BOOKS.
To those who have seen many of Cardinal Newman's later letters, there may be a certain measure of disappointment in finding that there is, on the whole, less of undisturbed insight and vision, and more of the unreasoned, and now and then unreasonable, eagerness of the partisan in these letters than they would have expected from the later specimens of his correspondence. Of course there are many very vivid and graphic letters ; many, too, of exquisite tenderness ; many marked by that singular mixture of simplicity and dignity which is almost unique in Dr. Newman, so that the reader has hardly said to himself that they are marked by the sim- plicity of a child, before he goes on to add that they are also marked by a dignity which perfectly befits the future Cardinal. There are plenty of examples of all these different kinds of letter in these charming volumes, but there are also a good many of a much less interesting kind ; letters con- cerning the Oriel quarrel between the Provost and the tutors, —a storm in a teapot which has not even the advantage of bringing out the more characteristic phases of Newman's mind ;—and letters as to the business side of the movement of 1833 which are by this time more than a little obsOlete. We cannot but think that Miss Mozley might have very much curtailed her selection of letters of this description. They do not show Newman at any disadvantage, but they also do not show him to any advantage ; in fact, they merely dilute the interest of these two remarkable volumes, and render it only too possible (we do not say probable) that a reader who opens them, will light upon passages of no intrinsic interest. Miss Mozley is, however•, quite right in giving one or• two letters in which Newman shows to disadvantage, not from any serious flaw in his character, but because they exhibit him in that unreflective phase of mere hot-headedness which seems so utterly repugnant to his nature as it ultimately became known to the world. We refer especially to the letters on the rejection of Sir Robert Peel by the University of Oxford for the share he had taken in the Catholic Emancipa- tion Measure. A year or two later, Newman writes to one of his correspondents : " If times are troublons, Oxford will want hot- headed men, and such I mean to be." We do not think that he fulfilled his own anticipation. Nothing is less characteristic of Newman than hot-headedness, if we take the quality simply,
,* /1"terig and Cei'ient,oudau.ru uf John Henry Newman. during his Lilo in Mu Angled& Cluirch• With a brief Autublograpb_Y. Maud, at Cardinal Ilnwinal" rolluest, by Auau Muzley. 2 Tula. Loudon: 'Lungumas and Cu. for no man has ever shown a greater power of looking before and behind and all round every problem into the solution of which he threw his whole heart. Still, what he perhaps meant, and certainly what he should have meant, if he intended to de- scribe himself truly, was that for one who could thus look before and behind and all round every problem into which he threw himself eagerly, he retained a much greater depth and intensity of feeling than ordinarily characterises such remarkable powers of investigation and reflection. The singularity of his mind was, that his heart kindled into flame even while his judgment and insight remained perfectly undisturbed. Still, in so far as he dealt with pure politics, whenever he took a strong line at all, ho did show himself " hot-headed," and the letters concerning Sir Robert Peel's candidature seem to us to display more of
mere hot-headedness,--in other words, not so much inability as indisposition to look at the question from Peel's point of view, and the point of view of all true statesmen,—than anything else in these volumes. We see in that transaction what Newman meant by saying that he intended to be hot-headed. We do not know that he ever again was what he intended to be, but he certainly had been what he intended to be, and did not often, if ever again, succeed in being. Ho was hot-headed enough, as even Dr. Pusey thought him, at the time when the following letter was sent to his sister :— " To RIB SISTER HARRIETT.
"February 17, 1820.—Peel resigned; Ch. Ch. gave hint up. This was a great thing, and among others I exerted myself to gain it. Unluckily our meddling Provost just then returned from London, where Oxford men, being chiefly Liberal lawyers, were for Peel, Ho joined the Merton men—Whately, Shuttleworth, Macbride, &c.—in nominating Peel. He suddenly formed a committee in London, and—vigorously employing the Ch. Ch. interest, which Ch. Ch. had precluded itself from using—began an active canvass. The party opposed to Peel's re-election consisted of all the College Tutors and known resident Fellows in Oxford; but they agreed in one point, only differing in their view on the Catholic Question, but all thinking Mr. Peel unworthy to represent a religious, straightforward, unpolitical body, whose interest he had in some form or other more or loss betrayed. Besides, they thought it an infamous thing if Oxford was to be blown round by the breath of a Minister, signing a petition one day and approving of the con- trary next. At the first meeting they could agree only not to have Mr. Peel, and so the protest stands in the papers. On Saturday they proceeded to nominate their candidate, and the difficulty of doing this was the strength of their opponent. They at length selected Sir R. Inglis. So urgent was the case, and so strong our dislike of Mr. Peel, that it was done unanimously in an hour's meeting. But the Peelites, having Ch. Ch., having London, and an early day of election (our voters being mostly clericals from the country), above all having the Government interest, will, 1 doubt not, get their way. Let them. I would have signed a protest had there been no opposition. The great Captain, wise as he is, has thought the Church and Oxford his tool—and that we should turn round at the word of command. When Oxford is spoken of, the residents aro always meant. Oxford, by seventy residents, has rejected Mr. Peel, and, if it elects him, elects him by non-resident lawyers. It is said we shall all be in great dis- grace, and that certain persons have ruined their chance of promotion. Well done. 1 rejoice to say the Oriel resident Fellows have been unanimous anti-Peelites 1:Denison and Neste
were Probationers, not and I have just heard that the modest Heide has come forward with a paper of questions against Mr. Peel, signed with his own fair name. I have no fault what- ever to find with the other side, except that they have presumed to bring in the non-residents against the residents, which, I dare say, they think quite fair. Pusey is against us, thinking Peel an injured man, and us hot-headed fellows."
That is perhaps the single clear and conspicuous instance in which Newman was hot-headed ; though possibly the quarrel with Provost Hawkins as to the Oriel tutorships was another instance, as Newman himself seems afterwards to have thought, not without a sense of self-reproach, during his dangerous illness in Sicily. But on this complicated and not very weighty question, the ordinary reader can hardly grasp the pro's and CM'S clearly enough to have a distinct mind of his own upon the issue. But the letters on the
conduct of Peel in reference to Catholic Emancipation arc interesting as showing that Newman could really he hot- headed and take the bit between his teeth even on a question on which his own deeper judgment was quite sound,—for lie himself was an emancipationist at bottom, though he was
so deeply incensed against Peel for the little considera- tion, as he thought, with which the University had been treated, that lie would not even permit himself to look at the question from the statesman's point of view,—a narrow- ness almost without parallel in his subsequent life. Never- theless, these letters throw an interesting light on the int- pulsivenese of the man. it was this impulsive ardour of his nature taken in almost uniform combination (a combination for once undiscoverable in the Peel contest) with singularly cool and sagacious forecasts and retrospects of the human elements involved, that rendered Newman so great a moving force in all matters of faith and conscience.
One of the chief charms of these volumes is the vivacity of the glimpses they give into character. Thus, in his autobio- graphical fragment, he remarks on Archbishop Whately that the worst that could be said of him was, " that in his inter- course with his friends, he was a bright June sun tempered by a March North-Easter." And in the same autobiographical fragment, writing of Dr. Lloyd, afterwards for a short time Bishop of Oxford, as Dr. Lloyd was in the year 1826, Newman gives this admirable picture of his demeanour and manner as a lecturer and friend :— "Dr.. Lloyd, who took a personal interest in those he came across, and who always had his eyes about him, certainly did soon make out that Mr. Newman held what are called Evangelical views of doctrine, then generally in disrepute in Oxford; and in consequence bestowed on him a notice, expressive of vexation and impatience on the one hand, and of a liking for him personally and a good opinion of his abilities on the other. He was free and easy in his ways and a bluff talker, with a rough, lively, good- natured manner, and a pretended pomposity, relieving itself by sudden bursts of laughter, and an indulgence of what is now called chaffing at the expense of his auditors ; and, as he moved up and down his room, large in person beyond his years, asking them questions, gathering their answers, and taking snuff as ho went along, he would sometimes stop before Mr. Newman, on his speaking in his turn, 1x his eyes on him as if to look him through, with a satirical expression of countenance, and then make a feint to box his ears or kick his shins before he went on with his march to and fro. There was nothing offensive or ungracious in all this, and the attachment which Mr. Newman felt for him was shared by his pupils generally ; but he was not the man to exert an intellectual influence over Mr. Newman or to leave a mark upon his mind as Whately had done. To the last Lloyd was doubtful of Newman's outcome, and Newman felt constrained and awkward in the presence of Lloyd ; but this want of sympathy between them did not interfere with a mutual kind feeling. Lloyd used to ask him over to his living at Ewelme in the vacations, and New- man retained to old age an affectionate and grateful memory of Lloyd."
Equally vivid are the letters written from the Mediterranean in 1832.38, which, followed as they are by the singularly touching recollections of the course of his own serious illness in Sicily, form to our minds the most fascinating portion of a very impressive hook.
To take a rather happy specimen of his lighter style, no one has ever given so vivid an account of the apparently cruel persecution to which a gale exposes even those persons who (like Newman himself) do not suffer anything like as much as many others do from mere sea-sickness, as Dr. Newman "I am quite recruited now, and proceed : I taro little for sea- sickness itself, but the attendances on it are miserable The worst of sea-sickness is the sympathy which all things .on board have with it, as if they were all sick too. First, all the chairs, tables, and the things on them much more, are moving, moving up and down, up and down, swing, swing. A tumbler turns over, knife and fork go, wino is spilt, as if encouraging like tendencies within you. In this condition you go on talking and eating as fast as you can, concealing your misery, which you are reminded of by every motion of the furniture around you. At last the moment comes ; you are seized; up you got, swing, swing, you cannot move a step forward ; you knock your hips against the table, run smack at the side of the cabin; try to make for the door in vain, which is your only aim. [There being no ladies on board, the throe voyagers were allowed berths in the ladies' cabin ; but dinner was in the men's cabin.] You get into your berth at last, but the door keeps banging; you lie down, and now a new misery begins—the noise of the bulkheads : they are sick too. You are in a mill ; all sorts of noises, heightened by the gale, creaking, clattering, shivering, and dashing. Your bed is sea- sick, swinging up and down, to your imagination, as high and as low as a swing in a fair, incessantly. 'this requires strong nerves to bear; and the motion is not that of a simple swing, but epicy-
elical, thus
begins, and then back again. And, last of all, the bilge water in the hold; a gale puts it all in motion. Our vessel was hastily sent off from Woolwich, before it was properly cleaned ; and the smell was like nothing I over smelt, suffocating. What would I have given to have been able to sloop on deck on Thursday night last 1 But the hail and sleet made it impossible. Of course I had no rest."
Again, take as a specimen of Newman's tenderness, either the profoundly touching letters about his sister Mary's death, or the following striking evidence of the depth of his attachment to his friend Frederick Rogers (afterwards Lord Blachford), who died shortly before him. It would be difficult to conceive a a being the point where the motion better evidence of intense and tender friendship. Newman is barely recovering from an almost mortal illness in Sicily, when he gets a letter in which he hopes to hear of Rogers's election to an Oriel fellowship, but in his weak state can neither find the news he wants to hear, nor bear the disappointment of not finding it, without something like a fainting-fit. The letter received was thus endorsed : " This is the letter that came up to me at Castro Giovanni, and which I tried to read after the crisis of my fever, with the hope of learning about Rogers's election, till I threw the blood violently into my head, and it all seemed like a dream.—J. H. N." In the subsequent re- miniscences of his illness, he adds : " As to the Oriel election, I first saw the news of it in a Galignani at Palermo, and on seeing that Rogers was elected, I kissed the paper rapturously." But perhaps even more unique are occasional remarks like the following on the habit foreigners have of seeming quite at home in their own land, though the traveller half-expects to find them looking as if they really felt themselves to be strange phenomena such as he,—never having made himself at home with them,—had looked forward to :—" It is astonishing how little it seems to have been at places, when one has been at them. One walks about at Corfu or Rome, and having the same thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations as at home, cannot believe for a time that it is foreign land. And then everyone about one is at home—if they would but seem strangers to the place, they might kindle a sympathy in us ; but they take it very easy, and think it no great thing to be where they are." Or, again, the remark made (Vol. I., p. 383) , that "the only remedy of grief" is "the opportunity of grieving." These are the characteristic notes of such letters as Dr. Newman's. But we cannot give even an outline of what is most fascinating in these volumes within_th.e limits of a single notice, and will return to them once again.
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