Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 24.djvu/384

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Hare
370
Hare

monceaux, where lie remained till he was sent with his brother Marcus to Tunbridge School, then under the care of Dr. Vicesimus Knox. Ill-health soon obliged his removal, and he accompanied his parents to the continent, and during their residence at Weimar in 1804-1805 made his first acquaintance with German literature. On leaving Weimar in May 1805, he visited the Wartburg, and there, as he used playfully to say in after years, he 'first learnt to throw inkstands at the devil.' His education was conducted by his elder brother Francis till, after his mother's death in 1806, Julius was sent to the Charterhouse, where he was a schoolfellow of Thirlwall, Grote, Waddington, and his lifelong friends, Sir William Norris and Sir Henry Havelock. He continued to receive assistance in his studies from Francis, his 'kindest brother,' as he always called him, to whom he sent his verses for inspection, and who wrote weekly a series of essays on literary subjects for his benefit. Julius was the favourite brother of Francis, though the whole four were, as Landor called them, 'the most brotherly of brothers.' In 1812 Julius was sent to Trinity College, Cambridge.

Hare went up to Cambridge with a high school reputation both for classics and mathematics. Sedgwick, already a college tutor, made a friend of him, and Whewell and Kenelm Digby were his intimate companions. They were the witnesses of his enthusiastic championship or furious denunciations, for he never loved or hated by halves. In return, he was often loved,frequently detested, but never ignored. His acquaintance with English literature was extraordinary, and his knowledge of German probably unique for an undergraduate. He gave himself up with passionate delight to his classical studies; but his dislike of mathematics prevented him from qualifying to compete for the chancellor's medal. He was elected to a Trinity fellowship in October 1818.

After a winter passed with Francis Hare in Italy, he was persuaded by his elder brother to study the law, and took chambers in Hare Court, Temple. But legal studies were uncongenial, and he continued to read literature and philosophy, besides publishing (1820) a translation of 'Sintram,' which he intended to follow by the other works of Fouqué. In answer to a wish expressed by Lady Jones that all his German books might be burnt, he enthusiastically asserted his obligations to them, especially in enabling him to 'believe in Christianity with a much more implicit and intelligent faith' than he should otherwise have possessed. A German tone pervades many of the 'Guesses at Truth by Two Brothers,' furnished by Julius to the volumes which he prepared with his brother Augustus, and which appeared in 1827. (The last edition of this work appeared in 1871.)

In 1822, on his friend Whewell, already a tutor of Trinity, offering him a classical lectureship in his own college, he at once returned to Cambridge. Here he collected the nucleus of his remarkable library, and 'built up his mind' by his studies. Hare's lectures made a vivid impression upon his hearers. Maurice (Preface to Charges) forcibly describes his contagious interest in Plato, and his anxiety, while affording all proper help, to stimulate his hearers to active inquiry for themselves, instead of saving them the trouble of thinking.

Hare united with his friend Thirlwall in translating Niebuhr's 'History of Rome,' and editing it with fresh notes (2 vols. 1828-32). The work brought down upon its author, and by implication upon its translators, a charge of scepticism. This led Julius to publish (1829) his 'Vindication of Niebuhr,' the first of a long series of vindications which in later life he used playfully to say he should some day collect and publish in a volume under the title of 'Vindiciæ Harianæ,' or the 'Hare with many Friends.' If the energy and learning spent in refuting charges against such men as Luther, Niebuhr, Bunsen, and Coleridge seem disproportionate to the weight of the charges, he defended even his dearest friends rather from a sense of justice than from private partiality, and in the Hampden controversy he came forward in the same spirit on behalf of an entire stranger.

Hare's practice in matters of scholarship is illustrated by his spelling. He systematically used 'preacht' for preached, and the same form in similar cases. This principle he maintained in an essay in the Philological Museum; and it was for a time adopted by Thirlwall and by Whewell. Hare characteristically persevered in it to the end. If pushed to excess, it was an index of his 'conscientious stickling for truth,' and 'of that curious disregard for congruity which, more than any other cause, marred his usefulness in life' (A. P. Stanley, in Quarterly Review, vol. cxciii.)

In 1826 Hare was ordained. His first university sermon, afterwards published under the title of 'The Children of Light,' was preached on Advent Sunday, 1828. Another well-known sermon, 'The Law of Self-Sacrifice,' was preached at Trinity Chapel at the commemoration of 1829.

In 1832 the family living of Hurstmonceaux fell vacant by the death of an uncle, and when Augustus Hare refused to ac-