cook has made a new vegetarian dish for my lunch to-day, and I requested her to make some for you, as I am quite sure it will suit you.” The dish turned out to be delicious–one of those which his wonderful vegetarian cook was so constantly inventing. [Footnote: The parlourmaid, on being reprimanded for not showing Newman into the drawing-room, said she thought she was only to show “gentlemen” into the drawing-room!]
Newman had a theory that plants feel pain, and that we should treat all vegetable life as if it were sentient, and care for it accordingly.
The Professor was always ready to respond to any appeals for the advancement of the Woman’s Suffrage movement. At that time it was very unpopular, but whenever we had meetings in favour of it at our house he was always the moving spirit.
At Weston-super-Mare Newman lived a life of great seclusion, and I believe I was the only young girl who visited him constantly–indeed, ours was the only house to which he came almost daily. Once when he was very ill, I think I was the only visitor admitted; and as Hannah, his old servant, ushered me in with a smile of pleasure, I heard a curious sound. On looking back to the hall door I saw a huge netting hanging from where the letter-box should be, trailing along the floor like a huge sausage, crammed full of letters of enquiry for the Professor. Hannah told me “the master had not been able to attend to them.”
I had long possessed a great wish to devote my time to the study of modelling, and my father’s great wish was that I should devote myself to Art. In 1885 I gained the distinction of a silver medal at Taunton Exhibition for modelling some flowers in clay on vases, with low relief panels. This pleased the Professor very much; and when, one day, I told him how keenly I wanted to model a bust of his head and shoulders, he smiled, and said, with an odd boyish, shy sort of pleasure, “Was he good- looking enough to be immortalized?” and added he would be delighted to sit to _me_ for his portrait, though he had always refused to sit to others to be photographed.
So he used to come and talk to my mother, and thus I was able to work at my modelling with ease. Great was my delight when I found I possessed power over the clay, and was succeeding in making a portrait which everyone considered a good one. The Professor insisted on my being very particular over the collar and the scarf. (His collars always had to be made for him, as he could not buy in shops the kind he wore.) In later years of hard student life that followed, for me, with the added distinction of other medals, nothing ever came up to the excitement caused by my portrait of the Professor. The bust [Footnote: This bust is now standing in the general library of London University, with this inscription:–
“FRANCIS WILLIAM NEWMAN
(brother of the Cardinal),
Emeritus Professor of University College, London. Natus June 27, 1805. Obiit October 4th, 1897. As an expression of the great esteem and affection in which he was held by all who knew him, this bust (modelled from life by the Sculptor) is presented to this University by
GEORGINA BAINSMITH, Sculptor, “St. Ives, Cornwall.” Aug. 1907.] has always been one of my greatest treasures; and after the lapse of years that have gone by since it was first modelled, I still revere and reverence his memory and his truly beautiful life. Whatever he wrote, _this_ is what his actual life and deeds expressed strongly: “_he lived to do good_.” This is what impressed me most as a young girl, and my life has been richer and nobler for the honour and privilege of knowing Francis Newman.
Georgina Bainsmith, _nee_ Bucknall. St. Ives, Cornwall.
[Illustration: ANOTHER VIEW OF THE BUST IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE (OF FRANCIS NEWMAN), ON ITS PLINTH
BY MRS. GEORGINA BAINSMITH, SCULPTOR, OF ST. IVES, CORNWALL The Reproduction is by Mr. J. C. Douglas, of Strives, Cornwall, and was photographed from the clay before it was cast.]
CHAPTER VII
LETTERS TO ONE OF HIS GREATEST FRIENDS, DR. NICHOLSON
Dr. Nicholson, a native of Barbadoes, was only fourteen years old when his father, Rev. Mark Nicholson, came to England. [Footnote: I am indebted for these facts of Dr. Nicholson’s life to some printed data kindly sent me by his daughter.] He was sent to a private school at Bristol, and went on to Oxford, where he took his B.A. degree. Later on he went to study Oriental languages at Gottingen; and there he became the pupil of the famous Dr. Ewald, Professor of Oriental Languages. At the end of his work there Dr. Nicholson obtained the Ph.D. degree. The Professor and he became close friends, and a correspondence began between them, on Dr. Nicholson’s departure, which lasted unbroken till the Professor’s death. He was perfectly conversant with Latin and Greek, and also Arabic, while Hebrew was almost as familiar a language; and as for his knowledge of Sanscrit, Ethiopian, Gothic, Chaldean, Syriac, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Danish, it was as perfect as could be. He had, in the truest sense, the _gift_ of tongues. Sixteen languages, indeed, he had mastered besides his own. He had, in very truth, a perfect genius for them. And it was no slipshod attainment with him to learn any one of the sixteen; for by the time he had mastered a language he practically knew it inside _and_ out. He loved this study perhaps more than any other, because it gave him a truer insight into Holy Scripture. Many articles on the Hebrew Scriptures were contributed by him to _Kitto’s Biblical Encyclopaedia_, and there are many allusions to these in Newman’s letters which follow. He translated Dr. Ewald’s _Hebrew Grammar_, and thus it became well known to Englishmen.
[Illustration: DR. JOHN NICHOLSON
FROM A PHOTO TAKEN AT GOTTINGEN BETWEEN 1855 AND 1860 BY KIND PERMISSION OF MISS NICHOLSON, PENRITH]
Dr. Nicholson lived for forty years at Penrith. He did not care to go much in society; he was too true a student for that. For the two studies (and social life _is_ certainly one) are so diametrically opposed regarded as pursuits, that it is almost impossible to make the day long enough to devote oneself to both. “Love to study” might very truly have been recognized as his life motto, even as it was that of one of the greatest students at Harrow a few years ago, Rev. Thomas Hancock, for both men cared nothing for fame. Dr. Nicholson was a man of strong religious tendencies, and though he was in no way narrow in his views of other religious societies, yet he was decidedly most in touch with the Anglican Church. As a politician he was a Liberal. Fifty years ago he married the second daughter of Captain Waring, R.N., and had six children.
He died (in November, 1886), as Rev. E. W. Chapman, Vicar of Penrith, said, “in perfect peace, with our Lord’s Name and our Lord’s last words on his lips. His presence in the town, his loving sympathy with poor people, his kindly greeting to all who knew him, we shall miss very much….” He added that “his whole life was spent in the study of Holy Scriptures….”
Francis Newman was his lifelong friend, and the letters which follow will plainly show that it was a friendship of kindred spirits: the friendship of two who had a great many interests in common, and were therefore in close touch with each other.
_To Dr. Nicholson from Francis Newman._
“_17th Feb._, 1843.
“My dear Nicholson,
* * * * *
“I hope you will not bother your little boy with any foreign language too soon. _Soak_ him well and long in his native English, or he will never come to any good, I fear. If he sees a father in love with German, he will of himself quite early take to it. The great difficulty (I should expect) will be to secure that it may not be too early. Of course you see about the Anti-Corn Law doings? I think I shall before long be as fanatical as anyone about it: I rage the more inwardly because I have no vent. I am eager to sign a solemn league and covenant about total and immediate repeal, which I suppose and hope they will get up….”
The next letter in order refers to “Berber,” a language bearing some relation to the Arabic, over which Newman was at work with his dictionary. It also touches on his own ill-health and enforced idleness. It is dated from Manchester, October, 1843:–
“I have been suffering indisposition which was aggravated in reality by overrating its importance. My medical adviser said it was organic affection of the heart; in spite of my great incredulity … I took other advice afterwards in Derby, where I went to see one of my sisters, and am now assured that it was nothing but ‘the great sympathetic’ that disordered the heart. I was nearly three weeks in the country and in idleness, and gained much benefit from it. I spent much indoors time in learning to use water-colours, and got a nice pony to ride, and was a great deal in the air, and very early to go to bed; and took no medicines but tonics and a colocynth pill on occasion. Myself and wife both return much better. I believe I knocked myself up by excitement of mind over the Berber and working at my dictionary, At Prichard’s advice I have lately written to Bunsen to ask his aid in getting the dictionary published. I think it may be of use, as adding one more known language in North Africa to those already accessible, which are, I believe, Arabic, Coptic, Gheez, and Amharic.”
In June of the same year he says, in respect of Kitto’s _Encyclopaedia_: “Your _Ahasuerus_ shows you to me as an invaluable contributor to him: I could not have written that (if I had had the learning) without an attack on Ezra and Esther about the word!… Mr. Jowett has sent me (at Bunsen’s and Prichard’s request) the chief part of the transcript of the Berber MS. in the possession of the Bible S—-. I suppose I must do my best now to get deeper into the language.”
In May, 1845, Newman has been greatly interested in translating into Greek, English verses “to test the _possibility_ of retaining any Greek accent such as the books mark in singing.” He has tried translating “Flow on, thou shining river” in Greek, so that it might be sung to Moore’s own tune. One does not come across in his letters much reference to music, nor does it seem as if he had any great taste for it–at any rate, not in the same way as had Cardinal Newman, who had a real passion for it in earlier years.
The later part of the letter has to do with the much-vexed question of the “Maynooth Controversy.”
Newman writes from “4, _Cavendish Place_, 12th _May_ 1845”:–
“My dear Nicholson,
* * * * *
“I venture to enclose two tunes for the Sapphic metre, Greek and Latin, to which my sister, at my request, has added an accompaniment. Will you be so kind as to get Mrs. Nicholson to play the piano while you sing it, and tell me what is to be said to it? While dabbling in some of these tunes, I have translated divers scraps of English poetry into Greek, experimentally, especially to test the _possibility_ of retaining any Greek accent, such as the books mark, in singing. It seems to me a clear impossibility, whether emphasis or sharpness of note predominated in the accent. I have translated ‘Flow on, thou shining river’ to Moore’s own tune, so as to retain Greek accent _as well as_ quantity in exact agreement to the music … the commonest metres puzzle me most….
“I wonder what you think of the Maynooth Controversy? To me it has been so puzzling a one that I have been heartily glad that nothing obliged me to express an opinion.
“Some things seem clear to me: (1) That a measure for cutting down the Church of Ireland, as by Lord Morpeth’s Bill, would have been, and would now be, far better in every respect than this of Sir R. Peel; (2) that the present is a mode of perpetuating the _sinecure_ Church of Ireland by paying the Romish, and real Church, out of English and Scotch funds. Hence it is popular with many Irish Protestants, of which Sir R. Peel _boasts!_” [Francis Newman seems to forget, in his frequent allusions to “Protestants”, that there was a National Church in Ireland, as in England, long before the word which sprang into being at the Reformation had found its feet.]
“If they (the Government) were pleading that a Romanist people ought to be allowed to support their own Romish clergy, they could justly claim that we, as a Protestant people, would not interfere on the ground of our dislike to Romish doctrine. But when they demand to support Romanism out of common funds, they implicate _us_ in the question, whether (on the whole) _that_ religion contains more truth or error; and I think they _force_ those who see it in black colours to urge the No Popery cry. So far, I am disposed to justify the Anti-Maynooth war. Sir R. Inglis may be a bigot in his view of Romanism … but I think he is _not_ ‘out of order’ in intruding the religious demerit of Romanism into a parliamentary discussion. If this measure had been thrown out, I fear Ireland would have been awfully embittered. Yet I hope the fierce opposition will stop any future scheme of keeping the sinecure church untouched and endowing the priests with imperial money…. Thus I halt between two opinions.”
In November, 1843, Newman touches briefly upon the Oxford movement thus:–
“You do not seem to know that the _Record_ has been making a fuss this last month about the Bishop of Oxford’s public declaration that he never requested my brother to suppress Tract 90. All he did was to suggest that ‘the publication of the Tracts be discontinued,’ which meant that there was to be no No. 91. The Bishop indignantly disclaims the idea that my brother had been disobedient.
* * * * *
“I am, for a week past, resting from Berber, having written to M. d’Avezac in Paris to ask whether a report I heard is true, that he is preparing a dictionary of it. I have ordered an Amharic grammar, too, and want to compare them, but I abhor the Ethiopic type!…. I cannot get Kitto to tell me whether the sale of the _Cyclopaedia_ is satisfactory.”
As regards Irish affairs:–
“I have lately spoken at a meeting of the Friends of Ireland, and have sent to the _Guardian_ newspaper here, [Footnote: Manchester Guardian.] in reply to their demand that I would specify some plan, a paper on _Fixity of Tenure_ for the cottiers of Ireland. I feel no doubt that this must ere long become the great Irish question, of even more interest than the ecclesiastical one….”
And in March he gives more news of his “Berber”:–
“I am again at work at the Berber MS., which I have not touched since the 1st October. The Royal Asiatic Society have accepted my offer to edit it. At present their pages are occupied with the history of Darius Hystaspis from the rocks at (I think) Besittoon, near Hemadon–the most curious document which recent research has brought to light, and, I am told, confirming in detail the accounts of Herodotus.”
The two following letters to Dr. Nicholson deal chiefly with matters connected with John Sterling (who had recently died) and with Newman’s arrangements for adopting one of his children.
Perhaps most people are familiar with Carlyle’s biography of Sterling, but it may be as well to say here that he was a brilliant writer, a Liberal in politics, and interested himself keenly in General Torrijos and his group of Spanish exiles. When at college, at the age of nineteen, he came under the influence of Julius Hare, his tutor. When he was twenty-six he again fell in with Hare at Bonn, and here came to pass one of the mistakes of his life. Chiefly through Hare’s influence he took deacon’s orders, and he worked under Hare at Hurstmonceaux for the best part of a year. Very soon afterwards he began to feel the breach growing wider between his own convictions and those taught by the Church. He never, consequently, took priest’s orders. Through grievous ill-health his winters were passed at Bordeaux, in Italy, or at Madeira. He died at Ventnor 18th Sept., 1843.
“While riding to-day I was meditating on the continual strain which the pulling of my horse made on the left arm, while the right was idle; and it struck me that this might conduce to the size of the muscles on that side. Also my wife always leans on the left, as being stronger in her right arm…. The hardest work I am put to is holding an umbrella against a fierce wind; and in this my right hand certainly beats my left…. I have had no bad nights since I left Manchester, except two which I attribute to an excitement on meeting my sister, whom I had not seen for eight years…. I mean to return home next Saturday. Since I left you an important change of prospect in my domestic economy has occurred. I have accepted the responsible office of guardian to the eldest son (thirteen years old) of my dear dying friend Sterling, whom I went to see at Ventnor, Isle of Wight. The lad will come to Manchester next week, and in future live in our house, and I trust I shall love him as a son. He seems a very affectionate boy. His mother died about eighteen months ago. I found my poor friend on the whole stronger than I had expected, yet steadily declining: long since convinced that his case was hopeless (and indeed expecting his end sooner than those around him), yet thoroughly calm and resigned to the gracious will of Him Who had so ordained it. Not to mourn over talents so high and a will so upright thus prematurely to be lost to us were impossible, even did I not know how truly brotherly in affection is his heart to us. He will leave six orphan children. Yet this calamity is relieved by the tenderness of his brother to them, and by the existence of adequate supplies for all reasonable wants…. Tell your little boy that I have to-day been out with a nephew of mine (Johnny Kennaway) nearly of _his_ age, and he rides a little white pony. It was almost too spirited for him, and I was once afraid it would run away with him; but I could not do anything to help him but pull up my own horse short and call to him to do the same….
“Believe me, my dear Nicholson,
“Your affectionate friend,
“Francis W. Newman.”
This letter was written from Escot, Ottery St. Mary, Devon, [Footnote: His wife’s old home.] in September, 1844.
In 1841 Ward of Balliol brought out a very strong pamphlet, and accused the Reformation of many changes in the English Church; as Rev. J. B. Mozley says in his _Letters_, it was “a kind of strong interpretation of No. XC, just as Pusey’s … is a mollifying one, proving that No. XC says nothing but what our divines have said before.” As regards “the statute”, the Hebdomadal Board had early in this year “proposed a new statute” for the conferring of B.D. degrees.
“_30th Dec._, 1844.
“… I suppose you are busy with _Ewald’s_ [Footnote: Dr. Nicholson was the pupil of Ewald, and the first translator of his _Hebrew Grammar_.] _Grammar_…. I shall be more at rest whenever circumstances put me into that direct conflict with current opinion, which I dare not go out of my way to provoke, and yet feel it to be my natural element. My antagonism to ‘things as they are’–politically, scientifically, and theologically– grows with my growth; and I believe that every year that delays change more and more endangers destruction to our social framework.”
I cannot forbear quoting here from a letter recently received by me from a distant cousin of mine, Mr. George Grey Butler. He says: “I remember once at table Mr. Newman saying (when asked his attitude on various public questions), ‘Oh! I am anti-slavery, anti-alcohol, anti-tobacco, anti- _everything!_’ with a twinkle in his eye which caused an outburst of mirth amongst his listeners.”
Rev. J. B. Mozley goes on to say, “Pusey will not take the test,” (or statute) “that he has declared publicly … Hussey the Professor, Eden, Baden Powell, and several Liberals, Price of Rugby, are all strong against it…. Gladstone is very strong, and thinks every exertion ought to be made against it.”
On 7th Oct., 1844, Newman is expecting the arrival of the son of his old friend, John Sterling. “Edward Sterling will probably come to us to-day; his trunk is here already. I do not think you know that his father’s earthly career is over…. Sterling’s will is like himself. He has so strong a feeling of the wrong and absurdity of laying responsibility on people, and yet fettering their discretion, that he has left the fullest powers possible both to his brother as executor to manage his property and the other children, and to me over Edward. He has directed L300 a year to be paid me for Edward…. He was indeed a noble soul, and few know what a loss it is; but those few rate it high. As Captain Sterling (his brother) said, he had been accumulating wisdom all his life, and could he have lived twenty years more to pour it out he would indeed have left behind him a precious legacy…. Thomas Carlyle wrote a beautiful letter over him. His little son knows not at all what a father he has lost; and as for me, I want to tell him, but feel how hard it is.”
In 1845 the taxes upon corn had caused great distress in England. But far worse was the trouble in Ireland; for practically, through the potato famine, owing to the thousands of acres which were blighted, there were literally thousands dying of starvation. Cheap food was far more difficult to get at there than in England, and at length at the close of the year Sir Robert Peel said he would repeal the Corn Laws altogether. In 1846 the Bill with this end in view passed through the House of Commons and House of Lords and became law. But the consequence of this measure was in effect the signal for Peel’s going out of office, and his place was taken by Lord John Russell.
To return to Newman’s letter.
“You perhaps know that the Liberals at Oxford are likely to side with Ward against the Heads. I do not see what else they can do; and I devoutly hope that the tangle will be irremovable except by abolishing subscriptions. Price of Rugby is all in a bristle about it. I much admire his spirit. Baden Powell protests _in toto_ against the statute.”
“_6th Nov._, 1845.
“My dear Nicholson,
* * * * *
“Your news about the potatoes unfortunately is no matter of private information, but rings through our ears, and I am increasingly doubtful whether we are to hope for open ports. I believe the League is right in saying that Sir Robert’s _next move_ will be for an absolutely free trade; but _when_ that next move is to be must depend in part on his colleagues; and the country must perhaps suffer much before they come over, or he gains boldness to defy their opposition….
“If you have been reading the _New Prospective_, I dare say you will guess that the article on ‘Church Reform’ is mine. I was not sorry to get it printed, even in such a quarter–(though I know no other periodical that is free enough to dare to print it. The _Westminster Review_ is not enough in religious circles),–because I want to send it to Churches of various grades, and get their opinion. I fear I have expressed myself too sanguinely of Dissenting Co-operation. They seem to say they will support _nothing_ that does not go to length of alienating the whole Church property to secular uses.”
On 16th April, 1846, politics are touched on again.
“_16th April_, 1846.
“My dear Nicholson,
“I have sent one or two ‘Leagues’ of late to my brother-in-law in Devonshire, thinking that they had in them matter of instruction to him…. Does not Peel appear of late to have made himself as little as of old? Yet I rejoice in his obstructing a mere Whig ministry of the orthodox kind; and although his course has heaped misery on Ireland, nothing less severe, I imagine, would brace England up to the stringent remedies which alone can save that country;–nor are we _yet_ screwed to the point!…
“I have finished the Berber MS. as far as the Arabic had been translated, viz. twenty-eight folio pages: four more remain, of which I cannot understand either the Berber or the Arabic. I suppose neither could Mr. Hodgson understand them; for while he professes to have translated the whole of the Arabic, he has quietly omitted these. I naturally turn myself to your aid. I have quite ascertained that the Arabic and Berber _do correspond_….
“I am trying to move my house, i.e. to get into a new shell, further from the smoke. [Footnote: Newman had not yet left Manchester New College.] Edward Sterling’s little brother, aged five and a half, is now with us; and especially for his sake I desire to have pure air…. I am sorry to say she” (Newman’s wife) “is becoming more and more afflicted with rheumatism. I am about to send her to Malvern, where one of her sisters now is, to try a hydropathist physician there–a regularly educated man. As she must take little Johnny S. and her own maid, and another to help in bathings, and look after the child, it is quite a nomad eruption and waggon-load of Scythians.
“My sister’s child, a boy of Johnny S.’s age, fell into the fire six or seven weeks ago, and was almost burnt to death. The poor little fellow endured agonies, but is at last nearly recovered…. It seems a wonderful recovery.”
The next letter notifies his election as Latin Professor in University College.
“_London. 6th July_, 1846.
“My dear Nicholson,
“A few words just to say that on Saturday I was elected Latin Professor in L. U. C., and to thank you once more for your valuable aid. Hoping Mrs. N. continues well, and with kind regards to her, and the children,
“I am, ever yours affectionately,
“Francis W. Newman.”
CHAPTER VIII
LETTERS TO DR. NICHOLSON FROM PROFESSOR NEWMAN DURING THE FOLLOWING YEARS: 1850 TO 1859
The first of special interest in this series of letters is dated March, 1850, and concerns Newman’s Latin studies and also Indian and China affairs.
“Sir Charles Trevelyan is doing his best to introduce the English alphabet into Indian languages. He believes it, with me, to be of political, educational, and religious importance; but he seems to be opposed by all the English scholars. Edwin Norris says that even Sanscrit imported its alphabet from a foreign tongue. The number of primitive alphabets is so few, the diversity of languages so great, that nearly all tongues must have adopted foreign alphabets. I cannot therefore understand the almost a priori objections raised by the learned…. Do you attend to Indian affairs? The disbanding of our Native Indian armies, the prospect of a sure surplus in the Indian treasury, with the necessity of a conciliatory policy to all the Indian princes as soon as we are disarmed, seem to me as light pouring in through a dark cloud. But I am not easy (far from it) until we get out of this Chinese scrape. I have for years maintained that the more we fight against China the more we shall teach them the art of war; and unless we tear the empire in pieces by aiding insurrections, they must beat us at last, and become masters in the Indian seas. We cannot contend against three hundred and eighty millions of ingenious, industrious, homogeneous men under a single monarch with compact country, splendid rivers and harbours, unsurpassed soil and climate–if once we drive them to learn the art of war from America, as Peter the Great learnt it from Europe. But I seem to be _insanus inter sobrios_, for nobody accepts this thought from me.
“Hearty regards to you all.
“Ever yours,
“F. W. Newman.”
It will be remembered that in 1851, though not until December, Louis Napoleon, nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, had been successful in his aim of becoming President of the French Republic. But he had practically led his army through a sea of blood to reach this autocratic position. Later, in 1852, he made the French people designate him “Emperor of the French” under the title of Napoleon III.
Lord Russell had, with his ministers, brought their time of office to an end; and Lord Derby came in as Prime Minister at the head of a Conservative Party. He only remained in office a short time, however, and his successor was Lord Aberdeen, and Mr. Gladstone was Chancellor of the Exchequer.
In the letter which follows, Newman vindicates the honour of Kossuth, whose friend and helper he was when Kossuth came to England for funds to set going the new Hungarian revolution against Austria. With the views of Charles Dickens, of course, Newman had not the slightest sympathy.
“7 P.V.E.,
“_19th Dec._, 1851.
“My dear Nicholson,
* * * * *
“I never see Dickens’ _Household Narrative_, and therefore cannot answer; but I do not believe there is any ‘alternative side’ against Kossuth’s character. (Dickens is, in my judgment, a foolish man; he writes on centralization and despotism like an Austrian: however, so does Carlyle often.) But all that can be said against Kossuth is, that up to the age of twenty-two or twenty-three he was a thoughtless young man, who liked hunting and gambling. Since that age he is irreproachable, the proof of which is, that the Austrian _Times_ has not a word to say against him. Their libel about the Orphan Fund was at once refuted by Count Ladislaus Vay, but they would not insert Count Vay’s letter, or even acknowledge it. I think, indeed, the Continental Republicans may be proud of their leaders.
* * * * *
“Lord Palmerston seems to me to be entangled in _routine_ and old creeds, so that he does not do all the justice he might to his better wishes; but I also think he loves _place_ better than to carry out those wishes….
“Ever yours heartily,
“F. W. Newman.”
The letter in January, 1853, which is next in order, is largely concerned with Mazzini. As is well known, Mazzini was an Italian patriot and Republican, born in the same year as was Newman. When he was only sixteen, seeing the refugees who fled from the unfortunate rising in Piedmont, he determined then and there to rescue his country when he should be old enough to do so. He made “the first great sacrifice of his life” in giving up the study of literature (which he loved) for direct political action. He joined the Carbonari in 1829, though he was not in sympathy with their aims or organization.
In 1830 he was imprisoned by the Sardinian police. There, in his prison cell, he thought out his plan of action for his country, and on being released he went and organized the “Young Italy Association.” The object of it was to teach the mass of the people first to know their rights, and then to obtain them. The end of all his efforts for his people as regarded himself was this:–
In 1832 he was expelled from the country, but he managed to remain hidden at Marseilles; and from that time for twenty years he led “a life of voluntary imprisonment within the four walls of a little room.” In 1844 Mazzini accused the English Government of having opened his letters and told their contents to the authorities of Italy. This set the whole of England against him, but Carlyle defended him in great measure, and testified to the worthiness of his noble struggle for his country’s freedom. Later, in 1848, when the Lombard revolt broke out, he took the part of the revolutionaries with vigour.
In 1852 he planned the revolt at Mantua, and in 1853 at Milan. Others were set going later. He had started in London (with Kossuth) the European Association, and issued in September, 1855, its “republican manifesto.” He strongly condemned the agreement made in 1859 between Napoleon III and Piedmont, because he foresaw its inevitable consequences. Mazzini, Garibaldi, and Cavour were a trio who largely influenced their country’s destiny. Garibaldi has been called the knight-errant; Mazzini, the prophet of Italian unity; and Cavour was the hub which formed the centre of the wheel of Italy’s fortunes.
[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF LETTER FROM FRANCIS NEWMAN, DECEMBER, 1855]
“7 P.V.E.
“Friday night, _28th Jan._, 1853.
“My dear Nicholson,
* * * * *
“As regards Mazzini, I am both glad and sorry. I cannot pretend to know the _truth_, and fear to say what may unjustly disparage him; but he has fallen a little in my secret judgment. I am _told_ (and I cannot test the assertion) that Mazzini wrote to Italy to _implore_ his countrymen to be patient, and not to make any attempts at resistance, even though the best among them were slaughtered; and added: But if you will and must make your attempt _now_, then by all means I shall come–not to conquer with you; for of that I have no hope–but to die with you. Now I cannot learn whether this was simultaneously with his writing to tell us that he was in high hopes of success, and only wanted L3000 to turn probability into something like certainty. If it was simultaneous, he is not the less patriot; but he thinks ‘the point of honour’ requires he should tell a lie to his English friends in order to get the wherewith to die a martyr’s death; and it makes it very hard to trust his simple truth in future. But if (as one friend of his thinks) Mazzini’s own opinion has changed, it lowers one’s notion of his discernment. In fact, it is scarcely credible to _me_. There are those, I find, who have lately helped him to money, expressly thinking it was a going to martyrdom, but believing he was bent on it, and that possibly he may now do more good to Italy by his death than ever he can do by his life. I cannot take this view. I believe the tyrants would have the good sense to destroy him so secretly that no moral effect should follow from his death; and if he utterly disapproved of an outbreak, I do not understand the ‘honour’ which should make him go to useless destruction when his life may be so valuable. It is not the same thing to an exile as to a soldier in a rank, for the exile necessarily comes too late. However, I do not know whether at this instant Mazzini may be disguised in Italy: he is so retired and so stealthy. I expect he will (be) betrayed sooner or later, if he plays so bold a game. Nevertheless I am glad that (for whatever reason) the Italians are still quiet. Louis Napoleon will certainly sooner or later get embroiled; and unless there were new facts unknown to me … I earnestly hope they will wait. The Germans are a slow people; but they will move in time. Every German I see believes this…. ‘We without them cannot be made perfect,’ seems to me the clue to European oppressions. While stupid barbarism exists in masses, it will be the tool of tyranny against the more educated and refined and wealthy….
“Ever yours,
“F. W. Newman.”
In November, 1855, he discusses public affairs, with relation to Louis Napoleon, with Dr. Nicholson:–
“….I should indeed like to have the talk on public affairs which you suggested; but things have moved on since then! Friends of mine dread that the difficulties of French finance will precipitate Louis N. into a base peace. I argue,–it will then be into one so base that the French will not endure it. For the Russians _know_ the French difficulties; and if proposals of peace come first from France, or if they see French action become slacker, they will yield _nothing_, and make sure of a peace which saves all their territory and reserves all their free action…. Only yesterday came the news of Omar Pasha’s 5th November victory. Even if it be exaggerated, still the repulse at Kars and this new defeat make it impossible for Russia to make peace _now_ without a humiliation such as L. N. cannot attempt to remove. It _may_ so be that L. N. will be blown up by his finance and by popular discontent; it may also be that his difficulties will lead him to make popular concessions to the spirit of freedom, as is usual when great sacrifices are demanded of a nation; or it may be that he will get through with a struggle, putting French finance on a healthier footing than has ever been yet. But I think, if he stands, he _must_ carry on the war; and the more he feels his dangers, the more vehemently will he resolve to stick at nothing necessary for success, and will bid high to get Sweden to join us, which means to despoil Russia of Finland and Poland.
“And if he is overthrown all Italy will rise, and after it Hungary, and after it Germany and Poland….
“It grieves me much that Kossuth has united his name with Ledru Rollin’s; and altogether I think Kossuth is so _soured_ by the misconduct of the Western Cabinets as to lose his soundness of judgment and fairness of reasoning…. Through 1854 his tone became more demagogic, less dignified, more defiant to authorities. He is now contemptuous to the British _nation_ also, though I think it has throughout displayed precisely the sound instinct which he so often ascribes to nations, and from which he says a statesman must catch his inspiration. Our _nation_ did not know what he knew–that Austria had given just ground of war to Turkey–that Turkey was ready in October, 1853, to ally with Hungary against Austria; nor could it know what were the military facilities for overthrowing Austria, nor whether the stubborn resistance of Louis Napoleon was what forced Aberdeen into his policy. But the nation since the Russian invasion of Hungary has practically felt how dangerous to all foreign liberty is the Russian power, and the absolute necessity of repressing and curtailing it; and this determination of the people has made the war a reality, has given power to that side of the Cabinet which alone was willing to go forward, has displayed itself equally in our lowest distress and our chief triumph, which Kossuth ought to honour….
“I doubt whether his union with Ledru Rollin is approved by any eminent Hungarian in England.
“While I regret all this, I yet expect Kossuth to be great again whenever action in Hungary recommences; but he cannot bear _in_action well; and, alas! I make no doubt his private resources cannot bear delays. I almost begin to fear that he _covets_ to be driven publicly to America by our Government, as less ignominious than being starved into the same step. I cannot understand … how he fails to see that _if_ we weaken Russia we strengthen the chances of liberty, though Aberdeen would not allow his particular policy in 1853-4. We are doing _so very much_ more than he asked of the Americans in 1852 that the tone he assumes is wonderful. And then to scoff as he does, as though we had done _nothing_ in destroying the Russian Black Sea Fleet and overthrowing the whole prestige of their military superiority. To have been beaten by the Turks is still _more_ humiliating…. I wonder whether you have any alarm about America. I _should_ have some alarm if Nicaragua and the Mosquito land were the topic of quarrel; for I think the Americans would really fight us as a single nation to hinder us establishing ourselves on American soil _south_ of them. They sufficiently dislike our _northern_ position….
“Very cordially yours,
“F. W. Newman.”
* * * * *
We now pass to Newman’s letters in the year 1856; and the first of this series speaks of the “Harry” who is mentioned elsewhere in this volume, as having been Professor Alleyne Nicholson, of Aberdeen. He was coming to stay with Professor Newman during term time:–
“7 P.V.E. R.P.,
“_28th Oct._, 1856.
“The grammar used in University College School is _Key’s Grammar_…. Hitherto, no particular Greek Grammar has been used in the school, but Greek has been taught through _Robson’s Constructive Greek Exercises_, which, I presume, Harry ought at once to work at…. A Greek Grammar by Mr. Greenwood is expected to be ready by Christmas, and is to be brought into the school. It will be new _to all_; and Harry will be on a par with the rest about it.
* * * * *
“_Robson’s Constructive Latin Exercises_ … are used in the school…. Give him” (Harry) “my very kind regards, and say that his little bedroom here looks to me desolate until he comes; but I cannot flatter him that I have anything to fill up the emptiness of heart he will feel when he loses not only papa and mamma, but also his faithful coadjutor in study– _Annie!_ Seriously, you will have to consider about his evening _amusements_, for it will not do to be studying morning and night. What think you of giving a well defined time to _drawing_ every evening? He has so much taste for drawing insects that he cannot fail in outline. We have a little room which we call ‘the boy’s room,’ where he can put any of his Natural History collections which you think it well he should try, but we have _no butterflies to catch,–few even in summer.”
* * * * *
At the end of July, Newman went to stay with Dr. Nicholson and his family at Penrith, and there are one or two notes concerning his journey tither. The next letter is dated 24th Aug., 1856. He wrote therefore when the Crimean War was still going forward. That war which, amongst mistaken policies, blundering Government tactics, and aimless ambitions, holds a foremost place. It was not till the end of the year 1855 that it came to an end. After the attack on Sebastopol, the French–whose army had suffered quite as much from the terrible winter and from disease, etc., as our own–succeeded in taking the Malakoff Tower. This made it impossible for the Russians to defend Sebastopol any longer, and in March, 1856, peace was proclaimed. Then followed Russian promises, which were made as easily as they were broken.
“7 Park Village, East.
“_24th August_, 1856.
“My dear Nicholson,
* * * * *
“Events have proved that Russia, too, painfully knew her own weakness. Probably he” (Louis Napoleon) “already in December knew that she knew it, and the war was far too unpopular with the French to be continued except on a different policy, with new necessities and new prizes to be won. Our policy from March, 1853, to March, 1855, was so hollow and so silly, that no wisdom could afterwards bring things right, or make the results of the war worthy of the cost; but the _comparative_ result in March, 1856, is so vast a gain over what nine out of ten of our statesmen (so called) were projecting to accept in March, 1855, that I cannot open my lips against the peace in itself. I could not in any case wish the war continued, except on new principles for worthier objects. However, Russia has really had a terrible lesson, and a great humiliation. That she could not take Silistria or Kars against Turkish troops, except by the accident of famine, will never be forgotten by German armies or statesmen…. The native Russian peasants and low persons do not _yet_ know that the Czar was beaten; they suppose him to have conquered with immense cost; but the nobility knew the truth, and it will leak through to the lowest people, I expect, in the course of a few years. I think Europe has a respite of a quarter of a century from the incubus of Russia; and _if_ in that interval the Hapsburgs are overthrown, all will yet come right. I fear we are still forced again (in spite of Mazzini and Kossuth) to regard the French as having the initiative of revolutions. I have resolved to give up all extra and needless effort of the brain, until I can really get rid of certain morbid symptoms, quite chronic, which distress me, so that my projected Latin analysis lies in embryo.
“… I have had satisfactory approval of my _Iliad_ from my brother, Dr. Newman, a fastidious critic and practical poet, as also from other private quarters which I count much on; but reviews as yet do not notice me…. I have no high expectation of the very existence of the book becoming known, except slowly to many who might perhaps be glad of it if they knew it….
“Ever your faithful friend,
“F. W. Newman.”
In October of the same year he thus speaks of the School of University College:–
“… The School of U.C. is remarkably full of pupils this season. My junior class has unusually _old_ pupils; I do not yet know their quality. One (a Mr. Sassoon, a Jew?) [Footnote: Probably this was the father of the present Sir Edward Sassoon, second Baronet.] I mistook for a German, but he told me he is an Arab of Hindoo birth, and talks a little Arab and Hindostanee, but knows more of English than of any other language. His English is good, though the pronunciation is a little foreign.”
In another letter, written this same month, he speaks of Mazzini as knowing that the “liberties of Italy cannot be safe without revolution either in France or Austria.” That he feels it must come sooner or later, so that it would be better for Italy to act and suffer rather than to become “stupefied.” Newman declares that the Governments know, and is the reason why they “hate Mazzini, since … success in Italy will cause explosions elsewhere.”
Newman goes on to say: “For myself I look at it thus. The deliverance of Italy _cannot_ come by Governments (unless these are first revolutionized); it can only come by insurrection. No one from without can ever know or judge what is the time for hopeful insurrection: it must be done from within, and generally without plan. My sole question is, Is the cause legitimate? I find that it is. I leave Italians to judge of the time. Meanwhile every year I would give of my superfluity to the aid of patriotic effort…. To fail ten times may be necessary for success in the eleventh. If they were losing heart and becoming denationalized, the case would be bad; but it is the contrary. The fusion with Austria is impossible. The more they bleed the more they are united, and the more resolved…. My wife is cheered to learn that Harry will go to Mr. Bruce’s on Sunday. A black spot had rested on her heart, I find, from fearing that he would go _nowhere_ to church. I am sending you a corrected copy of my translation of the first chorus in _Antigone_, since you honour it by putting it into your _Sophocles_….
“Ever your affectionate friend,
“F. W. Newman.
“To Dr. J. Nicholson, etc.”
Another mention of the translation I also insert here. He had been able to give far more time to it than if he had been in London, for he had in September been spending some time at Ventnor. “A youth introduced to me by Mrs. Pulszky is zealous in the Greek tragedians, and I have been helping him to a little _Sophocles_ which put me up to translating the 1st Chorus after I had been reading it with him….”
Here is the translation to which allusion is made:–
“SOPHOCLES, ANTIGONE”
1ST CHORAL SONG
_1st Strophe_
“O ray of the Sun, the fairest
That over the rills of Dirke
To Thebe the seven-gated
Wast ever of yore unveil’d
The eyelid of heaven gilding;
At length thy splendour on us was shed, Urging to hasty reverse of rein
The Argive warrior white of shield And laden in panoply all complete,
Who sped in van of the routed.
Stirr’d from afar against our land By Polyneikes’ doubtful strife,
He like an eagle soaring came,
Screen’d by a wing of snow unstain’d, With many a stout accoutrement
And horse-hair crested helmets.
_1st Antistrophe_
“At mouth of the portals seven
Above our abodes he hover’d
With lances that yawn’d for carnage; But vanish’d, afore his chaps
With slaughter of Thebes were glutted; Afore the flicker of pitchy flame
Might to the crown of turrets climb. So fierce the rattle of war around
Was pour’d on his rear by the serpent-foe Hard match’d in deadly encounter.
For Jove the over-vaunting tongue
Supremely hates. Their full fed stream Of gold, of clatter, and of pride
He saw, and smote with brandish’d flame Him, who at summit of his goal
Would raise the peal of Conquest.
_2nd Strophe._
“Foil’d in his frantic rush,
Though still with blasts of hate against us raving, Down dropt he, torch and all,
And heavy struck the Earth, who upward spurn’d him. Such auspice of the war
To us was fair; and elsewhere new successes Befel, whereon the right
Great Ares routing wheel’d the chariot-battle.
For, posted at the seven gates,
Equals to equals, seven chiefs
To trophy-bearing Jupiter
Payments of solid brass bequeath’d. Save that the gloomy-hearted twain,
Sprung from one mother and one sire, Planted with adverse dint the spear
And earn’d a fate in common.
_2nd Antistrophe_
“But now, since Victory
Mighty of name at length is come, delighted In car-borne Thebe’s joy;
Henceforth forget we battle’s past annoyance. But through the livelong night
Let us in sacred band approach the temples, And Bacchus to the dance–
The god who shakes the soil of Thebes–be leader.
“But hither Creon, lo! proceeds,
Son of Menoekeus, newly rais’d
The sceptre of this land to sway.
Now at new tokens of the gods,
Methinks, some sage device he plies. Therefore to special parliament
Hath he by general summons fetch’d This meeting of the elders.”
The next letter largely concerns Persia. And it is necessary to remember that, in the early part of the nineteenth century, she began, at the suggestion of France, a most unfortunate war (as regards herself) with Russia.
In 1826 there was another war, and this cost Persia all the rest of her possessions in Armenia. The taxation of the people, which the rulers enforced to enable them to pay the expenses of the war, caused the former to rise in insurrection in 1829. The death of the Crown Prince in 1833 seemed the crowning blow to the fortunes of Persia, for he had been the only man who had seriously tried to raise his country from the depths to which she had fallen.
In 1848 the son of the Shah, who had, through the assistance of Britain and Russia, obtained the throne, came into office, and he resolved to put forward claims to Afghanistan and Beluchistan. When the ruler of Herat agreed that the Shah had claims, the English Government made the Shah sign an agreement in 1853 that he would give up pressing his claims as regarded Herat. But in 1856 the Persians retook this city, because they declared that the Ameer of Kabul was planning an advance on Herat. Thereupon a British army, commanded by General Outram and Havelock, was sent to Persia, and defeat after defeat for the Persians followed their arrival, and in July, 1857, they were compelled to give up Herat. Since then Persia has not ventured to lay her hand on the “key to India.”
“7 P.V.E., London,
“_19th Dec._, 1856.
“Dr. Barth, the African traveller, has been re-seducing (me) into the Lingua Amazighana, which I had forsworn. I am not sure that something will not come of it–to me at least. I have already built a castle in the air, that sometime hereafter I shall become ‘Professor of Libyan’ to U.C.
* * * * *
“How dreadful is it that we should be able to get into a war with Persia, proclaimed _at Bombay_ on November 1st, and nobody here knows why it is or what it seeks after; and the country’s honour is committed while Parliament is not even sitting. And for this we throw up Italy and … Switzerland? Have you seen Cobden’s recent letters on Maritime War? I rejoice much in them, and think adversity has improved his tone. With hearty regards to Mrs. N. and all,
“I am, ever yours,
“F. W. N.”
The letters at which we have now arrived are those written during 1857. The first is dated March, and I quote some passages from it to show the Professor’s own views as regards evening home preparation for boys who are working at school during the day, because it seems to me that his opinion in this matter should carry weight:–
“I much dislike a boy having _both_ his work at school and _then_ evening work at home, when he is getting sleepy and ought to have relaxation. It is the nuisance of day schools, and quite hurtful to study, if there is nobody at home to answer questions. Besides, Harry” (this is Harry Nicholson, mentioned two or three times in these letters as attending University College School) “is so studious of himself that it is very much to be desired that he should have time for _voluntary_ work. I regard this as having been very beneficial to _me_ at school, where I never had work enough set me to fill up half my time.”
The letter which follows is dated April, and in it we find that “Harry” had just returned home, and that his report had testified to his diligence and progress. At the end of the letter comes this little touch as to some of the schoolboy belongings which had been left behind in Professor Newman’s house. “Harry has left divers snail-shells fastened on pasteboard. Perhaps he did not know how to carry them safely.”
On 6th May mention of the owner of the snail-shells recurs again:–
“Mrs. Newman was rather disappointed at the unceremoniousness of my parting with Harry. It seems like a dream his vanishing. I suppose she is like Hecuba, grieved that she could not make the funeral of Hector. (I did not even kiss Harry _by proxy_ for her!) Most gladly does she give him up to Mrs. Nicholson; and yet, I fancy, she wanted a funeral ceremony on losing him.”
Throughout these letters belonging to the year 1857, there is no special mention of the Indian Mutiny. Yet it is impossible to doubt that it occupied a great place in Newman’s thoughts. No one who has written on India and our relations with her as he has done, could have failed to have written his own strong views on the lamentable mismanagement which led to the Mutiny. But most probably the letters concerning it were either not kept by Dr. Nicholson, or else Newman asked for them back, as in so many cases he was accustomed to do with regard to his own letters towards the close of his life. He had a theory that letters should not be kept, and many people have told me that he asked for his letters back in order to destroy them. Happily, however, this is _not_ the theory which everyone holds. Indeed, to many of us, the Past lies so near the written word, that _almost_ it re-awakens between the folds of a letter; indeed, in many instances, the Past and Present only meet across it. In this sense it is the only thing that holds up the picture of the past before our tired eyes. _Litera scripta manet_ is a living truth. The next letter from Newman to Nicholson was written on 20th June, 1857. On 8th June of this year died Douglas Jerrold, dramatist, satirist, and author. Mr. Walter Jerrold tells us that, in 1852, he had accepted the editorship of _Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper_. It was said of this that he “found it in the street and annexed it to literature.”
His fortune as a writer began when he was only sixteen. His capacity for work and his perseverance in working were enormous. In 1825 he wrote great numbers of plays and farces; but beside all these, he contributed, as is well known, to _Punch_ (at its first commencement in 1841), as well as to hosts of magazines and political tracts, etc. Newman alludes to Jerrold being in receipt of L2000 a year from _Lloyd’s Weekly News_.
I pass over the discussion as regards the Newmans’ proposed visit to the Lakes, and also his expressed delight in a book, many copies of which he had just given away–_Intuitive Morals and Religious Duty_.
“In truth, dear friend, I get happier and happier, and only am pent up and mourn to feel how I live for self alone. I sometimes think with a sort of envy how your knowledge of medicine and tender heart for young children puts you into near and kind contact with the poor. However, we have each his own talent, if only one can find the mode of wisely disposing it.
* * * * *
“I am sorry to see that Douglas Jerrold has not left sixpence to his family, though he was in receipt of L2000 a year (they say!) from _Lloyd’s Weekly News_.”
In November another letter alludes to his Latin translations. He says he has been gradually inclining to the belief that Terence, Virgil, and Horace had “damaged” the Latin language in very much the same way as Pope did the English, as regards arbitrary style and method of writing cadences.
It is universally conceded that Horace was not a great thinker. As one of our modern English critics has said: “His philosophy is that of the market-place rather than of the schools; he does not move among high ideals or subtle emotions…. He carried on and perfected the native Roman growth, satire, so as to make Roman life from day to day, in city and country, live anew under his pen…. Before Horace, Latin lyric poetry is represented almost wholly by the brilliant but technically immature poems of Catullus; after him it ceases to exist.”
As regards Pope, the critics of the end of the eighteenth century considered his style eminently artificial and forced. But to-day, according to Father Gasquet, we cannot but recognize his services to English poetry as invaluable. “He was virtually the inventor and artificer who added a new instrument of music to its majestic orchestra, a new weapon of expression to its noble armoury…. But one must admit that to the taste of the present age there occurs a certain coldness and artificiality in his portrayals alike of the face of nature and of the passions of man. He appeals rather to the brain than to the heart. Ideas and not emotions are his province…. To the metric presentment of ideas he imparts a charm of musical utterance unachieved before his time.”
“_30th Nov._, 1857.
“My dear Nicholson,
* * * * *
“I have of late been urged by a particular circumstance to make various trials of translation into Latin (lyrical, etc.) verse–an exercise I always used to dislike, and have never much practised. I now find my dislike was largely caused by the unsuitable and over-stiff metres which used to be imposed on me when I was under orders…. In English and Greek versification I have long been aware of the essential importance of this; but I have looked on Latin as too inflexible a tongue to be worth the labour, since nearly all the translations I have seen, pall on me as mere flat imitations of the ancients instead of having a smack of the original. I have been inclining to the belief that Terence, Virgil, and Horace have done damage to the Latin language, or at least to our taste; just as Pope was the ruin of English poetry so long as he was allowed to dictate the style and cadences. In Plautus, Lucretius, and Catullus the language has a flexibility and the metres a freedom which (as I think) academicians and schoolmasters have not duly appreciated, and which ought to impart to us (when we _do_ do anything so absurd as to write foreign verses) a freedom at which we have not generally aimed. As to metre, I think it really a _folly_ to insist on Horace’s restrictions, which are entirely his own, being neither found in the Greek, which he copied, nor in Catullus; and which made the problem of _translation_ so much harder (and he did not translate), that one has to sacrifice too much. I think we ought to construct our metres by selection from the Greek, just as Catullus or Horace did, not imitate them slavishly. I send you one specimen of my translation, to ask whether so many as seven lines together the same is _too monotonous_. If there were only four or five it would be as one of Catullus’s. I dare say you have the original….
“With truest regards to you all,
“Your cordial friend,
“F. W. Newman.”
Pulszky, the friend of Kossuth and also of Francis Newman, was a Hungarian author, politician, and patriot. In 1848 he was serving under Esterhazy in some Government post; but when he was suspected of revolutionizing in his native country, he took refuge in England. Pulszky went with Kossuth later to America. In 1852 he was condemned to death by the Austrian Government, but his fourteen years spent in Italy seem to have influenced the Ministers to pardon him in 1867. While in England (I do not know if he suffered from it elsewhere) he became a martyr to _tic douleureux_, that most trying form of facial neuralgia which attacks in such paroxysms of severe pain–attacks which seem brought on by the most trivial reasons, such as a knock at the door or by a sudden shake to the chair on which the patient is sitting, and which, as a rule, give no warning of their approach.
“My dear Nicholson,
“You remember that you kindly furnished me with your prescription for _tic douleureux_ to give to my friend Pulszky. He told me a few days back that he sent it (I think a year ago) to the poor girl at Ventnor who was a horrible sufferer from it, and heard no more of it until this autumn when he was at Ventnor again. He was delighted to find she had been immediately cured by it, had had no returns, was made competent for work, and is in a servant’s place. On my naming this, I have two urgent applications for the prescriptions. If you will a second time take the trouble to copy out the prescription I will keep it myself, and give copies to my friends without further coming upon you…. I have ventured to assert that the Nicholson who is so talked of as promoting the ballot in Australia is _not_ your brother Mark.
“Do you know, when I saw in the _Illustrated London News_ the face of the late lamented Brigadier Nicholson of the Punjaub, I thought it _very_ like you. Is he possibly a distant relative?
“Ever yours heartily,
“F. W. Newman,
“7 P.V.E.”
“_20th December_, 1857.
This remark of Newman’s that he saw a strong likeness in “the face of the late lamented Brigadier Nicholson of the Punjaub” to his friend Dr. Nicholson is one of those arresting suggestions which seem to strike sudden light out of the flints of ancestry which whiten the road of life along which we have come.
That there _is_ a distinct likeness in the two faces no one who had seen the portraits in Captain Lionel Trotter’s _Life of John Nicholson_, and then looked at that of Dr. John Nicholson in this book, could have had a doubt. But, as it seems to me, there is even more ground for the likelihood of Newman’s suggestion, if one tries to trace the lineage and land of the families of Nicholson in years gone by. I quote the following from Captain Trotter’s _Life of John Nicholson_:–
“In the days of our Tudor sovereigns the family of which John Nicholson was to be the bright particular star had made their home in the border county of Cumberland.” He goes on to say that the first to come over to Ireland was Rev. William Nicholson (in 1589), and he married the Lady Elizabeth Percy. Captain Trotter says there is a tradition that his two brothers went over to Ireland with William Nicholson. One settled in Derry, the other in Dublin. During McGuire’s rebellion in 1641, his son’s wife and her baby boy “were the only two in Cran-na-gael” [now known as Cranagill] “who escaped the common massacre by hiding behind some brushwood. In their wanderings thence they fell in with a party of loyalist soldiers, who escorted them safely to Dromore, whence they made their way across sea to the widow’s former home at Whitehaven….” What became of this Mrs. Nicholson does not appear. “Her son William, during his sojourn in Cumberland, had become a Quaker.” This was very probably due to his having been influenced by his intercourse with George Fox. Later on the former went back to Cranagill. There were three sons born to this William Nicholson, and Captain Trotter tells us that it was from the eldest (also a “William”) that the famous John Nicholson was descended.
Now, it seems to me that it is not at all unlikely that there may have been some connection (as Francis Newman suggested) between the branch of the Nicholson family to which John Nicholson, of Mutiny fame, was related, who made their home in the “border county of Cumberland,” and that to which Dr. John Nicholson, the lifelong friend of Francis Newman, belonged. The latter also belonged to a north country family who, I believe, settled on the borders of England and Scotland. Dr. Nicholson himself lived for a great number of years at Penrith, in Cumberland. So that, all things considered, perhaps Newman’s conjecture, after he had realized how strong a resemblance there was in his friend’s face to that of the hero of Delhi, was correct.
The next letters belong to the year 1858. In August, 1858, Newman was again devoting much time to Latin versification:–
“My chief time this summer has been employed in a new _furor_–Latin versification. I find that by choosing and adapting metres from the Greek fountain and not sticking to Horace, or even to Catullus, the language admits of translation from English closer than I at all conceived. I think I have done 1500 lines in all. I only translate short pieces and pleasing ones. I have been led to it by a practical object. I used to hate Latin versification, and indeed the extreme poverty and ambiguity of the language is laid bare shockingly by the process. Perhaps not really worse than in prose translation, but every metre (or almost every) deprives you at once of a sensible fraction of the already scanty vocabulary. One learns also how essentially clumsy and prosaic the language is in its vocabulary, though so compact in its structure.
“The Atlantic Telegraph, no doubt, already excites wild and impatient hopes in our Australians, of which you will hear an echo. It is indeed a critical event, as determining an immense extension of the telegraphic system….
“Ever yours heartily,
“F. W. Newman.”
It will be remembered that the Crimean War broke up the Coalition Ministry which Lord Aberdeen had formed. This was due to the fact that the motion for enquiry into the state of our soldiers before Sebastopol was carried by a great majority against the Government. Lord Aberdeen resigned when this happened, and Lord Palmerston came into office, with Mr. Gladstone as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Then, when Palmerston acceded to the demand that a committee of enquiry should be appointed, Gladstone, who had opposed it before, thought he ought not to remain in the Cabinet which had now agreed to have the enquiry made. So he gave up office, but still helped the Government generally until after Orsini’s attempt in 1858, upon Napoleon III’s life. Perhaps it is necessary to recall here that Gladstone had taken up the cause of the prisoners–especially political prisoners– in the prisons of Naples in 1851. He spoke strongly on the terrible cruelties which were perpetrated there. In _this_ effort to help forward an enquiry Gladstone threw himself most heartily.
* * * * *
“I send you to-day a Latin Grammar which I have found on my shelves. By the _binder’s_ ticket ‘Penrith’ I infer it to be Harry’s. I hope I may congratulate him…. I never met Gladstone. He was a hero of mine for about a year. I hoped great things of him. After the letters on Naples and his Chancellorship of the Exchequer, I thought he had worked clear of the errors of his youth and was ‘the coming man.’ But in the Russian war his intense party spirit and endless mistakes have lowered his … intellectual discernments.
* * * * *
“I am, ever yours heartily,
“F. W. Newman.”
In December of this year Newman writes word that he has been working hard at Arabic for some time, because he has undertaken to teach a friend modern Arabic. He is again staying at Hastings, where he had been so constantly.
“20 White Rock Place, Hastings,
“_30th Dec._, 1858.
“My dear Nicholson,
* * * * *
“I am strangely thrown anew into sympathy with _your_ studies. I have been working really hard at Arabic for some time–and why, do you think? Because I had the temerity to undertake (for philological reasons) to teach a friend modern Arabic. I could not have been so rash or so foolish as to undertake to teach ancient Arabic; yet I am almost driven on learning the ancient by the number of questions which have kept arising…. I have been looking up all my old MSS., and am surprised at the extent of my former attainments, very much indeed of which I had forgotten. But words come back to me with a pleasant rapidity, and I am delighted to find how much I have exaggerated to myself the gap between old and new Arabic.”
With this letter those belonging to the year 1858 come to an end.
With 1859 begin Newman’s criticisms on the policy and unscrupulous methods of Louis Napoleon.
The latter had made himself absolute ruler of France in 1851. Later on he annexed Savoy and Nice. In his campaign in Lombardy against Austria he was assisted by Great Britain. In May, when this letter following was written, Napoleon’s Manifesto had just been published in the London papers of 4th May:–
“10 Circus Road, S. John’s Wood,
“_5th May_, 1859.
* * * * *
“I dare say you read Louis Napoleon’s Manifesto in yesterday’s papers. I wonder what you think of it. I find myself at variance with most of my friends, and with nearly all the newspapers _that I see_; but the _Morning Chronicle_ and the _Daily News_, of which I have only seen _one_ article for a long time back, appeared to be maintaining what I hold. That we ought to be strictly neutral (not armed and threatening neutrals) seems to be an axiom; but at the same time I look at the crisis with much hope and little or no fear. To declaim against L. N.’s treachery is only a way of playing into the wrong hands, i.e. supporting Austria. He has pledged himself to expel her from Italy and not to seek dominion in Italy for France. If he fails he shatters his own power in Paris: so much the better, I suppose. If he succeeds, Italy is a certain gainer, and Europe through Italy. I say a certain gainer, because the existing oppression (testified by Gladstone and Clarendon) rests upon the aid of Austria, and is far worse than war, and worse than a transitory dictatorship of France; and the mischief of Austria has been that her power has been confirmed by European diplomacy; but if France proves treacherous, it will be against the protest of Europe, and her rule _cannot_ be permanent. Besides, L. N. must almost of necessity give some aggrandizement to Sardinia. Lombardy, Tuscany, and Parma seem inevitably to rush into Victor Emmanuel’s arms, if not also Venice, if the Confederates are victorious. Hence a stout power is interposed between France and Southern Italy. And is it not stupid to think that because L. N. is a bad, unscrupulous man, therefore he covets nothing but _territory_? He covets _stability_ and the glory of liberating Italy; and acting with heroic moderation is the obvious way of winning to his side republicans in France and the diplomatists of Europe. _If_ he acts thus, I think his dynasty will be permanent; if not, not, or hardly. The Papists already hate him, and he already distrusts them….”
It is impossible to read many letters of Newman’s and not recognize the unfailing unselfishness with which he constantly gives up his own plans of seeing his friends, in order that his wife may go to those places for which she has a special affection. Not infrequently he gives up a journey much farther afield for the purpose of pursuing antiquarian researches because he knows how great would be her ennui were she to accompany him, and he is ever full of a tender concern that she shall suffer no unnecessary discomfort or trouble.
“_13th July_, 1859.
“My dear Nicholson,
“I had really hoped we might spend a few days at Penrith and have a chance of seeing you, for my wife talked seriously of Keswick and the neighbourhood. But when she began to remember in detail the climate of the Lakes, her courage broke down, and she said there was nothing did us good but the seaside, and especially the coast of Wales. So now we are starting for Carmarthen, Cardigan, Aberayron, Aberystwith, etc., a weary distance from Penrith.
“I told you I had undertaken the daring task of teaching modern Arabic (somehow) to a young lady. My lessons began in October (the second week), and ended with the second week of March, being broken by Christmas. About a fortnight ago she sent me a written exercise, in which I corrected a few grammatical faults, and then copied it out to transmit it to you, with my translation into English. I should like you to see a specimen of my _Roman_ (?) character, and also to hear what you think of the capacity and power of the modern language as compared with the ancient…. I hope you are hitherto well satisfied with Italian affairs. The pamphlet of Napoleon III on Italy shows that in 1857 he definitely proposed to Austria a scheme for the total secularization of the Papacy. I now feel sure he will not stop at that. It also advocates a federation of all Italy–a wonderful proposal from a French ruler. No democrat would have proposed that.”
In September he writes from Aberystwith, and relates how he is busy translating _Robinson Crusoe_ from the Arabic.
“I am constantly reminded of you by the study which I have been rather closely pursuing here for nearly eight weeks, viz. the reading of _Robinson Crusoe_ in Arabic. It is to me often difficult from several causes: (1) It is not pointed, nor even the _Teshdied_ added; (2) I could not bring Golin’s with me, and the dictionaries which I have are very imperfect; (3) the writer has most arbitrarily changed the details of Robinson’s story, and makes it often incoherent and stupidly impossible; so that neither does the original help me much, nor can I rest on internal congruity to help me out.”
It should perhaps be remembered here that the Arabs had a great contempt for the Grecian and Roman languages. Their own language was only printed in ancient classical form, of which the Koran is the most famous example, and the characters and symbols proceeded from right to left. In its most ancient form it is named “Kufic.” There are only symbols for sixteen out of its twenty-eight consonants. Certain of our own words own patronymity from the Arabic languages–words such as algebra, alcohol, zenith, nadir, etc. These show clearly that the language did influence early intellectual European culture in no small degree.
To go on with the letter:–
“I am greatly encouraged by my success in understanding it” [the story of _Robinson Crusoe_ in Arabic], “for it is a far more ambitious style and on far more various topics than I have ever before encountered; and when I get my Golin’s I expect to get to the bottom of many words that puzzle me, though others are probably modern developments, especially quadrilaterals and words belonging to special arts. But there is a religious formula which recurs many times, every word of which is easy, and yet the whole of it is to me unintelligible. I suspect it is elliptical and allusive, and it occurs to me that it may be familiar to you; if so, I know you will have pleasure in explaining it to me. Whenever Robinson falls into distress and betakes himself to prayer, I meet these words:–
[Arabic]
and then follows the matter of sorrow. I also three times meet [Arabic] at the end of a sentence, where the meaning seems to be _et alia ejusdem generis_. I suppose it is an abridgment by initial letters. Can you help me to a solution? We have stuck here” [at Aberystwith] “longer than we intended; in fact, we should have left nearly a week ago, only that Mrs. N. caught a sharp cold, and the weather became suddenly so severe that I have feared to let her travel…. Probably, like all the world and his wife, you are yourself just now absent from home…. Do you not with me see that the Italians already are showing how vast a benefit L. N. has brought them? It is only the beginning of a vast revolution.
“I am, ever your true friend,
“F. W. Newman.”
CHAPTER IX
LETTERS TO DR. NICHOLSON
In 1860 Sardinia, because it happened to possess the clever, far-seeing Count Cavour, had “dreamed against a distant goal”–the goal when his king should be made King of Italy, instead of only Sardinia. He only had to wait one year before his wish was attained. Victor Emmanuel, son of Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, was in 1861 proclaimed King of Italy, and nine years later he was head of the whole united nation. This is briefly touched on in Newman’s first letter to Dr. Nicholson in January, 1860. He also spoke in strong praise of a book of Mrs. Beecher Stowe which he and his wife (then staying at Hastings to see the new year in, as they did the year before as well) were reading together. Mrs. Beecher Stowe was, of course, best known by her _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_, perhaps the most popular American novel ever written. _The Minister’s Wooing_ was published in 1859.
[Illustrations: 20 WHITE ROCK PLACE, HASTINGS 1A CARLISLE PARADE, HASTINGS
WHERE FRANCIS NEWMAN OFTEN STAYED, IN 1860 AND EARLIER From Photos taken in 1909 by Valentine Edgar Sieveking]
“1A Carlisle Parade, Hastings,
_4th Jan_., 1860.
“My dear Nicholson,
“A Happy New Year to you all! We are here, in the same lodgings as a year ago, having begun and ended the year in them. We have begun this year with hopes for the future brightly contrasted to anything for ten years back. For this, among men, I thank, first of all, Cavour and Victor Emmanuel, and secondly, Louis Napoleon. The hatred which the last incurs with the Austrian party and the Ultramontanists is, I think, a fair measure of his services and tendencies.
* * * * *
“I cannot get any solution from any of my books of certain difficulties in the Arabic phraseology of _Robinson Crusoe_, [Footnote: Hiawatha and Robinson Crusoe were very much used for Latin translations at the college by Newman.] and I want to ask your help; but I do not like to do so until I learn that it would not encroach too much on your leisure.
* * * * *
“We have been here reading aloud Mrs. Beecher Stowe’s new tale, _The Minister’s Wooing_ with very great pleasure. I regard her as a real ‘prophetess,’ and am delighted at the enormous circulation of her works. I have been stimulated to try my hand at translating into Latin five of the most eloquent passages in the book, as a trial of the possibility of putting such things into that language. I am pleased with the result, although it is clear to me that without a development of the Latin vocabulary far beyond Cicero, Livy, Tacitus, and Seneca no one could ever be _fluent_ and free to speak on modern subjects. One has to paraphrase and go round instead of speaking outright. I am thinking I ought to know something more about Arnobius and Lactantius, and see what sort of _development_ they effected; and the resolution rises in my mind that I will look to this, being hitherto quite ignorant of them…. I suppose the ‘Volunteer Rifles’ are talked of at Penrith as elsewhere. I regard it as a breach of faith to transform these Volunteers into Light Infantry, which seems to be the darling idea of military men.”
Later on, in February, there is another letter relating to Newman’s Latin _Robinson Crusoe_ and his own difficulties as to how to find out when are the times of spring and autumn in an equinoctial climate.
“I have been (as many others) a sufferer by the weather from slight bronchitis, exasperated by the coughs and noseblowings of the students, and by an ill-arrangement of the class-rooms. I had nothing serious, but enough to force me to spend my evenings in bed, from seven o’clock almost, and keep me three entire days away from college. I have been … busy … with a Latin _Robinson Crusoe_, rewritten quite freely (not a translation), that I have not been able to get back just now to Arabic; and have buried your letter in papers so deep that I lost much time the other day in a vain search for it…. In writing on Robinson’s island I found my botany sadly at a loss, and have hunted the _Penny Cyclopaedia_ diligently and uselessly to learn the simplest things, such as: To an equinoctial climate, when is the spring and when the autumn? Do the leaves fall twice, or not at all? When is the chief cold? Is it when the sun is lowest, or when the clouds are thickest? Or does it depend on hail and electric phenomena, or on local relation to great mountains?”
It will be remembered that in 1859 the outbreak of the war of the Italian liberation took place. Garibaldi–the Knight of the Red Shirt–though he had settled down as a farmer on the island of Caprera, was summoned by Cavour to fight for Victor Emmanuel. He and his _Chasseurs des Alpes_ went into Central Italy as chief in command, and helped to complete the annexation of the Sardinian territories. It was in August, 1860, that he made his military promenade through Naples. During the next few years he was longing to march on Rome, but he also wished to foment the rebellion in Hungary, and not to let it come to nothing.
“10 Circus Road, St. John’s Wood,
“London, N.W.
“_10th Nov._, 1860.
“My dear Nicholson,
“I believe I have never so much as written from Wales or Clifton to you, to denote that I was not killed on the rail. In old days I suppose that every distant journey demanded this kind of ‘receipt’ from a traveller; but we now travel too much to make it natural. I am reading the Book of Proverbs in Arabic, in order to work myself up in the vocabulary of morals, and am pleased to find that I know nearly all the words, although the exact _form_ of some is new to me.
* * * * *
“We may now congratulate one another on the ‘definitive’ fact of a constitutional King of United Italy. Louis Napoleon, in consenting to it, appears to me to have surpassed the limits not only of ordinary kings, but of ordinary statesmen. I find that even able and temperate French writers, such as Eugene Forcat, are shocked at it…. Louis Napoleon’s … enemies outside have been Germany, Spain, Russia, Austria, Naples, and the Papacy, and inside, all the Catholic clergy and the politicians…. Do you see Garibaldi’s renewed solemn promise that his flag shall be joined to the Hungarian in effecting their liberation from Austria? What I hear and _know_ of Lord Palmerston’s intrigues against Hungary and _threats to Sardinia_ if she dares to assist Hungary … fills me with indignation and no small alarm. No doubt all that intrigue can do is now employed to induce Austria to _sell_ Venetia, not in order to benefit Italy (though to this they have no objection), but in gratuitous enmity to Hungary, which (Lord Palmerston says) the English Government _will not permit_ to be separated from Austria. This I _know_ he avowed to the Sardinian Ambassador, and sent the English fleet into the Adriatic as a demonstration. Happily the war is now likely to be deferred till Parliament meets, and our ministry may be severely checked in time. I trust we are only at the beginning of magnificent results in Europe and in North America….
“Your true friend,
“Francis W. Newman.”
1861 was a great year for the fortunes of America. Then it was that the Civil War between the North and South (United States) first began. The question seemed to be, how far the United States might really interfere with the doings of any particular State of the Union. The North determined that they would not allow the Union to be broken up, and so they fought. But really the true point at issue was a far bigger question than that, for it turned out that the real dispute had to do with whether slavery was to be allowed to continue, or whether it should be put an end to for good and all.
The North said it must cease, and after a war lasting five-years, this was the final decision upon which peace was made. England very nearly was brought into this war against her colonies, but happily not quite. It was probably due to Abraham Lincoln (who was most wise in his Presidentship) that this war was averted.
“_14th June_, 1861.
“The interest of American affairs almost swallows up with me those of Italy, Poland, Hungary; though I am on the whole in decided good heart as to them all, i.e. as to everything but India. Everywhere else the tide seems to me to have turned for the better; but in India that is by no means clear to me. I hope our Government has discovered its error as regards America…. The glorious patriotism and unanimity of the North none could absolutely foresee; but that the attempt to break up the Union would goad the pro-slavery faction of the North into intense hostility of feeling to the South, appeared to me so clear and certain that I predicted it in print. That their backers and merchants should so lavish their private fortunes for the war was more than I dared to hope. I think the Union gets a new heart from this time.”
“10 Circus Road, London, N.W.
“My dear Nicholson,
“I hope that the capture of New Orleans, now fully attested, pretty well tranquillizes your mind, and justifies us in believing that we see the beginning of the end.
* * * * *
“Events have not even yet taken the scale from the eyes of deluded people here. I still hear on all sides the doleful lament that ‘the successes of the North are much to be regretted, since they _can only prolong the war_.’ Mr. Gladstone [Footnote: Then Chancellor of the Exchequer.] has just printed his recent Manchester speech, in which he sympathizes with the South, because he does not trust the soundness of the North in the cause of freedom!… I am calmly told that it is not for the _interest of England_ that America should be so strong, and it is better for herself, and for us, that she break up! England may have all India, but the United States may not have one Mississippi, or keep the mouth of her own river. I have never felt so unutterably ashamed for my own country, for it affects public men and the press of London _on all sides_, with exceptions which may be easily counted. Are you not delighted with the progress of India for the better? It appears in the public news in many ways; but besides, I have papers from Oudh and Calcutta which interest me extremely, and give me the most cheerful hopes of the future. The change introduced by the extinction of the Company’s rule is prodigiously beyond what I ever dared to expect in so short a time. I am beginning to print (for very limited circulation!) a Latin _Robinson Crusoe_–chiefly to please a lady-teacher, my favourite pupil. It is not a translation, but an imitation. My wife is just returned from Brighton, where I spent Easter–but did _not_ go to the rifle review. I feel unable to take interest in it, until Secret Diplomacy is abolished. At this moment there is no security that Lord Russell is not intriguing against Hungary, while possessing liberal views for Italy.”
It is necessary here, I think, to add that the Hon. East India Company had, so long ago as 1833, been deprived of its commercial privileges; but still its directors practically ruled India under the Board of Control, which Pitt originated. Later, in 1858, Lord Palmerston brought in a bill which was its death-blow. The Company was to be abolished, and the Home Government reigned in its stead in India.
In July, 1863, Newman severed his long connection with University College, and evidently looked forward with great pleasure to uninterrupted time for writing and studying.
“I am finally severed from University College, but do not as yet know how much difference that means, since this is my natural vacation. I suppose that next October I shall begin to realize the greatness of the change for good or evil. (The enclosed photogram makes my face dirty, and one eye too dark; yet seen through a magnifier it is really good.) I seem to have an Augean stable to cleanse in reducing my papers to simplicity, and burning accumulations of thirty years. I am not likely to write less, but perhaps more, in anonymous ways, which impedes one’s concentrating oneself on one subject, if that be desirable: as to which I cannot make up my mind. The danger of overworking the brain I see to be extreme if one has one subject and that all paper work and private work.
“I have now got my house, to keep on with right to leave at a quarter of a year’s notice.”
As the following letters make much mention of the struggle through which the United States was passing, it is perhaps as well to give, briefly, a few details of the happenings which were then taking place.
In 1856, when the Republican army was first started to put an end to the extension of slavery, Lincoln, who was the most prominent man against the pro-slavery party, took the lead as the most active servant of the cause. But there was another, working perhaps more quietly, but quite as resolutely against slavery, whose name should never be forgotten. William Lloyd Garrison–a man of the same age as Newman–started in 1831 a paper called _The Liberator_, with no capital or subscriptions. This paper he carried on for thirty-five years until slavery was abolished in the United States, although he received constantly letters threatening his assassination. He came to England in 1833, and on his return he started the American Anti-Slavery Society. Before that was accomplished, however, in every way possible he had spread over the whole of the States pamphlets etc., urging on his people the pressing need of the abolition of the slave trade. Then in 1863 (July) General Grant’s success in capturing Vicksburg gave back to the Union the full control of the Mississippi river. By 1864 Grant was in full command of the Union Army. But _the_ aim of the Abolitionists had been triumphantly attained before then, for on 1st Jan., 1863, President Lincoln declared that all slaves in the States then in a state of rebellion should be free. Only two years later this man, who had done so much to rid his country of a degrading trade, was assassinated.
The following letter is dated 4th Aug., 1863:–
“… I hope that you now, with me, believe that the era of Southern ‘successes’ (i.e. hard and HOPEFUL _resistance_) is finally past. I believe nothing now remains but the resistance of despair, which cannot long animate the masses. Hatred of the free negro may awhile move them. But, the Mississippi once open, the N.W. has no longer a party favourable to the South; and the exhaustion of the South is so marked and undeniable that the real end may be much earlier than the people think…. General Neal Dow (now a prisoner at Richmond) in his last letter to England observed that the moral end served by the prolongation of the war had notoriously been the immediate legal emancipation of the negroes in the Gulf States; but the further prolongation of it is to determine the future internal government and possession of landed property in these States as the guarantee for the future. But it is a hard wrench on the politicians of the North to consent to this. Lincoln and Blair evidently would still much rather export the negroes _if they could_. Lincoln will not do anything against the will of the blacks; but it is evidently his weak point to deprecate them as equal citizens.”
In September, 1863, Newman and his wife were spending their holiday at Windermere. From there he writes:–
“I fear that the projects of Louis Napoleon in Mexico, and the consequent sympathies of the United States with Russia against Poland and France, make an imbroglio fatal to Poland. Now that, if the Russian Empire were organized into States possessed of substantive interior nationality (as the French plan is), this would seem to be a very lamentable result. The two Western Cabinets have so acted as to ensure that Russia and the United States shall each desire the aggrandizement of the other; and if Russia take a lesson of imperial liberality from America, her empire may terrify our grandchildren with excellent reason. But I believe that the interest of the nations, of the true people everywhere, will prevail over Cabinet ambitions as soon as slavery is effectually uprooted in America.”
Never do the words “a” and “the” light up so vividly the significant gulf which lies between the absence and the presence of Fame than when the first qualifies in the first instance the name of some man at a time when he is not specially distinguished; and then, much later on, the second prefaces it as the mouthpiece of Fame. In 1863 Newman’s mention of “_a_ Mr. Grace, the _recent_ celebrated victorious cricketer,” proved that his world-wide fame had but then been in its initial stage.
Newman’s counsel to Dr. Nicholson in _re_ cigars as injurious to appetite and inflaming to the eyes, reminds one that though, as I have shown by his speech to Mr. Butler’s family, he was “anti-everything,” including smoke, yet he mentions constantly in his _Personal Narrative_ that in Syria during his missionary journey there in 1830-3, the fact was that he himself smoked in the fashion of the country, and by no means disliked it in his own young manhood. He begins on the Temperance and Teetotal question thus:–
“Llandudno,
“_17th Sept._, 1863.
* * * * *
“I am reminded of it, by seeing to-day a statement made concerning cricketers, that no first-rate cricketer takes beer, ale, or spirits, which (it is said by the enthusiastic narrator) inevitably ‘jaundice the eye,’ nor tobacco in any form, (!) which induces a kind of stupefaction or negligence. The recent celebrated victorious cricketer, a Mr. Grace, it is said, will not take even _tea_; but prefers water. (I hope the water is better than that of Windermere!) Two months ago I was reading from a sporting newspaper about a rowing match on the Thames, and there learnt that if a rower is known to take beer or ale, it lowers the bets in his favour. In fact, no habitual drinker, though he drink _only_ for health and strength (as he thinks), is regarded to have a chance of the highest prize.
“I cannot help thinking that both wine and alcohol and tobacco lower the vital powers, and that men are strong _in spite_ of them, not by reason of them.
“Will you forgive me for suspecting that cigars lessen your appetite (which is less keen surely than it ought to be), as well as inflame your eye?”
Newman goes, in his next letter, to a much more intricate subject: i.e. cuneiform inscriptions.
He had been studying them for two months. Emanuel Deutsch, one of the great authorities on cuneiform inscriptions, gives us the following information as regards them:–
The writing itself resembles a wedge, and it has been proved that it was used by the ancient peoples of Babylonia, Assyria, Armenia, and Persia, as well as by other nations. It was inscribed on stone, iron, bronze, glass, or clay. The stylus which impressed the inscriptions on them was pointed, and had three unequal facets, of which the smallest made the fine wedge of the cuneiform signs. The first cuneiform writing of which we know dates from about 3800 B.C.
It was used first in Mesopotamia, and then in Persia, and the districts north of Nineveh. When it became extinct, for nearly sixteen hundred years, its very existence was absolutely forgotten. It was not until the year 1618 that Garcia de Sylva Figueroa, ambassador of Philip III of Spain, on seeing them, felt convinced that these inscriptions, in a writing to which no one in the wide world possessed a key, must mean something. Therefore he had a line of them copied. In 1693 they were supposed to be “the ancient writings of the Gaures.” Hyde, in 1700, trifled with them, and gave them credit for being nothing more than the architect’s fancies. Witte saw in them nothing but the disfigurations of many generations of worms. Others had their own speculations as to their meaning. But Karsten Niebuhr took a big step higher and nearer to their real meaning. He made out that there were three cuneiform alphabets, because of the threefold inscriptions at Persepolis.
In 1802 Grotefend, of Hanover, put before the Academy of Gottingen the first cuneiform alphabet. Then, among other great investigators, followed Rawlinson.
The first of these alphabets is Persian; the second the Median; the third the Babylonian.
Deutsch tells us that, originally, the cuneiform signs were pictures of objects drawn in outline on a vegetable substance, known by the native name of _likhusi_. He thinks it probable that the supply of this was not equal to the demand, for early in the Babylonish history clay was used instead of _likhusi_.
(This letter is undated.)
“My dear Nicholson,
“I cannot remember the longitude or latitude of my hearing from you or writing to you, and do not know whether I have to apologize for neglecting you, so absorbed (it seems) have I been. I cannot even tell whether I told you of my two months’ devotion to Cuneiformism, and my study of the Medo- Persian and Scythian inscriptions as _promeletemata_ of an article in the November _Fraser’s Magazine_.
“I found the Assyrian useless to dabble in: it is so vast, so fragmentary, so embarrassed by dogmatic hypotheses and assertions, and deterring complications, that one must give oneself _wholly_ to it for any chance of getting to its foundations. But I feel on perfectly solid ground in Medo- Persian or Scythian. Difficulties in them are like difficulties in Greek or Sanscrit: that is all. In the Assyrian, I do not yet know whether to believe at least half of the characters, and many fundamental alleged principles; and I get no satisfaction in what I read….
“The eight millions in the U.S. who are to be educated, stimulate me. I am dying to get into relations with some who will be practically engaged in it…. I was very gloomy about American affairs four or six weeks ago. The President seemed running fast to ruin. But his plans have happily broken down so early and so decidedly, that he is probably himself ashamed of them, and the people have rallied to oppose them. I now trust that all will come right.”
“Benner, Dolgelley,
“_20th Aug._, 1864.
“My dear Nicholson,
“I dare say you duly received a copy of my Iguvine Inscriptions [Footnote: There is a town in Central Italy, Gubbio, which was anciently known as Iguvium or Eugubium, which possessed many medieval palaces (the Brancaleoni), and well-known Eugubine Tables.] which I directed to be sent to you. For the first time in my life I have published with the secret hope of what some call ‘fame,’ i.e. with the desire of gaining ‘credit,’ because such ‘credit’ is of first importance to aid me in pushing on my schemes in regard to modern Arabic literature in European type…. To put forward an Easy Instructor in modern Arabic and an Anglo-Arabic Dictionary, in European type, _with advantage_, I should greatly wish another journey to Turkey, but as I have no children to leave with my wife, and she would be killed with ennui if I took her, and would more than double the expense, I have not seen how to do it. Besides, I want money to publish my books…. General Grant’s position between Petersburg and Richmond is become terribly anxious (my last news was his loss of six thousand men in attacking the fortresses behind the one which he blew up), and unless ultimately successful, the longer he tarries, the more complete will be his disaster…. I have always been despondent as to the Northern scheme for forcing its way through Eastern Virginia; and am not the better reconciled to it by Grant’s campaign. There is no sound success for the North now, unless they put the ‘coloured’ race politically on equal terms with the ‘whites,’ and not to do so when ‘colour’ is legally undefinable, and when the only loyal citizens in loyal provinces are ‘coloured,’ is an alarming infatuation. I suppose they must suffer more and more, until they resolve that the slave owners of Kentucky, and the colour bigots of Illinois and Pennsylvania, shall be forced to yield to patriotic necessities. Perhaps until they put down Slavery and serfdom within their own limits, they are not to be allowed success against the rebels. Mr. Lincoln’s gratuitous establishment of serfdom in Louisiana, and recognition of the pardoned rebels, as the only citizens worthy to hold power, has filled me with despair of him. It is now clear from his own avowals, that he will do no more justice to the coloured race than he is _forced_ to do.”
In a letter dated 24th November, 1864, he says:–
* * * * *
“I much rejoice that the Americans have made the Presidential election a trial of principles, not of persons. Such a victory as 213 to 21 seems to imply that the old ‘democratic’ party is henceforth killed, while the Abolitionists, who have voted for Lincoln and Johnson, are left quite free not to attack the Government as severely as they pleased for any shortcomings. I hope you have seen, or will see, the speech of Andrew Johnson at Nashville, proclaiming liberty ‘full, broad, and unconditional’ to every person in Tennessee. It is in so hearty and outspoken a tone as to double its value. ‘_Loyal_ men alone, _whether white or black_, shall rule the destiny of Tennessee.’ ‘All men who are _for equal rights_ are his friends.’ Now that he is Vice-President-elect I cannot but hope a great change for the better in Mr. Lincoln’s policy towards the free and freed negroes, for Johnson and Lincoln have been in intimate relations from the beginning…. Have you read details about the U.S. Sanitary Commission? It is a magnificent development of high historical importance to the future of wars, carrying out Florence Nightingale’s ideas and wishes on to the vastest scale, and adding to it the tending of sick and wounded enemies.”
Newman’s next communication to his friend alludes to the Permissive Bill, and assures him that there is no fear that it can ever “hinder _legal_ methods of getting liquor (for medicine, for chemistry, for art).” He adds: “The sole question is, whether by an agent of the public authority, who makes no gain by an increased sale (which we think the sound mode), or by a trafficker who gains by pushing the sale.”
As regards America: “I now understand that the darkest moment for the North–the repulse of Burnside at Fredericsburgh–was the _only_ thing that at last decided Mr. Lincoln to issue his proclamation of freedom…. He has been born and bred under a slave-owner’s interpretation of the Constitution and of the negro-temperament, and … seems to persist in his publicly avowed preference of _gradual_ abolition. Could he have had his way, I predicted, and would still predict, twenty years of misery, confusion, with probably new war unfavourable to the North. Garrison has done his worst to aid the President, but Sumner and Wendell Phillips have (as I now take courage to believe) checkmated him. He will NEVER get his Louisiana and Arkansas reconstruction approved by Congress, and _colour- legislation_ will be declared to be a violation of ‘Republicanism.’… Yet Mr. Lincoln is a better President every half-year, and I fully count will at last give way to truth and necessity with a good grace.
“I have been actively working up my _Handbook_ of Arabic. I also design a _skeleton_ dictionary of Arabic-English. I have got a valuable book from Algiers (if it had but vowel points!). But I cannot publish until I have money to spare. Meanwhile I work hard to mature and perfect.”
Late in September, 1864, he is again writing on American turmoils:–
“_Next June_, 1865, the debt of the U.S. will be about 400 million sterling, only half of what England had at the end of the great French War, when her population was not two-thirds nor her means one-fifth of the U.S., who (if once freedom and order is established over the whole Union) will be a focus of immigration three times as attractive as ever, with wealth multiplying twice as rapidly as ever…. I have no anxiety about anything _but the policy which is to prevail in victory_…. It is frightful to me to hear President Lincoln avow that (against the morality of his heart) his official duty is to do nothing for the coloured race except under compulsion and to save the whole Republic from foundering. He knows they are subjects of the Union, and _owe allegiance_ to it, to the point of laying down their lives for it; yet he does not know that those who owe allegiance have an indefeasible right to protection. He is conquering rebellious States, and does not know that the conqueror is