Memoir of the Rev. Leonard Blomefield. 351 



arrogance, of manners so benevolent, and one who was a grown 

 man some years before I was born. 



TLe extensive literature which the last fifty years has 

 produced for the reconciliation of Eeligion and iScience is a 

 phenomenon of the first magnitude. It provokes comparison 

 with the famous pursuit of alchemy, which was not unfruitful, 

 though it failed to attain the result designed. Religion and 

 Science will never be unified ; for they rest on different planes, 

 are fed by different elements, and are apprehended by different 

 faculties of the mind. The vast literature which has essayed 

 the impossible will not, however, have been wasted if it 

 gradually discovers (as perhaps it may) how futile is the 

 wisdom of the vaunted wise, and how false is the basis of 

 Agnosticism. 



The keen interest which Mr Blomefield had, for a long tract 

 of time, taken in exploring the frontiers of Faith and Science 

 yielded, in latter years, to a very different subject, which can 

 have no interest whatever for any mind in which Faith is not 

 a living power, the subject of Eschatology. His last printed 

 work, "The Life of the World to Come," has already been 

 mentioned. 



He indulged little in what is commonly understood as light 

 reading ; for relaxation and diversion he resorted to some 

 branch of knowledge more or less remote from his own studies. 

 He was exceedingly fond of English etymology, a considerable 

 part of which he could intelligently follow through his know- 

 ledge of Greek, Latin, and French. In the way of play I do 

 not remember to have seen him take to any book with such a 

 relish as he did to Skeat's smaller Etymological Dictionary. 

 That book is very ingeniously constructed by means of cross 

 references so as to string several words upon the thread of one 

 radical idea, and it is no exaggeration to say that for years it 

 furnished Mr Blomefield with a very favourite entertainment. 



These few and very inadequate reminiscences have been 

 hurriedly put together, with little time for meditation or 

 selection, and if there be anything in them that fails to approve 

 itself to those who knew the subject of them, I can only hope 

 that a generous allowance will be made for the pressure under 

 which they have necessarily been written. 



(Eev. Prebendary) J. Earle. 



