Untitled - Electric Scotland

CHAPTER VI.
DEANERY OF CARLISLE OXFORD UNIVERSITY
COMMISSION.
1849-1853.
FORTY years ago the position of a Dean was regarded as
one of dignified retirement rather than of active useful
ness, and if his friends now expected any further work
from Archibald Tait, it was probably only
such work as
could be done by a scholar whose active days had come
early to a close, and who might, at the best, vary by an
occasional pamphlet, or an article in some grave Review,
the classical or theological researches of an uneventful
life. It is not too much to say that this view of decanal
responsibilities
was at that time almost universal. In
offering to submit his name to the Queen
Minister wrote as follows :-
Lord John Russell to Rev. A. C. Tait.
the Prime
"PEMBROKE LODGE, RICHMOND, Oct. 17, 1849.
REV. SIR, Your reputation for learning and sound Divinity
have induced me to propose to you to recommend you to the
Queen for the vacant Deanery of Carlisle. I should be unwilling
to deprive Rugby of the advantage it derives from your superin
tendence, had I not been assured that your health is scarcely
equal to the labour which the direction of a great school imposes.
I trust, however, that you would pursue with greater opportunity
those studies which have already made you eminent. I have
the honour to be, your obedient servant, J. RUSSELL."
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The congratulations of his friends struck the same
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