The Archbishop might make a bad captain, but he could have few rivals as an umpire.

He is an admirable judge if an indifferent advocate.
His grave earnestness is balanced by a conviction that humour is not without a serious purpose.

He looks upon life in the average, avoiding all abnormality, and he sees the average with a genial smile.

He thoroughly appreciates the oddities of English character, and would ask with Gladstone, "In what country except ours (as I know to have happened) would a Parish Ball have been got up in order to supply funds for a Parish Hearse ?" His attitude to the excitements and sensations of the passing day may be gathered from a simple incident.

During the most heady days of the War, that is to say, days when people made least use of their heads, I encountered him at the country-house of a well-known statesman.