ABSTRACT
Published 1855, dated ‘January, 1854’. H. Lpr 245 shows T. changing the order of the stanzas. H.T. says of this ‘invitation to Farringford’ that ‘Mr Maurice had been ejected from his professorship at King’s College for non-orthodoxy. He had especially alarmed some of the “weaker brethren” by pointing out that the word “eternal” in “eternal punishment” (aiævioç), strictly translated, referred to the quality not the duration of the punishment.’ Maurice (1805–72) had argued in Theological Essays (1853) that the popular belief in the endlessness of future punishment was superstitious; in Oct. 1853 a council of King’s College, London, forced his resignation. T. abhorred the belief in eternal punishment (Despair 26, Faith 7–8). Maurice had agreed to be godfather of H.T. in Aug. 1852, the month of birth. Apparently he did not see the poem till it was published in 1855, to judge from his letter of 27 July 1855 (Mat. ii 147–8). Cp. Horace, Epistle I v, and, e.g., Ben Jonson’s Inviting a Friend to Supper. Cp. the stanza form of The Daisy (p. 501), and To Professor Jebb (III 162).
