One hundred years ago
WE HAVE lost in some respects our greatest Englishman in Cardinal New- man, -- clearly the greatest master of English style, probably him whose life has been more completely the outcome of consistent, deep, and coherent pur- pose, than that of any other man of genius whom this century of our history has seen. Nowhere has there been a life so completely all of a piece, so patiently carved out of one pure block of pur- pose, as Cardinal Newman's. As the writer in the Guardian says, whether as Evangelical in his boyhood, or as High Churchman in his youth, or as Roman Catholic in his maturity and old age, his one idea has been to get back to the life of the New Testament, and to realise it in a sense in which neither Evangelicals, nor High Churchmen, nor Roman Catholics have contrived to realise it as yet.
ON TUESDAY, a special jury at Lewes awarded damages to the amount of £10,000 in an action for breach of promise of marriage. The plantiff was a Miss Gladys Knowles, and the defen- dant the editor and proprietor of the Matrimonial News. Their engagement was the result of an attempt by the lady to obtain a husband through the medium of that paper, though, as he declared, not a very serious one. The conduct of the defendant was so mean and brutal, that if the damages are considered in the light of a penalty, no one need regret for a moment that they have been imposed. Considered, however, as a solatium to Miss Know- les's wounded feelings, they are surely excessive. In all probability, however, the jury were not disinclined to deal a heavy blow at an organised attempt to promote matrimony by public adver- tisement The Spectator, 16 August 1890
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