ABSTRACT
no english writer of the nineteenth century stands so much in need of rehabilitation as Walter Pater. Born in 1839, he lost his father at the age of five and his mother at the age of fifteen. Sensitive and reserved, he nevertheless won a scholarship to Queen’s College, Oxford, and while there attracted the attention of that most formidable of all Oxonian pundits, Benjamin Jowett, Master of Balliol. “I think you have a mind which will come to great eminence,” declared that ponderous professor. But it was not to be an eminence which Dr. Jowett could look upon with any satisfaction. Indeed, there is evidence which suggests that once Pater began to show his independence and originality, Jowett moved into opposition. Appointed a Fellow of Brasenose in 1865, Pater was never, in spite of his brilliant gifts, to rise above this modest position. A. C. Benson, whose book on Pater is the best that has so far been written, says that “Jowett took up a line of definite opposition to Pater and used his influence to prevent his obtaining University work and appointments”. Jowett was merely expressing the Oxford point of view, for to this point of view, in every aspect, Pater’s philosophy was a scandalous obstruction.
