professorship of See also:modern See also:history at Cambridge, which he resigned in 1869; and soon after he was appointed to a canonry at See also:Chester. In 1873 this was exchanged for a canonry at See also:Westminster. He died at See also:Eversley on the 23rd of See also:January 1875. With the exception of occasional changes of See also:residence in See also:England, generally for the See also:sake of his wife's See also:health, one or two short See also:holiday trips abroad, a tour in the See also:West Indies, and another in See also:America to visit his eldest son settled there as an engineer, his life was spent in the peaceful, if active, occupations of a clergyman who did his See also:duty earnestly, and of a vigorous and prolific writer. But in spite of this apparently uneventful life, he was for many years one of the most prominent men of his See also:time, and by his See also:personality and his books he exercised considerable See also:influence on the thought of his See also:generation. Though not profoundly learned, he was a See also:man of wide and various See also:information, whose interests and sympathies embraced many branches of human knowledge.

He was an enthusiastic student in particular of natural history and See also:

geology. Sprung on the father's See also:side from an old English See also:race of country squires, and on his See also:mother's side from a See also:good West See also:Indian See also:family who had been slaveholders for generations, he had a keen love of See also:sport and a genuine sympathy with country-folk, but he had at the same time something of the scorn for See also:lower races to be found in the members of a dominant race. With the sympathetic organization which made him keenly sensible of the wants of the poor, he threw himself heartily into the See also:movement known as See also:Christian See also:Socialism, of which See also:Frederick See also:Denison See also:Maurice was the recognized See also:leader, and for many years he was considered as an extreme See also:radical in a profession the traditions of which were conservative. While in this phase he wrote his novels Yeast and See also:Alton See also:Locke, in which, though he pointed out unsparingly the folly of extremes, he certainly sympathized not only with the poor, but with much that was done and said by the leaders in the Chartist movement. Yet even then he considered that the true leaders of the See also:people were a peer and a See also:dean, and there was no real inconsistency in the fact that at a later See also:period he was among the most strenuous defenders of See also:Governor See also:Eyre in the See also:measures adopted by him to put down the Jamaican disturbances. He looked rather to the See also:extension of the co-operative principle and to sanitary reform for the amelioration of the See also:condition of the people than to any radical See also:political See also:change. His politics might therefore have been described as Toryism tempered by sympathy, or as Radicalism tempered by hereditary scorn of subject races. He was bitterly opposed to what he considered to be the medievalism and narrowness of the See also:Oxford Tractarian Movement. In See also:Macmillan's See also:Magazine for January 1864 he asserted that truth for its own sake was not obligatory with the See also:Roman See also:Catholic See also:clergy, quoting as his authority See also:John See also:Henry See also:Newman (q.v.). In the ensuing controversy Kingsley was completely discomfited. He was a broad churchman, who held what would be called a liberal See also:theology, but the See also:Church, its organization, its creed, its See also:dogma, had ever an increasing hold upon him. Although at one period he certainly shrank from reciting the Athanasian Creed in church, he was towards the See also:close of his life found ready to join an association for the See also:defence of this formulary.

The more orthodox and conservative elements in his See also:

character gained the upper See also:hand as time went on, but careful students of him and his writings will find a deep conservatism underlying the most radical utterances of his earlier years, while a passionate sympathy for the poor, the afflicted and the weak held See also:possession of him till the last See also:hour of his life. Both as a writer and in his See also:personal intercourse with men, Kingsley was a thoroughly stimulating teacher. As with his own teacher, Maurice, his influence on other men rather consisted in inducing them to think for themselves than in leading them to adopt his own views, never, perhaps, very definite. But his healthy and stimulating influence was largely due to the fact that he interpreted the thoughts which were stirring in the minds of many of his contemporaries. ' As a preacher he was vivid, eager and See also:earnest, equally See also:plain-spoken and uncompromising when See also:preaching to a fashionable See also:congregation or to his own See also:village poor. One of the very best of his writings is a See also:sermon called The See also:Message of the Church to Working Men; and the best of his published discourses are the Twenty-five Village Sermons which he preached in the early years of his Eversley life. As a novelist his See also:chief See also:power See also:lay in his descriptive faculties. The descriptions of See also:South See also:American scenery in Westward Ho!, of the See also:Egyptian See also:desert in See also:Hypatia, of the North Devon scenery in Two Years Ago, are among the most brilliant pieces of word-See also:painting in English See also:prose-See also:writing; and the American scenery is even more vividly and more truthfully described when he had seen it only by the See also:eye of his See also:imagination than in his See also:work At Last, which was written after he had visited the tropics. His sympathy for See also:children taught him how to secure their interests. His version of the old See also:Greek stories entitled The Heroes, and See also:Water-babies and Madam How and See also:Lady Why, in which he deals with popular natural history, take high See also:rank among books for children. As a poet he wrote but little, but there are passages in The Saint's Tragedy and many isolated lyrics, which are worthy of a See also:place in all See also:standard collections of English literature. See also:Andromeda is a very successful See also:attempt at naturalizing the See also:hexameter as a See also:form of English See also:verse, and reproduces with great skill the sonorous See also:roll of the Greek See also:original.

In See also:

person Charles Kingsley was tall and spare, sinewy rather than powerful, and of a restless excitable temperament. His complexion was swarthy, his See also:hair dark, and his eye See also:bright and piercing. His See also:temper was hot, kept under rigid See also:control; his disposition See also:tender, See also:gentle and loving, with flashing scorn and indignation against all that was ignoble and impure; he was a good See also:husband, father and friend. One of his daughters, See also:Mary St Leger Kingsley (Mrs See also:Harrison), has become well known as a novelist under the See also:pseudonym of " See also:Lucas See also:Malet." Kingsley's life was written by his widow in 1877, entitled Charles Kingsley, his Letters and Memories of his Life, and presents a very touching and beautiful picture of her husband, but perhaps hardly does See also:justice to his See also:humour, his wit, his overflowing vitality and boyish fun. The following is a See also:list of Kingsley's writings:—Saint's Tragedy, a See also:drama (1848) ; Alton Locke, a novel (1849); Yeast, a novel (1849) Twenty-five Village Sermons (1849); Phaeton, or Loose Thoughts for Loose Thinkers (1852) ; Sermons on See also:National Subjects (1st See also:series,1852) ; Hypatia, a novel (1853) ; See also:Glaucus, or the Wonders of the See also:Shore (1855) ; Sermons on National Subjects (2nd series, 1854) ; See also:Alexandria and her Schools (1854) ; Westward IIo ! a novel (1855) ; Sermons for the Times (1855) ; The Heroes, Greek See also:fairy tales (1856) ; Two Years Ago, a novel (1857); Andromeda and other Poems (1858); The Good See also:News of See also:God, sermons (1859); Miscellanies (1859); Limits of Exact See also:Science applied to History (Inaugural Lectures, 1860); See also:Town and Country Sermons (1861); Sermons on the See also:Pentateuch (1863); Water-babies (1863); The Roman and the Teuton (1864); See also:David and other Sermons (1866); See also:Hereward the See also:Wake, a novel (1866) ; The See also:Ancient Regime (Lectures at the Royal Institution, 1867); Water of Life and other Sermons (1867) ; The Hermits (1869) ; Madam How and Lady Why (1869) ; At last (1871); Town Geology (1872); Discipline and other Sermons 1872) ; Prose Idylls (1873) ; Plays and Puritans (1873) ; Health and See also:Education (1874) ; Westminster Sermons (1874) ; Lectures delivered in America (1875). He was a large contributor to periodical literature; many of his essays are included in Prose Idylls and other See also:works in the above list.

End of Article: KINGSLEY, CHARLES (1819-1875)

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