Born at Valdagno, Italy, Sept. 13, 1795; died at Hurstmonceaux, Sussex, England, Jan. 23, 1855. An English divine and theological writer, archdeacon of Lewes 1840. He held the living of Hurstmonceaux from 1832. Among his works are “Mission of the Comforter” (1846); “The Contest with Rome” (1852); “Vindication of Luther” (1854); conjointly with A. W. Hare, “Guesses at Truth” (1827).
Personal
Hare is a passionate lover of German literature and philosophy. He has the air of a man of talent, and talks well. I was struck with his great liberality. We had so many points of contact and interest that I chatted with him exclusively till past twelve, paying no attention to the music, or the numerous and fashionable company.
I went to St. Mary’s to-day, and heard a weak, elderly man preach upon, “And this is the victory which overcometh the world, even your faith.” There was something in the manner eminently impressive, though something like weakness and monotony of voice gradually made it rather less so. The style, too, seemed quite a repetition of Jeremy Taylor, and poetical illustrations were poured in abundantly. Then, again, I was more touched by the evangelical tone of the matter, in defence of simple “justification of faith,” than I have been before for some months. Yet my pleasure in listening was slightly disturbed by an occasional doubt as to how far I might really follow him as a guide through the mazes of discussion, and whether the figurative style might not be a sort of elaborate weakness. Great, then, was my delight to hear, when I came away, that it was Julius Hare, one of the “Guessers at Truth,” the associate of Thirlwall, the brother of Augustus Hare, and altogether one of the greatest minds and best scholars in our university. Since this I have had a key to the full meaning of what he said on many points, and his whole figure is associated with feelings of reverence.
Archdeacon Hare joined us,—as nervous, dragged-looking a man as in his portrait, but far more genial and approachable than that would lead you to expect. Plenty of pleasant talk but nothing extremely marked.
Hearty thanks for both your very kind letters. Hare’s death is more to us, and I think more to the Church than even we thought it would be. We scarcely knew what his genial spirits and look were to us, or how much there was in his deepest heart which was receiving good and scattering good. His last months were very satisfactory witnesses of the man by the unvarying patience, cheerfulness and thankfulness which he was manifesting, without one false or affected or canting word in the midst of unusual suffering. In his last days he was so utterly wasted and prostrated that he could do no more than show tenderness and affection to all about him.
His duties as Archdeacon were especially congenial to him. With his clergy he felt none of the difficulty of making himself understood which shackled him with his parishioners. He delighted in his church visitations, in which the war against pews, then at its height, called forth all his characteristic vehemence; he found most congenial work in the preparation of his lengthy charges, in which he entered into all the ecclesiastical subjects of the day to a degree which makes them almost an ecclesiastical history of their times.
Julius Hare, born in 1795, belonged to a family distinguished by a fatal fluency in letter-writing, so that the few facts in his career, the few works produced by him, and his beautiful character and life, so full of every grace of sweetness and courtesy, so irreproachable and graceful, are swamped by the flood of details, both intellectual and external, which a remorseless fidelity has gathered together.
General
“The Guesses” are well worth reading; nay, buying: very ingenious, with a good deal of pedantry and onesidedness (do you know this German word?), which, I believe, chiefly comes from the Trinity Fellow, who was a great pedant.
This evening Archdeacon Hare’s “Life of John Sterling” arrived. The portrait is very unsatisfactory, the volumes full of exquisite interest, though of a very mixed kind. Julius Hare has, I believe, done his part admirably well, but F. D. Maurice has (by his letters) quite spoiled us for any other handling of such a subject.
Of all the disciples of Coleridge, Julius Charles Hare may be reckoned the most direct and confessed…. With all Hare’s noble enthusiasm and captivating spirit of Christian culture, it cannot be said that he is much of a leader of thought himself. He is critical, didactic, philosophic in tone, always cultured. He writes at times with a fine, if desultory, eloquence; and his books, especially the “Guesses at Truth,” which he published along with his brother first in 1828, were much read, and felt to be highly stimulating forty years ago. I can never forget my own obligation to some of them; yet it must be confessed that both author and writings are now somewhat dim in the retrospect. They have lived on, and this no doubt mainly because both reflected for the greater part the movement of his time rather than added any new and creative force to it.
Though prolonged collegiate life and extreme intellectual refinement prevented his success as a parish priest, Julius Hare was eminently successful as an archdeacon. His annual “Charges” were elaborated with the utmost care, and still form important contributions to the ecclesiastical history of the time. He entered with warmth into every controversy of the time, the Hampden, the Gorham, and the rest, steadily opposing the dogmatic and Romanising tendencies, as he considered them, of the “Oxford Movement,” and standing forward as one of the most prominent champions of the “Broad Church” school in its earlier career.
