CARDINAL NEWMAN'S LATER WORKS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."
SIR,—The Times of September 18th contained a disparaging and inaccurate account of Cardinal Newman's literary labours subsequent to his joining the Catholic Church. As the article I refer to is calculated to mislead those—and they are not a few—to whom the Cardinal's later writings are unfamiliar, will you allow me to point out its inaccuracy, since no else has yet done so ? The writer says of his life as a Catholic, that it has the "look of a collapse ;" that the "whole scale seems dwarfed, contracted, dull ;" and proceeds to justify this view by ex- plaining that, except for the production of the " Apologia," the " Grammar of Assent," and the lectures on " The Scope and Nature of University Education," all that the " great writer " did as a Catholic was to " deliver lectures to half-a- dozen loving and highly appreciative Fathers. or to a few schoolboys."
First of all, as a mere record of the number of Newman's works published since 1845, this is curiously inexact. It leaves out of account many of his most finished and important
writings. The lectures on " Anglican Difficulties,"—de- livered in 1850, not before a few Oratorians and school- boys, but in presence of large and distinguished London audiences ; the lectures on " The Present Position of Catholics," the brilliant sarcasm of which won George Eliot's admiration ; " Callista," placed by some critics at the head of his writings ; " Loss and Gain," " The Dream of Gerontins "-perhaps the most widely read of all his works except the "Apologia,"-all these were written during the Catholic period of his life. Belonging also to the same period are works on a smaller scale, but certainly equal in length and importance to many of the Oxford Tracts. Such are the Letter to Dr. Pusey in answer to the Eirenicon ; the Letter to the Duke of Norfolk in answer• to Mr. Gladstone's pamphlets on the Vatican Decrees ; the vivid historical sketches on the Turks, the Benedictine Schools, and other subjects ; the introductory essay (of permanent value) to the last edition of " The Via Media ;" essays on " Inspiration" and on " The Development of Religious Error," many poems, and several other papers.
With respect to the relative importance of his earlier and later writings, no one can question the singular• beauty and value of his Oxford Sermons. But apart from these, the writer in the Times is certainly not ex- pressing the general opinion of those critics who are ac- quainted with the works belonging to both periods. Mr•. R. H. Hutton, in his little Life of Cardinal Newman, treats it as an acknowledged fact that, apart from his Oxford Sermons, Newman gave no idea at all of his great literary powers until he had joined the Catholic Church. I write without his words at hand for reference ; but the substance of his opinion is that, as a writer, Newman's power was first recognised in the lectures on " Anglican Difficulties," and that his literary fame advanced to its zenith through the subsequent appearance, successively, of " The Present Position of Catholics," " Cal- lista," and the " Apologia."
I may add that the writer to whom I have referred is appar- ently unacquainted with one at least of the three later• works whose existence he acknowledges. He speaks of the appearance of the "Grammar of Assent" as being due to the Vatican Council, a remark on which its readers will need no comment. It happened, no doubt, to be completed in 1870, the year of the Council; but it had been planned many years earlier•, and its scope was purely philosophical, and purported, as the Cardinal has told us, to be a fuller development of the views on the relations of Faith and Reason indicated in the Oxford University Sermons.-I am, Sir, &c.,
WILFRID WARD.
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