YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

JOHN HENRY NEWMAN

VOL. L

ryyo

LETTEES AND COEEESPONDENCE OF ' ,
JOHN HENEY NEWMAN
DUBING HIS LIFE IN THE ENGLISH CHUBCH
WITH A BRIEF AUTOBIOQRAPET

EDITED, AT CARDINAL NEWMAN'S REQUEST, BT
ANNE MOZLEY
KDITOR OF * LETTEES OP THE REV. J. B. MOZLEY, DJ>.
HEOIUU PBOFESSOK 0» DIYIMTY IN THE UNIVEBSITY Or OXPOBD*

IS TWO VOLUMES— VOL. X.

LONDON
LONGMANS, GEEEN, AND 00.
AND NEW YOEK : 15 EAST 16* STEEET
1890
All rights rettrvid

ADVERTISEMENT
Materials for the present work were placed in the
Editor's hands towards the close of 1884. The selection
from them was made, and the papers returned to
Cardinal Newman, in the summer of 1887. Since the
return of these papers, other and important collections
of letters have been placed at the Editor's disposal, and
much has been added — indeed, such a work can never
be said to be finished, till every page has passed through
the printer's hands.
In obedience to the original intention and lately
expressed wish of the Cardinal, no time is lost in
lacing the volumes before the public.
One passage in the Introduction makes it necessary to
explain that it was in print before the deeply regretted
death of Dr. Liddon.

Oriel Lodge, Derby s
Nov. 1890.

POETEAIT

JOHN HENEY NEWMAN  Frontispiece
Engraved from a photograph by Messrs. Sills & Saunders of
the bust made in 1841 by T. Wbstjiaoott, now in the
possession of Mr. H. W. Mozley.

INTEODUOTION

• It has ever been a hobby of mine, though perhaps it is a truism,
not a hobby, that the true life of a man is in his letters. . . . Not only
for the interest of a biography, but for arriving at the inside of things,
the publication of letters is the true method. Biographers varnish,
they assign motives, they conjecture feelings, they interpret Lord
Burleigh's nods ; but contemporary letters are facts.' — Br. Newman to
Ma Sister, Mrs. jolm Mozley, May 18, 1863.
These words, addressed to his sister by Cardinal Newman —
to anticipate the title with which the reader is familiar — may
explain the purpose of the present work, which is, through
the medium of his letters, to place John Henry Newman
before the reader as he was to his family, to his friends, to
his correspondents ; as he was in early youth and in manhood ;
in public and in private ; and in his action in, and for, the
English Church, while he remained in her communion. With
his secession the Editor's task — as being a member of that
communion — is ended. Under the total change of circum
stances the work, if pursued, must be carried on by another
hand. Yet because only half a life furnishes the material
and matter of these volumes, the reader need not imagine that
the letters of a later date may or must contain intimations
of a changed character. Perhaps no man, passing through a
course of change, ever remained more substantially the same
through the lapse of years and revolution of circumstances
and opinions.
His high estimate of letters as records and custodians of
the truth of things made him from early youth a preserver
of letters ; though his esteem for his correspondent might be
t\y more prominent motive. In early days a postscript often
Speaks of arranging letters as one of the tasks of the closing
VOL. I. B

2 John Henry Newman
year. The task, as he would perform it, would help to fill in
the details of that map of the past which in its outline was
so vividly marked in his memory.1 The habits of his life,
as being congenial to his nature, were early formed ; just as
the turn of thought, the tastes, the more powerful bents of his
mind, may all be traced to an early dawn.
Few persons preserve their letters ; it is, indeed, a rare
habit ; but there was in Newman's letters to his friends, as in
his character, a weight and distinctiveness, whether of subject
or mode of treatment, which secured them an exemption from
the common fate after perusal ; and, once escaping this, their
value increased with years, and, in fact, as time went on,
they were felt to be history.
Thus, in the hurry of collecting material for his ' Apologia
pro Vita sua,' Dr. Newman could rely on his friends having
preserved his letters with method ; so that, on a hasty appeal,
he could be supplied with the true record of his thoughts,
motives and actions, at critical periods. Eventually, as is now
seen, he commits to his letters, when he shall have passed
away, the task of placing himself, his course of thought and
action, in their true light — as he believed it — before the
.world. But the facts and early circumstances of a life cannot
be given through this medium. To supply a true record of
these the Cardinal committed to those entrusted with hia
papers what he calls a Memoir, written in the third person,
not to conceal the hand that penned it, but better to show
the simplicity of style in which he desired that all told about
himself should be composed. One motive impelling him to
this effort would certainly be, to tell in his own words, without
the possibility of error, his earliest history, and what he felt
towards his earliest benefactors : whether his parents, so dear
to him, and for whom he felt such sensitive devotion ; or his
• In a note to the present writer, received shortly after the death of
his sister, Mrs. Mozley, Cardinal Newman writes : ' I miss, and shall
miBs, in Jemima this — she alone, with me, had a memory of dates. I
knew quite well, as anniversaries of all kinds came round, she was
recollecting them as well as I — e.g. my getting into Oriel, Now I am
the only one in the world who know a hundred things most interesting
to me. Yesterday was the anniversary of Mary's death— my mind
turned at once to Jemima, but she was away.'

Introduction 3
schoolmaster, whose boast he was; or 'the excellent man,'
whose deeper teaching influenced his life ; or the tutors at
Trinity, who encouraged him in his prosperous start and con
soled him in defeat — all, according to their several claims,
held a lasting, ever-present place in his affections. To all his
heart had opened with a grateful effusion which no time cooled,
and which never lost its freshness.
In the private paper which precedes the account of his
early years, dated June 1, 1874, he writes :
I am forced to forebode that some one or other who knows
little or nothing about me, whether well or ill disposed towards
me, will have something to say about my history, if my friends
are silent, and in consequence, that they who have known me
well and who have been in my intimate confidence, will find it
their duty to meet by some sort of biographical notice vague
and random ideas and accounts of me, derived from the ephe
meral literature and controversy of the last forty years. This
necessity, I am aware, has been in a measure obviated by
myself in my 'Apologia pro Vita sua.' Nevertheless, the
anticipation of it has led me to leave behind, in addition, for
the inspection of my friends, portions of my private memoranda
by way of assisting and supplementing their recollections of
me, leaving to their affection for me and their discretion, to
deal tenderly with what in the first instance is confidential
and sacred.
These words were written during the lifetime of Father
St. John, who died May 24, 1875, and may be said to have
.been especially addressed to him ; but before this date Dr.
Newman had come to the conclusion that, to use his own
words, ' If a memoir was to be published of me, a Protestant
Editor must take the Protestant part.'
Certainly when once the question was faced no other con
clusion could be arrived at. It would not have been just,
either to the names with which his own is associated or to the
English Church, for which the friends worked together, to
leave the stirring period of their joint labours in other than
'Anglican hands. But the longer men live the more difficult it
becomes to assign such tasks to adequate hands. The honours
of biography have fallen, as is fitting, to the two leaders of the
1. b2

4 John Henry Newman
movement who died in the communion of the Church of Eng
land ; the life of Keble being undertaken by an early friend,
distinguished both by name and office ; and Dr. Pusey's being
still * in the charge of one whose own work in and for the
Church is recognised as so important that his strength and
energies can scarcely be spared even for the task of com
memorating, as no other could, the name to whose memory he
shows such sincerity of devotion.
Dr. Pusey continued a living influence in his Church to
the last. But among the band of early workers or youthful
sympathisers in the start of the movement, how few remain
qualified at once in themselves and by circumstances for the
task now proposed ! From ' Who would do it best V — a ques
tion which, in Dr. Pusey's case, would find a ready answer in
Dr. Liddon — it changes to, ' Who among the friends he parted
from some forty years ago remains in a position to do it at
all ? ' Each year some fit or possible chronicler passes away ;
some memory which lived in the Oxford movement, and recog
nised in its chief mover, the quickener of a life. Some who
remember and shared the enthusiasm of the hour have turned
away to new interests ; some have elevated duties which render
such a task at once neither fitting nor possible.
It must be considered that the task could not be self-
chosen ; it must be imposed, and the materials for its execution
placed at hand. The years pass ; old age — vigorous, but still
old age — is reached ; and in old age (such as it ought to be),
carrying its youth with it, and living its whole life in retro
spect, men are thrown perforce upon the ties of family, its
friendships and associations. In the instance now before the
reader — in Newman — such ties never lost their hold. To him,
then, it seemed natural to propose the task of editing the
letters of the first half of his life to one who, as he knew, was
allowed free access to family records and correspondence, from
earliest years down to the time when his last surviving sister
¦ — the guardian of them — passed away. His choice of an
editor possessing these advantages may have been strengthened
by a volume recently published, ' The Letters of the Rev. J. B.
Mozley,' which answered in its form and plan to his idea of a
biography. In acknowledging his copy he concludes :
> Written in 1886.

Introduction 5
James would have reason to say with Queen Katharine,
• After my death I wish no other herald but such an honest
chronicler as Griffith,' and that because you have let him speak
for himself.
The letter continues (November 20, 1884) :
This leads me to speak of myself. Many years ago, at
two independent times, I came to the conclusion that if a
memoir was to be published of me, a Protestant Editor must
take the Protestant part. . . . What I thought would be
done, and what only, was a sketch of my life up to 1833,
which, with the 'Apologia' from 1833, would finish my
Protestant years. With this view, in 1874 I wrote a brief
memoir of my life up to 1833. ... I have a number of
letters of my own and of my Mother's and sisters', and while
I know they afford illustration of my memoir, yet in a matter
so personal I cannot go by my own judgment. What I ask
of you is to read the memoir.
Such a task — the task of placing one of the foremost men
of his day before the world— when thus hinted at, was too
strange and undreamt of to be understood. The Memoir was
read and returned at once with the reader's comments. But
when the proposed task was explained and thought over, it .
lost its more startling aspects. The work must depend abso
lutely on the letters and the Memoir for its interest and
value ; and though the letters — whether Mr. Newman's own
or his correspondents' — should extend beyond the date first
assigned, and treat of matters of the deepest public interest,
facts and dates for the ' running notices ' would be furnished
, by contemporary records ; and there were Anglican friends
of Cardinal Newman who might be consulted on questions,
whether of fact or opinion, whose testimony would carry
, weight with all readers if their names might with propriety
be given here ; while the very requirement that the Editor
must be a Protestant implied that no agreement with views
as views was exacted on the one hand, or need be assumed on
*the other. One qualification essential to the task, without
tacit belief in which the request could not have been made,
the Editor may claim; and that is an absolute trust, under all
changes of thought and circumstances, in the truth, sincerity,

6 John Henry Newman
and disinterestedness of the one subject of the work. And,
recognising and bearing in mind these qualities, the Anglican
reader may surely acknowledge John Henry Newman's work
for the Church of England as having been blessed to her, and
believe that to those zealous services she owes much of the
strength of her present position, and her greater fitness to
meet the trials which may lie before her.
In the question of selection of letters Mr. Newman happens
to have given his own rule quite apart from the point as a
personal one. Writing to a friend (1836) on the letters in
Hurrell Froude's ' Remains,' he says, ' I am conscious that
even those who know me will say, What could he mean by
putting this in ? What is the use of that 1 What in the
world if so and so 1 How injudicious ! But, on the whole,
I trust it will present, as far as it goes, the picture of a mind.
And that being gained as the scope, the details may be left to
take their chance.'
By this rule, 'to give the picture of a mind,' the Editor,
while using the letters as records of a busy life, has desired to
be guided ; and for this purpose it is necessary to show the
subject of it in every relation that furnishes examples— thus,
in his domestic and private character as a son, as a brother,
as a pupil, as a friend, as a teacher, as a pastor ; in his inner
religious life, as far as can be done without outraging privacy j
in his energy and devotion to his work, in his political capacity,
in his temperament, his subtilty and candour, his sweetness
and severity, his impetuosity and tenderness ; in all that con
stitutes his distinct and marked individuality.
In the execution of such a task the Editor cannot be
bound by any formal pre-arranged plan, nor go by any strict
rules. Nor was any rule imposed. What may be assumed
as Cardinal Newman's motive for giving his letters publicity,
was to give his share to the private history of the movement,
and to show the line of his thought in it ; and, above all, to
show himself sincere and honest in the course of it. And
thus to defend himself — that is, his name — from the charges
that had been levelled in the heat of conflict or under strong
personal feeling ; though, in truth, he has long outlived them.
The reader will have gathered that the first suggestion,

Introduction 7
that of illustrating the Memoir by family letters up to 1833,
when the ' Apologia ' continues the history, grew necessarily
into a more comprehensive plan. To carry it out the Editor
has been allowed to select material from the body of correspon
dence between Mr. Newman and his intimate friends, and
others, whose letters illustrate the first stir and awakening of
the movement. For this purpose, as interesting in themselves
and as contributing to the history, whether of the leader or of
the movement, many letters from correspondents are given ;
some most material, in fact as coming from a joint leader of
high name and distinction, forming a very important con
tribution ; while others are given for the sake of some name
still dear to living memories, and which they would not
willingly let die.
Mr. Newman's correspondence with his intimates, whether
selected by himself or gathered from private sources, bears out
what he has said of himself in the ' Apologia ' and of the title
)f leader as applied to him.
For myself, I was not a person to take the lead of a party.
[ had lived for ten years among my personal friends : at no
"ime have I acted on others without their acting upon me. I
had lived with my private, nay, with some of my public, pupils,
and with the junior Fellows of my college, without form or
distance, on a footing of equality. I had a lounging, free-and-
easy way of carrying things on.1
The correspondence which has been placed before the Editor,
and now before the reader, is in marked confirmation of this
picture of past intimacies as they would appear to the writer
in looking back. Nothing can be more free and confiding than
the tone or more entirely opposed to donnishness.
But, busy as Mr. Newman's life was, and, as it were, public,
his home and family letters are at least as essential to the
proper fulfilment of the task — to give the picture of a mind.
We do not know ' Newman' as a letter-writer without being
admitted to his home intimacies, his frank expressions of feel
ings and emotions which belong only to that inner circle.
As for style, it is always his own ; the subject dictates the
* Apologia, p. 58.

8 John Henry Newman
choice of words best for the purpose. It may be observed
that his letters are instinct with the consciousness of the
person he addresses. There is a distinct tone to each of his
familiar correspondents. Intimate as his letters are, there is
a separate tone of intimacy, as there would be in conversing
with friends. Where something unexpected occurs, and he
feels to have miscalculated, it is a new experience. For ex
ample, writing on a hot July day from his college rooms, he
says to the correspondent he is engaged with, that to such an
one (a mutual friend), ' good fellow as he is,' it does not do to
write with perfect unrestraint. 'Now, don't you see that for
his good and comfort one must put on one's company coat
before him ; he cannot bear one's shirt sleeves.' He had been
made conscious of a mistake in character or temper ; but, as a
rule, every circumstance of person and surrounding is present
with him — all the traits that distinguish one from another.
To all he is open, candid, confiding ; but there is distinction
in his confidences. Thus to his Mother he writes what it
would not occur to him to say to anyone else : experiences,
sensations, and odd encounters, dreams, fancies, passing
speculations ; while to Hurrell Froude, on another field
altogether, there is the same absolute trust and unlocking
of the heart.
The entire trust that he felt in his correspondent infused
into his style a tone of simplicity. A correspondent of his
sister's, on returning a letter of her brother's, written by him
with a full heart on the death of a friend, applies this word
' simplicity ' to his directness of tone.
It is a relief to see your brother so absolutely himself in
his power of writing. This is quite an example of his nature
and his gift of what is called simplicity — that power of saying
exactly what he means, and going straight at his subject,
putting a state of things directly before one, feelings as we'll as
facts. I hope it all shows that he has the natural relief that
the expression of natural feeling always brings.
His letters on business, whether of a public nature or on
his literary work, show another side of character in their aim
at thoroughness, in their keeping close to their subject and
showing fixed principles and aims, in the management alike

Introduction g
of time and of his personal gifts. The point of some letters
is rather to show the amount and variety of his labours, than
the effect these labours had on the course of events or public
opinion. One does not seem to know Mr. Newman without
the opportunity they furnish for realising the extent and
variety of his occupations — his work of mind and pen.
Here and there a letter is given that might be considered to
have done its work when read by the person addressed ; but
it has either seemed to help towards a picture or history of
the time m some way or on some slight point as characteristic
of the writer. Mr. Newman's character comes out by indirect
touches. Not that he had the thought how he would show
to any reader beyond the person addressed ; but it is clear he
felt pleasure in saying what he had to say, in his own way and
with some touch which would bring reader and writer together,
beyond the slight matter in question.
Now and then a note or seemingly insignificant sentence
is given as showing how constant his thoughts were, to per
sons and things far removed from the busy world, whether of
thought or action, in which he lived and acted with such
intense activity of mind and pen. The present, with all its
interests and responsibilities, did not put out of sight the
absent and the past, and the workers and interests of that
past. It is not the Editor's part to make comments on views
and principles found in the letters. They speak for them
selves, and are given to the reader for his judgment. Of
course the Anglican reader must keep his judgment in exer
cise. A looker-on ^sees things (and such a looker-on the
reader may feel himself at certain periods) of which the actor
is not conscious. Mr. Newman, on looking back on his past
career, sometimes shows himself alive to this. ' He knew me
better than I knew myself.'
Now and then, where circumstances have given the Editor
especial opportunities, an opinion is expressed, but generally
the reader is left to his unassisted judgment, having fully as
much opportunity as the Editor to arrive at a right conclu
sion. It is the Editor's part to put facts before the reader
— such may be called the historical letters contained in the

io John Henry Newman
correspondence — but in no sense to assume the historical
tone. The task was finally, on February 19, 1885, committed to
the Editor in these words : ' I wish you to keep steadily in
mind, and when you publish to make it known, that I am
cognisant of no part of your work.' A rule which has been
steadily adhered to. And again on March 13 of the same
year Cardinal Newman quotes the Editor's own words as
accepting them : 'Your own letters to be brought into use
with every document you send me, all to be as true and
simple as I can make it.'

JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
HIS CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOL LIFE
Mr. Newman's Autobiographical Memoir, after a few brief
statements, may be said to begin with his college life, probably
because he has touched upon his school life in the ' Apologia
pro Vita sua.' It may be well, then, for the Editor to devote
some preliminary pages to his life from infancy up to his
entrance into Trinity, deriving information from records pre
served amongst his papers, and from the recollections of his
family and early friends. But there are also passages in
Mr. Newman's works which seem to take us back into the
past, and to throw light on his earliest childhood, passages
that could only be inspired by memory ; important as giving
an early picture of his mind, in harmony with its subsequent
development. And as such a few extracts may be given.
Thus :
At first children, do not know that they are responsible
beings, but by degrees they not only feel that they are, but
reflect on the great truth and on what it implies. Some
persons recollect a time as children when it fell on them to
reflect what they were, whence they came, whither they
tended, why they lived, what was required of them. The
thought fell upon them iong after they had heard and spoken
of God ; but at length they began to realise what they had
heard, and they began to muse about themselves.1
Again :
Such are the feelings with which men often look back on
their childhood when any accident brings it vividly before
l Paroclual Sermons, vol vi. p. 98.

12 John Henry Newman
them. Some relic or token of that early time ; some spot or
some book, or a word, or a scent, or a sound, brings them back
in memory to the first years of their discipleship, and they
then see, what they could not know at the time, that God's
presence went up with them and gave them rest. Nay, even
now, perhaps, they are unable to discern fully what it was
that made that time so bright and glorious. They are full of
tender, affectionate thoughts towards those first years, but
they do not know why. They think it is those very years
which they yearn after, whereas it is the presence of God, which
they now see was then over them, which attracts them.1
Again :
We may have a sense of the presence of a Supreme Being
which never has been dimmed by even a passing shadow :
which has inhabited us ever since we can recollect anything,
and which we cannot imagine our losing.*
Again :
It is my wish to take an ordinary child, but still one who
is safe from influences destructive of his religious instincts.
Supposing he has offended his parents, he will all alone and
without effort, as if it were the most natural of acts, place
himself in the presence of God and beg of Him to set him
right with them. Let us consider how much is contained in
this simple act. First, it involves the impression on his mind
of an unseen Being with whom he is in immediate relation,
and that relation so familiar that he can address Him when
ever he himself chooses ; next, of One whose goodwill towards
him he is assured of, and can take for granted — nay, who
loves him better, and is nearer to him, than his parents ;
further, of One who can hear him, wherever he happens to be,
and who can read his thoughts, for his prayer need not be
vocal ; lastly, of One who can effect a critical change in the
state of feeling of others towards him. That is, we shall not
be wrong in holding that this child has in his mind the image
of an invisible Being, who exercises a particular providence
among us, who is present everywhere, who is heart-reading,
heart-changing, ever-accessible, open to impetration. What
a strong and intimate vision of God must he have already
attained if, as I have supposed, an ordinary trouble of mind
1 Parochial Surmi-ns, vol. iv. p. 262.
' Grammar of Assent, p. 178.

Childhood and School Life 13
has the spontaneous effect of leading him for consolation and
aid to an Invisible Personal Power ! Such is the apprehension
which even a child may have of his sovereign Lawgiver and
Judge, which is possible in the case of children, because at
least some children possess it, whether others possess it or
no ; and which, when it is found in children, is found to act
promptly and keenly by reason of the paucity of their ideas.
It is an image of the good God, good in Himself, good rela
tively towards the child with whatever incompleteness ; an
image before it has been reflected on, apd before it is recognised
by him as a notion. Though he cannot explain or define the
, word ' God ' when told to use it, his acts show that to him it
' is far more than a word. He listens, indeed, with wonder and
interest to fables or tales ; he has a dim shadowy sense of
what he hears about persons and matters of this world ; but
he has that within him which actually vibrates, responds, and
gives a deep meaning to the lessons of his first teachers about
the will and the providence of God.1
In the ' Apologia ' we read :
I was brought up from a child to take great delight in
reading the Bible ; but I had no formed religious convictions
till I was fifteen. Of course I had perfect knowledge of my
Catechism. After I was grown up I put on paper my recollections of
the thoughts and feelings on religious subjects which I had at
the time that I was a child and a boy ; such as had remained
in my mind with sufficient prominence to make me then
consider them worth recording. Out of these, written in the
Long Vacation of 1820, and transcribed with additions in
1823, I select two.
I used to wish the Arabian Tales were true. My imagi
nation ran on unknown influences, on magical powers, and
talismans. I thought life might be a dream, or I an angel,
and all this world a deception, my fellow-angels, by a playful
device, concealing themselves from me, and deceiving me with
the semblance of a material world.
The other remark is this :
I was very superstitious, and for some time previous to
my conversion (when I was fifteen) used constantly to cross
myself on going into the dark.2
1 Grammar of J sscnt, p. 1 12. J Apologia, p. 2.

14 John Henry Newman
These unspoken memories— however in place here — must
give way to such recollections of early boyhood as fell from
him in conversation, or to notices remaining amongst his
early papers. One anecdote of a very early date, told to the
present writer by Dr. Newman's sister in her last illness, has
provoked a smile in those who knew him in later days. After
an infantile struggle for mastery between mother and son—
the loving mother and her strong-willed child — she reminded
him, 'You see, John, you did not get your own way.' ' No,'
was his answer, ' but I tried very hard.'
There is a letter from his Father, Nov. 1806, which shows
an early estimate. It begins : ' This is the first letter your
Father ever wrote to his son ' ; and, after bidding him ' read
it to his Mother and Charles to show how well he could read
writing,' goes, on, ' but you will observe that you must learn
something new every day, or you will no longer be called a
clever boy.' '
Another characteristic shows itself in one of his earliest
recollections of school life, recalled to his memory as a friend
led him to look back to that time. After his Father's and
Mother's first visit to him, the child of seven was found, after
their departure, by Dr. Nicholas, crying by himself, who, to
cheer him up, proposed that he should go to the big room
where the boys were. To this he objected ; his tears had no
doubt been observed and excited derision. '0 sir ! they
will say such things ! I can't help crying.' On his master
making light of it : ' O sir ! but they will ; they will say all
sorts of things,' and, taking his master's hand, ' Come and
see for yourself ! ' and led him into the crowded room,
where, of course, under the circumstances, there was no
teasing. On hearing that the letters which compose these volumes
1 Writing to a friend in after years, he says, ' I have been going
about seeing once again, and taking leave for good of, the places I saw
as a child. I have been looking at the windows of our house at Ham,
near Richmond, where I lay, aged five, looking at the candles stuck in
them in celebration of the victory of Trafalgar. I have never seen the
house since September 1807. I know more about it than any house I
have been in since, and could pass an examination in it. It has ever
been in my dreams.'

Childhood and School Life 15
were to be published, an early Oriel friend and pupil of Mr.
Newman's said that he remembered his once telling him of
having in his childhood seen Cumberland, ' the perfect man of
his day,' who impressed upon his childish memory the inter
view as one to be remembered. To get at the truth of this
story the Editor applied to the Cardinal for his recollections.
The following was his answer :
Lord Blachford is substantially right about Cumberland.
I think he came to an evening party at our house. My
Father's partial love for me led to my reciting something or
other in the presence of a literary man. I wish I could think
it was ' Here Cumberland lies,' from Goldsmith's ' Retaliation,'
which I knew really well as a boy. The interview ended by
his putting his hand on my head and saying, ' Young gentle
man, when you are old you can say that you have had on your
head the hand of Richard Cumberland.'
A recollection of a similar class is mentioned by a friend,
who writes :
Ealing school at that date had a great name. It was
conducted on the Eton lines ; everybody sent his sons there ;
they got on. Once a year the school had a great day — a
speech day — and the Duke of Kent used to come to it. One
year Newman had to make a speech before him. Unfortu
nately his voice had just begun to break, yet for all that he
went through his speech. He must have done it very well so
far as his voice would let him ; for, on Dr. Nicholas apologising
to the Duke, ' His voice is breaking,' the Duke immediately
replied, ' But the action was so good.'
0n6 recollection of his childhood is given in a letter to
Hope-Scott, 1871, in thanking him for a copy of the abridged
Life of Walter Scott.
In one sense [he writes] I deserve it ; I have ever had such
a devotion, I may call it, to Walter Scott. As a boy, in the
early summer mornings I read ' Waverley ' and ' Guy Manner -
ing ' in bed when they first came out, before it was time to get
up ; and long before that — I think, when I was eight years
old — I listened eagerly to the ' Lay of the Last Minstrel,'
which my mother and aunt were reading aloud.1
1 Memoirs of J. R. Hojie-Saott, vol. ii. p. 243.

1 6 John Henry Newman
All through his school course ' his letters from home show
the high estimate his -parents formed of him, and that he
inspired those about him with respect and confidence. His
Mother writes, ' I feel great comfort in the conviction that you
will always act to the best of your knowledge.' His tastes
were borne in mind. ' We were at the concert,' she writes,
' and fascinated with the Dutchman ' (the name he had given
to Beethoven to tease his music-master, because of the Van
to his name), 'and thought of you and your musical party
frequently.' Music was a family taste and pursuit; Mr.
Newman, the father, encouraged it in his children. In those
early days they could get up performances among themselves,
operatic or simply dramatic. Thus in a book recalling
memories he writes :
In the year 1812 I think I wrote a mock drama of some
kind ; also, whether included in it or not I cannot recollect, a
satire on the " Prince Regent. And at one time I wrote a
dramatic piece in which Augustus comes on. Again I wrote
a burlesque opera in 1815, composing tunes for the songs.
At the age of fourteen a sort of passion for writing seems
to have possessed him.
In 1815 I wrote two periodicals — that is, papers called
the ' Spy ' and ' Anti-Spy.' They were written against each
other. The former ran to thirty numbers from May 8 to
October 27, the latter ran to twenty -seven numbers from
August 8 to October 31. There -is not a sentence in either
worth preserving. Still, I am rescuing from the flames the
commencing lines of each and the last words of the latter.
1 At nine years old he kept a pocket-book Diary, which remains
—e.g. :
1810, May 4. — Heard for the first time the cuckoo.
Dreamed that Mary was dead.
Then follow ' Lines on Nelson ' ; moral axioms ; verses on the death
of a beggar :— ' When the rude winter's blast blew keen.' But he is
not satisfied, and concludes : ' 1 think I shall burn it.'
In an old diary he records his early school course.
1810, May 25.— Got into Ovid and Greek.
1811, February 11. — Began verses.
1812, March 6. — Got into Diatessaron.
May 25. — Began Homer.
1813, May 3.— Herodotus.

childhood and School Life 17
' The Portfolio ' — the name being given by G. Adams, the eldest
of the three sons of the American Minister to the British'
Court — was written by the club of senior boys nicknamed the
Spy Club. The American Minister himself contributed to it.
It began November 6, 1815, ran through twenty numbers ;
ended May 16, 1816. There is nothing in it worth preser\ing.
I have kept, however, Mr. Adams' lines on ' The Grasshopper
and the Ant.' ' The Beholder ' was all my own writing ; it ran
through forty numbers and 160 octavo pages closely written.1
The first number is dated February 22, 1816, but I rather
think some of the later numbers were written in 1817, after
I had left school. It is far superior in composition to my
others ; but nothing worth keeping but some verses in No. 23
and No. 24, to the doctrine of which I hold fast now.
The copybook which contains the Beads and Cross spoken
of in the ' Apologia ' has a coloured sketch, a half -involuntary
caricature, probably by one of themselves, of a party of boys of
fifteen or sixteen sitting round a table, addressed by a member
standing on his chair, whose marked features make it clear who
was the leading spirit of the company. Is this the Spy Club 1
Certain rough notes, written not very long after, touch
upon what proved to be the beginning of a great family trial
—the stoppage of the bank in which Mr. Newman's father
was partner — and connect the close of his school-days with
what he always considered the event of his life— his conversion.
On my conversion how the wisdom and goodness of God
is discerned ! I was going from school half a year sooner than
I did. My staying arose from the 8th of March. Thereby I
was left at school by myself, my friends gone away.
To explain this sentence a few words from a private paper
may be given. Writing March 17, 1874, Dr. Newman says :
I fell in with the following important letter a day or two
ago while looking through and destroying papers connected
with our ' School Portfolio.' It was written a propos of some
contribution my Father made to it ; but it accidentally contains
1 These MS. books contain essays with comments : * This is a school
theme in the style of Addison.' Again: one of the papers in Tlie
Helwlder has a saying of Addison's on the love of fame.
VOL. I. O

j8 John Henry Newman
a notice of a fact which I know very well mVf 1* Vec%us° J»
and we all, made much of it at the time, but of which 1 had,
as far as I know, no record. I have kept the autograph.
Mr. Newman to John Henry Newman.
Your Mother will add something to this, which is princi
pally to say that our Banking House has to-day paid every one
in full. Tell this to Dr. Nicholas.
[The question arises why it should have stopped payment
at all if it could pay in full at the end of a month? I recollect
at the time hearing that it arose from the obstinacy of one
individual.— J. H. N.]
Not to touch again on this subject, a letter may be given
here, written by Mr. J. W. Bowden, a year or two later, in
answer to a communication from his friend.
Mr. J. W. Bowden to John Henry Newman.
Fulham: January 14, 1819.
. . . With regard to your Father's affairs I am much obliged
to you for your communication, and will confess that I was
acquainted with some of its leading features. I had heard of
your Father's failure [It was not a failure ; the house stopped
payment, but paid in full ; there was no bankruptcy. — J.H.N, j,
and I solemnly assure you that I had also heard of the' highly
honourable way in which all was settled. My information
came principally from Mrs. Owen, to whom I once, before you
came, mentioned your name as a person she might recollect ;.
and, as on a subject like this I may speak without suspicion
of flattery, I must say she lavished the highest possible en
comiums on the manner in which the affairs of the house were
arranged. On the fact and the effects of his conversion Cardinal
Newman's language remains the same throughout his life,
from the words just recorded — ' On my conversion how the
wisdom and goodness of God is discerned ! ' — written probably
in 1816 ; from those words in the 'Apologia' penned in 1864—
' Of the inward conversion of which I speak I am still more
certain than that I have hands and feet '—down to 1885, when

Childhood and School Life 19
Cardinal Newman writes, in answer to the Editor, who had
spoken of possible early letters : February 28, 1885.
Of course I cannot myself be the judge of myself ; but,
speaking with this reserve, I should say that it is difficult to
realise or imagine the identity of the boy before and after
August 1816 ... I can look back at the end of seventy years
as if on another person.
Recalling his state of mind at the age of fourteen, he wrote
in a manuscript book of early date :
I recollect, in 1815 I believe, thinking that I should like
to be virtuous, but not religious. There was something in the
latter idea I did not like. Nor did I see the meaning of loving
God. I recollect contending against Mr. Mayer in favour of '
Pope's ' Essay on Man.' What, I contended, can be more free
from obj ection than it 1 Does it not expressly inculcate ' Virtue
alone is happiness below ' ?
The conversion that succeeded this posture of mind pro
duced in him as a necessary consequence a desire for some
additional strictness of life in evidence of its reality. Some
reflections, written probably in 1816, remain on the subject of
recreations, in which he looked forward to the probability of
a difference between himself and his parents, which show a
freedom from the wilfulness of enthusiasm.
Although it is far from pleasant to give my reasons, inas
much as I shall appear to set myself up, and to be censuring
recreations and those who indulge in them, yet when I am
urged to give them, I hope I shall never be ashamed of them;
presenting my scruples with humility and a due obedience to
my parents ; open to conviction, and ready to obey in a matter
so dubious as this is, and to act against my judgment if they
command, thus satisfying at once my own conscience and
them. . . . [but continuing the argument] I have too much
sense of my own weakness to answer for myself. The begin
nings of sin are small, and is it not better, say, to be too
cautious than too neg'igent 1 Besides, I know myself in some
things better than you do ; I have hidden faults, and if you
knew them, so serious a protest would not appear to you
strange. ... I think those things of importance to myself ;
c2

20 John Henry Newman
but I hope I am not so enthusiastic as to treat it as a concern
of high religious importance. You may think this contradicts
what I said just now about the beginning of sin ; if so, I am
sorry I cannot express myself with greater exactness and
propriety. After matriculation, but before residence, he wrote the
following letter to his late tutor, the Rev. Walter Mayer. It
illustrates that passage in the ' Apologia ' where, in speaking
of his conversion, he says, 'I fell under the influence of a
definite creed, and received into my intellect impressions of
dogma.'
John Henry Newman to Rev. W. Mayer.
January, 1817.
... I have not yet finished reading Bishop Beveridge, but
it seems to me, as far as I have read it, an excellent work ; and
indeed I know it must be so, else you would not have given it
me. There is one passage in the first chapter of the second part
that I do not quite comprehend : it is on the Sacrament of
Baptism. I had, before I read it, debated with myself how it
could be that baptized infants dying in their infancy could be
saved unless the spirit of God was given them : which seems
to contradict the opinion that baptism is not accompanied by
the Holy Spirit. Dr. Beveridge's opinion seems to be that the
seeds of grace are sown in baptism, though they often do not
spring up. That baptism is the mean whereby we receive the
Holy Spirit, although not the only mean ; that infants when
baptized receive the inward and spiritual grace, without the
requisite repentance and faith : if this be his opinion, the
sermon Mr. Milman preached on grace last year was exactly
consonant with his sentiments. . . .
The texts of some dozen of sermons, so to call them,
composed in 1817, which are all that remain of them, show
his mind occupied on questions which were henceforth the
subject of thought and speculation.1 Looking over these
1 1. He that eateth and drinketh unworthily. 2 Great things
doeth He which we cannot comprehend. 3. These shall go into ever
lasting punishment, 4. Man is like to vanity, his days are as a shadow.
5. Let no one despise thy youth. 6. Let not sin therefore reign in your
mortal bodies. 7. Thou when Ihou fastest

childhood and School Life 21
youthful efforts, Dr. Newman wrote : ' I was very fond of
Beveridge's " Private Thoughts " at this time, and the above
quasi sermons are, I think, in his style.' It is, perhaps, a
greater proof of a youth of sixteen or seventeen being very
gravely in earnest that he was ' very fond ' o! Beveridge's
' Private Thoughts ' than that he could write sermons on his
own account.
During his solitary first term at Trinity he was still medi
tating on mysteries. He hears a sermon (June 29, 1817)
preached at St. Mary's by the Rev. W. Crowe. The line of
the sermon led him to the question of predestination and
efficacious grace, and to argue it out at full*length.
From this date it may almost be said that the subjects
which then filled his thoughts were the subjects that occupied
h\s life. Theology proper at once filled his mind and never
relaxed its hold ; and also those cognate subjects, searching
the heart and appealing to the conscience, which have been
treated by him with such telling effect on his generation, are
seen to be there in embryo. Thus in a MS. book of this date
is this sentence :
The reality of conversion, as cutting at the root of doubt,
providing a chain between God and the Soul, that is with
every link complete ; I know I am right. How do you know
it ? I know I know.1
There are many boyish anticipations or buddings of his
after thoughts noted down at about this date. On reading
these in later life, Dr. Newman is severe on his early
style :
The unpleasant style in which it is written arises from my
habit, from a boy, to compose. I seldom wrote without an eye
to style, and since my taste was bad my style was bad. I
wrote in- style as another might write in verse, or sing instead
of speaking, or dance instead of walking. Also my evangelical
tone contributed to its bad taste.
May it not be said that so young a mind was weighted
with thought beyond its power of easy expression ? Deeply
1 See Grammar of Assent, p. 197.

22 John Henry Newman
impressed with the solemn truth and vital importance of the
subjects which occupied it, the mind could hardly avoid some
formality of style. To be easy would seem to itself to be
familiar. This question may be put to other early passages
where the style is in contrast with that known to the reader.
The point is now reached for entering on the first chapter
of the Memoir.

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR

CHAPTER I
John Henry Newman was born in Old Broad Street in the
City qf London on February 21, 1801, and was baptized in the
church of St. Benet Fink on April 9 of the same year. His
Father was a London banker, whose family came from Cam
bridgeshire. His Mother was of a French Protestant family,
who left France for this country on the revocation of the Edict
of Nantes. He was the eldest of six children, three boys and
three girls.
On May 1, 1808, when he was seven years old, he was sent
to a school of 200 boys, increasing to 300, at Ealing, near
London, under the care of the Rev. George Nicholas, D.C.L.,
of W adham College, Oxford. As a child he was of a studious
turn and of a quick apprehension, and Dr. Nicholas, to whom
he became greatly attached, was accustomed to say that no
boy had run through the school, from the bottom to the top,
as rapidly as John Newman. Though in no respect a pre
cocious boy, he attempted original compositions in prose and
verse from the age of eleven, and in prose showed a great
sensibility, and took much pains in matter of style. He
devoted to such literary exercises, and to such books as came
in his way, a good portion of his playtime ; and his school
fellows have left on record that they never, or scarcely ever,
saw him taking part in any game.
At Ealing he remained eight years and a half, his own
entreaties aiding his Mother and his schoolmaster in hinder
ing his removal to Winchester College. In the last half-year
of his school life, from August to December 1816 — accidentally
out-staying his immediate school friends — he fell under the

24 John Henry Na wman <&**¦ »
influence of an excellent man, the Rev. Walter Mayer, of
Pembroke College, Oxford, one of the Classical masters, from
whom he received deep religious impressions, at the time
Calvinistic in character, which were to him the beginning of
a new life. From school he went straight to Oxford, being
entered at Trinity College on December 14, 1816, when he
was as yet two months short of sixteen.
He (Newman) used to relate in illustration of the seeming
accidents on which our course of life and personal history turn,
that, even when the postchaise was at the door, his Father was
in doubt whether to direct the postboy to make for Hounslow,
or for the first stage on the road to Cambridge. He seems
to have been decided in favour of Oxford by the Rev. John
Mullins, curate of St. James's, Piccadilly, a man of ability and
learning, who had for some years taken an interest in the
boy's education. When they got to Oxford Mr. Mullins at
first hoped to find a vacancy for him in his own college—
Exeter. But, failing this, he took the advice of his Exeter
friends to introduce him to Dr. Lee, President of Trinity, and
at that time Vice-Chancellor, by whom Newman was matricu
lated as a commoner of that society. On his return to Ealing-
to inform his schoolmaster of the issue of his expedition, his
timid mention of a college of which he himself had never
heard before was met by Dr. Nicholas's reassuring reply :
' Trinity ? a most gentlemanlike college — I am much pleased
to hear it.'
Newman was called into residence the following June, in
his fourth term, and, for want of the vacancy of a room, not
till the term was far advanced, the Commemoration close at
hand, the college lectures over, and the young men on the
point of leaving for the Long Vacation.
However, it was his good fortune, in the few days which
remained before he was left to himself, to make the acquaint
ance of Mr. John William Bowden, a freshman also, afterwards
one of His Majesty's Commissioners of Stamps and Taxes.
The acquaintance ripened into a friendship so intimate,
though Mr. Bowden was just by three years the elder of the
two (the birthday of both being February 21), that the two
youths lived simply with and for each other all through their

1817 Autobiographical Memoir ¦'/
undergraduate time, up to the term when they went into the,
schools for their B.A. examination, being recognised in college
as inseparables — taking their meals together, reading, walking,
boating together — nay, visiting each other's homes in the
vacations ; and, though so close a companionship could not
continue when at length they ceased to be in a state of
pupilage, and had taken their several paths in life, yet the
mutual attachment thus formed at the University was main
tained between them unimpaired till Mr. Bowden's premature
death in 1844, receiving an additional tie as time went on by
their cordial agreement in ecclesiastical views and academical
politics, and by the interest with which both entered into the
Oxford movement of 1833. Mr. Bowden was one of the first
writers in the 'Tracts for the Times,' and it was at Mr.
Newman's suggestion that he wrote his history of Pope
Gregory VII., the valuable work of his leisure hours and
yearly vacation, when a Commissioner at the Stamps and
Taxes. It may be added that Mr. Newman's first literary
attempts in print were made in partnership with Mr. Bowden,
when they were both of them undergraduates.
In May 1818 Mr. Newman gained one of the Trinity
scholarships then lately thrown open to University com
petition ; and here it may be well to trace, from his own letter^
at the time, the steps by which he had already risen in the
good opinion of his college, during the year since he was
called up, an unknown youth of sixteen, for his solitary resi
dence of three weeks. It is hoped that the details of his
progress, though seemingly trifling, will not be uninteresting.
A letter of his remains which he wrote to his Father
immediately upon his being left to himself on that occasion ;
like a boy his first thought is about his outward appearance :
June 11, 1817.
The minute I had parted from you I went straight to
the tailor's, who assured me that, if he made me twenty
gowns, they would fit me no better. If he took it shorter — he
would if I pleased — but I might grow, (fee. &c. I then went
home(\) and had hardly seated myself, when I heard a knock
at the door, and opening it, one of the Commoners entered

John Henry Newman chap- '
whom Mr Short ' had sent to me, having before come himself
with this said Commoner, when I was out. He came to
explain to me some of the customs of the college, and accom
pany me into the Hall at dinner. I have learned from him
something I am much rejoiced at. ' Mr. Ingram,' said he,
' was very much liked ; he was very good-natured ; he was
presented with a piece of plate the other day by the members
of the college. Mr. Short on the contrary is not liked ; he is
strict ; all wish Mr. Ingram were tutor still.' Thus I think
I have gained by the exchange, and that is a lucky thing.
Some time after, on my remarking that Mr. Short must be
very clever, having been second master at Rugby, he replied,
' Do you think so 1 ' Another proof that he is a strict tutor.
/At dinner I was much entertained with the novelty of
the thing. Fish, flesh and fowl, beautiful salmon, haunches
of mutton, lamb, &c., fine strong beer; served up in old
pewter plates and misshapen earthenware jugs. ('Tell mamma
there were gooseberry,» raspberry, and apricot pies.) And in
all this the joint did not go round, but there was such a pro
fusion that scarcely two ate of the same. Neither do they sit
according to their rank, but as they happen to come in.
I learned from the same source whence I learned con
cerning Mr. Short, that there are a great many juniors to me.
I hear also that there are no more lectures this term, this
being the week for examinations, and next week most of them
go. I shall try to get all the information I am able respecting
what books I ought to study, and hope, if my eyes are good-
natured to me, to fag.2
Tell Harriett [his sister] I have seen the fat cook. The
wine has come ; 8^ per cent, is taken off for ready money.
Two things I cannot get, milk and beer ; so I am obliged to
put up with cream for the one and ale for the other.
He writes again to his Father on the 16th :
June 16, 1817.
I was very uncomfortable the first day or two because my
eyes were not well, so that I could not see to read, and when
ever my eyes are bad I am low-spirited. Besides, I did not
know anyone, and, after having been used to a number about
1 The Rev. Thomas Short, for so many years the respected and
popular tutor of the college.
2 He suffered from weakness of the eyes at this time.

ion autobiographical Memoir 27
me, I felt very solitary. But now my eyes are better, and
I can read without hurting them, and I have begun to fag
pretty well.
I am not noticed at all except by being silently stared at.
I am glad, not because I wish to be apart from them and ill-
natured, but because I really do not think I should gain the
least advantage from their company. For H. the other day
asked me to take a glass of wine with two or three others, and
they drank and drank all the time I was there. I was very
glad that prayers came half an hour after I came to them,
for I am sure I was not entertained with either their drinking
or their conversation.
He (Newman) was very impatient to be directed in his read
ing, and as he understood he could not leave college without
permission from the President, he resolved, in his simplicity,
to ' take that opportunity,' as he says, ' of asking him what
books he ought to read ' in the vacation. On June 27, three
days before his departure, he tells his Father the result of his
experiment :
I went to-day to the President, and was shown into a
parlour, the servant saying he would be ready to see me in a
minute. I waited an hour and a half, and then rang the
bell ; when it proved to be a mistake, and he was not at
home. I shall go again to-morrow morning.
He did go again, and was told by the President, who was
a courteous gentlemanlike man, and afterwards very kind to
him, that he left all such questions as Mr. Newman asked to
be answered by the tutors.
In consequence, up to Sunday the 29th, the day before his
departure, he had not gained any information on the point
which lay so near his heart ; but he persevered, and fortune
favoured him. As in the evening of that day he was return
ing home from a walk along the Parks, he saw one of the
tutors in topboots on horseback on his way into the country.
Thinking it his last chance, he dashed into the road, and,
abruptly accosting him, asked him what books he should read
during the vacation. The person addressed answered him
very kindly ; explained that he was leaving Oxford for the
vacation, and referred him to one of his colleagues still in

28 John Henry Newman chap, i
college, who would give him the information he desired. On
his return home he availed himself of this reference, and
obtained a satisfactory answer to all his difficulties.
Such was his introduction to University life ; not of a
character to make him at home with it ; but the prospect of
things improved immediately on his return after the Long
Vacation. He writes to his Mother thus, on October 28 :
' Mr. Short has not examined me ; but he has appointed me
some lectures.' After naming them, he adds, ' This is little
. enough, but of course they begin with little to see what I
can do.'
On November 13 :
• I have been fagging very hard, but not without benefit,
and, I may add, not without recompense. The first day I
attended my tutor [Mr. Short] for mathematics. I found I
was in the second division of what at school is called a class.
I own I was rather astonished at hearing them begin the
Ass's Bridge, nor was my amazement in the least degree
abated, when my turn came, to hear him say, with a conde
scending air, ' I believe, sir, you never saw Euclid before ? ' I
answered I had. ' How far ? ' 'I had been over five books.'
Then he looked surprised ; but I added I could not say I
knew them perfectly by any means. I am sure by his manner
he then took it into his head that I was not well grounded,
for he proceeded to ask me what a point was, and what a
line, and what a plane angle. He concluded, however, by
telling me that I might come in with the other gentlemen at
10 o'clock, with the 4th, 5th, and 6th books.
The next time I came he was not condescending, but it
was ' sir,' very stiffly indeed.
The next time, after I had demonstrated, I saw him peep
at my paper, to see if I had anything written down— a good
sign. The next time, he asked if I wanted anything explained—
another good sign.
And to-day, after I had demonstrated a tough one out of
the fifth book, he told me I had done it very correctly.
Nor is this all. I had a declamation to do last week, a
Latin one. I took a great deal of pains with it. As I was
going to lecture to-day, I was stopped by the Fellow who

1817 Autobiographical Memoir 29
looks over the declamations [the Dean, Mr. Kinsey], and to
whom we recite them, and told by him that mine did me much
credit. He adds on another subject :
The tailor entered my room the other day, and asked me
if I wanted mourning. I told him no. ' Of course you have
got some,' said he. ' No,' I answered with surprise. ' Every
one will be in mourning,' he returned. ' For whom ? ' ' The
Princess Charlotte.' You see what a hermit I am ; but the
paper had been lying on my table the whole day, and I had
not had time- to take it up.
He continues the last subject in a letter to his Mother :
November 2L
The dismal figure Oxford makes from the deep mourning.
Black coat, waistcoat, trousers, gloves, ribbon (no chain) to
the watch ; no white except the neckcloth and unplaited frill.
The Proctors will not suffer anyone to appear unless in
black.1 I have not mentioned the conclusion of my approximation
to Mr. Short. The next time I went to him he lent me a
book on mathematics, being a dissertation &c. upon Euclid ;
and the next morning invited me to breakfast. As to the
book, I have made some extracts from it, and I know all
about multiple, superparticular, submultiple, subsuperparticu-
lar, subsuperpartient of the lesser inequality, sesquilateral,
sesquiquintal, supertriquartal, and subsuperbitertial. I am
engaged at present in making a dissertation on the fifth
book ; indeed, I even dream of four magnitudes being propor
tionals. By November 28 he has risen still higher in the good
opinion of Mr. Short. He writes to his Mother, and, after
1 The original letter in the family collection goes on to say, ' And I
believe [the Proctors] wish to make up by the universality of the
mourning for the neglect of observing the day of the funeral, last Wed
nesday, in some particular manner; for the Master of Balliol [the
Bishop of Peterborough] is said to have proposed in Convocation that
the churches and chapels should be all hung with black, and that there
should be sermons in all ; but some of the old Doctors conceived it
would be introducing new customs (just like them), and consequently
the motion was negatived.'

30 John Henry Newman chap, i
makmg some remarks on ' every one of his lectures being so
childishly easy,' he continues :
These very thoughts suggested themselves to Mr. Short,
and the other morning he said he was sorry I should not be
attending lectures which would profit me more, and that next
term he should take care to give me books which would give
me more trouble.1
He adds that the higher class in mathematics into which
he had been advanced fell off to two ; in other words that he
and another went on too fast for the rest to keep up with
them ; then of that other he says :
This one who remained is the one I was first introduced to
last term [Mr. Bowden] ; he is pretty assiduous. The conse
quence is, as he is much forwarder than myself, he spurns at
the books of Euclid, and hurries to get through them. I dis
dain to say he goes too fast ; so I am obliged to fag more
Then he adds in an exulting tone :
If anyone wishes to study much, I believe there can be no
college that will encourage him more than Trinity. It is
wishing to rise in the University, and is rising fast. The
scholarships were formerly open only to members of the
college ; last year, for the first time, they were thrown open
to the whole University. In discipline it has become one of
the strictest of the colleges. There are lamentations in every
corner of the increasing rigour ; it is laughable, but it is
delightful, to hear the groans of the oppressed.
Mr. Short seems to have taken an increased interest in
Newman during the term which immediately followed. He it
was who had the reputation of having led the authorities of
the college to the step just mentioned of opening their scholar
ships to all comers, which in the event has been so great a
benefit to Trinity. He was naturally anxious for the success
of his important measure, and therefore it was a special token
of his good opinion when he invited Mr. Newman to present
1 In looking over old papers the Editor has come upon some words,
of Mr. Short's which show the high estimate he had formed of J. H. N.
at this time. Meeting Mr. Newman (the father) he went up to him as
an old friend, and holding out his band, said ' O Mr. Newman 1 what
have you given us in your son I '

1818 Autobiographical Memoir 31
himself as a candidate at the competitive examination which
was to determine the election of a scholar on the ensuing
Trinity Monday. This Mr. Short could do without impro
priety, because, as he told Newman, the tutors had no votes
in the election. As has been already said, Newman stood and
was elected.
He relates the circumstances attendant on this, to him,
happy event in a letter to his Mother of May 25 :
On Wednesday, April 29, about breakfast-time, Mr. Wil
son • and Mr. Short called for me, and asked me whether I
intended to stand for the scholarship. I answered that I
intended next year. However, they wished me to stand this
year, because they would wish to see me on the foundation.
I said I would think of it. I wrote home that day. How
often was my pen going to tell the secret ! but I determined
to surprise you. I told you in a letter written in the midst
of the examination that there were five [candidates] of our
own [men] ; did you suspect that I was one of the five 1 A
Worcester man was very near getting it.2
They made me first do some verses ; then Latin transla
tion ; then Latin theme ; then chorus of Euripides ; then an
English theme ; then some Plato ; then some Lucretius ; then
some Xenophon ; then some Livy. What is more distressing
than suspense 1 At last I was called to the place where they
had been voting ; the Vice-Chancellor [the President] said
some Latin over me ; then made a speech. The electors then
shook hands with me, and I immediately assumed the scholar's
gown. First, as I was going out, before I had changed my gown,
one of the candidates met me, and wanted to know if it was
decided. What was I to say i ' It was.' ' And who has got
it 1 ' ' Oh, an in-college man,' I said ; and I hurried away as
fast as I could. On returning with my newly-earned gown, I
met the whole set going to their respective homes. I did not
know what to do ; I held my eyes down.
By this I am a scholar for nine years at 60Z. a year. In
which time, if there be no Fellow of my county (among the
Fellows), I may be elected Fellow, as a regular thing, for five
years without taking orders.
1 Afterwards President.
2 Afterwards Archdeacon Coxe. It was said that 'J. H. N.'s mathe
matics decided the question between the two.'

32 John Henry Newman ™t. »,
He adds the next day :
I am sure I felt the tortures of suspense so much that I
wished and wished I had never attempted it. The idea of
turpis repulsa haunted me. I tried to keep myself as cool as
possible, but I could not help being sanguine. I constantly ,
reverted to it in my thoughts, in spite of my endeavours to)
the contrary. Very few men thought I should get it, and my
reason thought the same. My age was such a stumbling-block
[that is, he could "stand again, being only seventeen, others
could not]. But I, when I heard the voice of the Dean sum
moning me before the electors, seemed to myself to feel no
surprise. I am told I turned pale.
There is one other matter which should be mentioned in
connexion with this May 18, 1818, a day which was ever so
dear to the subject of this Memoir, though the matter in
question is not of a very pleasant character. Trinity Monday
was not only the election day of Fellows and scholars, but also
the Gaudy of the year : and among other vestigia ruris ' then
remaining was the custom of keeping it throughout the college,
with few exceptions, by a drinking bout.
Since Newman had not a grain in his composition of that
temper of conviviality so natural to young men, it was no
merit in him that the disgust of drink, which he showed in
one of his first letters from Oxford, should have continued in
him all through his course. For the most part he was let go
his own way, as soon as it was discovered what that way was ;
but Trinity Monday would come once a year, and then that
way of his, whether he would or not, became a protest against
those who took another way. Moreover, much as he might
wish to keep his feelings to himself, which he did generally,
and, as he afterwards thought on looking back, too much, he
had very strong feelings on the point, as the following vehe
ment letter, addressed to his friend Mr. Mayer in the follow
ing year, manifests clearly enough. It is quite out of keeping
with his letters, as they have been quoted above, and as he
generally wrote ; but, in spite of his gentleness of manner,
there were in him at all times ignes suppositi cineri doloso

iv. 31

1 ' Vestigia ruris,' Hor. Ep. ii. > 160, or ' vestigia fraudis,' Virg. Eel

1819 Autobiographical Memoir
which, as the sequel of his life shows, had not always so mi '
to justify them as they may be considered to have in th
instance before us.
J. H. Newman to Rev. W. Mayer.
Trinity Sunday, 1819.
To-morrow is our Gaudy. If there be one time of the
year in which the glory of our college is humbled, and all ap
pearance of goodness fades away, it is on Trinity Monday.
Oh, how the angels must lament over a whole society throwing
off the allegiance and service of their Maker, which they have
pledged the day before at His table, and showing themselves
the sons of Belial !
i It is sickening to see what I might call the apostasies of
many. This year it was supposed there would have been no
such merry-making. ) A quarrel existed among us : the college
was divided into two sets, and no proposition for the usual
subscription for wine was set on foot. Unhappily, a day or
two before the time a reconciliation takes place ; the wine
party is agreed upon, and this wicked union, to be sealed with
drunkenness, is profanely joked upon with allusions to one of
the expressions in the Athanasian Creed. )
To see the secret eagerness with which many wished there
would be no Gaudy ; to see how they took hope, as time
advanced and no mention was made of it ; but they are all
gone, there has been weakness and fear of ridicule. Those
who resisted last year are going this. I fear even for my
self, so great a delusion seems suddenly to have come over all.
Oh that the purpose of some may be changed before the
time ! I know not how to make myself of use. I am inti
mate with very few. The Gaudy has done more harm to the
college than the whole year can compensate. An habitual
negligence of the awfulness of the Holy Communion is intro
duced. How can we prosper ?
It is necessary to observe here that Mr. Bowden was at
this time away from Oxford for the vacation, having gone
home a fortnight before to attend the death-bed of a sister.
To return. The Trinity scholarship, thus unexpectedly gained,
was the only academical distinction which fell to the lot of
Mr. Newman during his undergraduate course ; and as he had
on this occasion the trial of success, so when the course was
VOL. I. D

John Henry Newman

CHAP. I

jiing to its end he had to undergo the trial of failure.
After passing with credit his first University examination, he
settled down to read for honours in the final examination ; but,
standing for the highest honours, he suffered an utter break
down and a seeming extinction of his prospects of a University
career. He had come to Oxford young. Apparently he had him
self been impatient to get to college ; but he recognised his
disadvantage in consequence as soon as he began lectures. He
writes to his Father in the first term of lectures— that term in
which he was so successfully to make his way with Mr. Short :
' I now see the disadvantage of going too soon to Oxford, and
before I had the great addition of time that two or three
more years would have given me ; for there are several who
know more than I do in Latin and Greek, and I do not like
that.' He was not twenty when he went in for final examina
tion, whereas the usual age was twenty-two.
His youth was against him in another respect also. It
was not only that he was short by two or three years of the
full period marked out for the B.A. examination, but he
had not that experience for shaping for himself his course
of reading, or that maturity of mind for digesting it, which a
longer time would have given him. He read books, made
ample analyses and abstracts, and entered upon collateral
questions and original essays which did him no service in the
schools. In the Long Vacation of 1818 he was taken up with
Gibbon and Locke. At another time he wrote a critique of
the plays of ^Ischylus, on the principles of Aristotle's ' Poetics,'
though original composition at that time had no place in
school examinations, and he spent many weeks in reading
and transcribing Larcher's ' Notes on Herodotus.' Moreover,
though the examiners were conscientiously fair and considerate
in their decisions, they would understand a candidate better,
and follow his lead and line of thought more sympathetically,
if they understood his position of mind and intellectual habits,
than if these were new to them.1
1 Mr. Newman in his old age recollected one instance in which the
examiners had missed his meaning. When the tutors of Trinity inquired
of the examiners how he came so utterly to fail, his having translated

1819 Autobiographical Memoir 35
It is also true that Mr. Newman had, in union with his >
friend Mr. Bowden, for a few months at the end of 1818 and
the beginning of 1819, been tempted to dabble in matters
foreign to academical objects. They had published a poem,
their joint composition, and commenced a small periodical
like Addison's ' Spectator ' ; but these excursive acts only
occupied their leisure hours, and that for a very short time,
and were not more than such a recreation as boating might
be in the summer term. The memoranda which Mr. Newman
has left behind him would show this abundantly were it
worth while to quote them.
As to the literary efforts in question, the periodical was
called 'The Undergraduate,' and it began and ended in
February 1819. It sold well, but, to his great disgust, New
man's name got out, and this was its death-blow. They made
it over to its publishers, who continued it with an editor of
their own for some weeks ; then it expired.
His and Bowden's poem was a romance founded on the
Massacre of St. Bartholomew. The subject was the sequel
of the unfortunate union of a Protestant gentleman with a
Catholic lady, ending in the tragical death of both, through
the machinations of a cruel fanatical priest, whose inappro
priate name was Clement. Mr. Bowden did the historical
and picturesque portions, Mr. Newman the theological. There
were no love scenes, nor could there be ; for, as it turned out,
to the monk's surprise, the parties had been some time before
the action husband and wife, by a clandestine marriage, known
however to the father of the lady.
The following passage from Mr. Newman's pen will give
an idea of the theology of the poem :
In silent agony she shrank to feel
How fierce his soul, how bigoted his zeal :
For he had been to her, from early youth,
• From vice her guardian, and her guide to truth.
the word ' proprium ' in Virgil by ' proper ' instead of ' his own ' was
specitied as a critical instance in point, but he knew the sense of the
La'in word perfectly well ; only, as translating a poet, he had in mind
Cymbeline, and again in Measure for Measure (in the Duke's speech,
' The mere effusion of thy proper loins '), and foolishly copied it on
purpose, not considering how he might be misunderstood.
D2

36 John Henry Newman chap, i
Her memory told her that he once was kind,
Ere the monk's cowl had changed his gentler mind ;
But now of late his holy call had thrown
A haughty coldness o'er him not his own.
Vet still" she paid him reverence, tho' no more
She told her bosom secrets as before.
True he was stern, but they who knew him best,
riaid fast and penance steeled that holy breast ;
She knew him harsh avenge Heaven's injured laws,
But deemed superior sanctity the cause ;
She knew him oft mysterious, wild and strange,
But hoped that heavenly converse wrought the change.
This was in February 1819. In the summer term, in the
absence of his friend Bowden, the Dean — Mr. Kinsey, who
treated Newman with the familiar kindness of an elder brother
— took him to Professor Buckland's Lectures on Geology, at
that time a new and interesting science, but in no degree sub
serving the interest of candidates for a first class in the
examination schools. But in the Long Vacation of 1819 he
began to read hard for the honours of his final examination.
He did a great deal of work, nor did a second study of Gibbon,
in which he then indulged himself, take him away from the
classics. He writes to Bowden in October 1819 :
What books had we better read this time 1 We settled
on Sophocles and ^Eschylus. We are to begin reading with
out let or hindrance, — on, on, like the Destroyer1 in the
mysterious boat, till we arrive at the ocean of great-goes.
He adds :
' You must excuse my talking on book subjects ; but, having
been stationary all the vacation, I have no others to discourse
upon ; and Herodotus, Thucydides, and Gibbon have employed
me nearly from morning to night. A second perusal of the
last historian has raised him in my scale of merit. With all
his faults, his want of simplicity, his affectation and his mono
tony, few can be put in comparison with him, and sometimes,
when I reflect on his happy choice of expressions, his vigorous
compression of ideas, and the life and significance of every
word, I am prompted indignantly to exclaim that no style is
left for historians of an after day. Oh, who is worthy to
succeed our Gibbon 1 Exoriare aliquis ! and may he be a
better man ! 1 Thaldba.

ibid Autobiographical Memoir 37
In the same month he writes to his Mother :
I think I contemplate with brighter hopes the honours of
the schools. We are reading between eleven and twelve
hours a day, and have an hour for walking and an hour for
dinner. At the end of the term, December 18, he writes to her :
The Fellows have been very kind, have said we might stop
up as long as we like, and have offered to do anything they
can for us. This is to me an important year ; I heartily wish
it over, though most probably I shall look back on it with
regret when past.
The Long prospect is now before me. . I anticipate that
soothing, quiet, unostentatious pleasure whicrfwnly an equable
unvarying time of living can give. I look forward, ^o it with
great delight. I hope it will resemble the last Long Vacation.
When I first went to college I could write long letters without
effort, and lament when the full sheet refused additional
matter ; for everything then was novel, and I had not any
dread of approaching examinations to awe me into silence. I
have often remarked that the undergraduate residence [of
three years] is a picture of a whole life — of youth, of man
hood, and of old age — which could not be understood or felt
without actual experience.
At this time he seems to have been half conscious of some
mental or moral change within him, which he fully recognised
in the following year, when he took a retrospect of his under
graduate experiences. 'In 1819 and the beginning of 1820,'
he wrote in 1821, 'I hoped great things for myself. Not liking
to go into the Church, but to the law, I attended Modern
History lectures [professorial], hearing that the names were
reported to the Minister.' These dreams of a secular ambition,
which were quite foreign to his frame of mind in 1817, when
he employed himself in writing sermons and sermonets as an
exercise, seem now to have departed from him, never to return.
In the Long Vacation of 1820, which he was now entering,
whenever Bowden was not with him he had Trinity College,
its garden and library, all to himself; and in his solitude,
pleasant as he found it, he became graver and graver. At
first he says to his Mother, 'The prospect before me looks

38 John- Henry Newman chap..
alternately dark and bright, but when I divest my mind of
flurried fear, I think I may say I have advanced much more,
and much more quickly and easily, than I had expected.
- This was in July ; in August he writes to his brother Frank :
August 1820.
Here at Oxford I am most comfortable. The quiet and
stillness of everything around me tends to calm and lull those |
v emotions which the near prospect of my grand examination, '
and a heart too solicitous about fame and too fearful of failure,
are continually striving to excite. I read very much, certainly,
but God enables me to praise Him with joyful lips when I
rise, and when I lie down, and when I wake in the night.
For the calm happiness I enjoy I cannot feel thankful as I
ought. How in my future life, if I do live, shall I look back
with a sad smile at these days ! It is my daily, and I hope
heartfelt, prayer that I may not get any honours here if they
are to be the least cause of sin to me. As the time approaches
and I have laboured more at my books, the trial is greater.
At the same date be writes to one of his sisters :
I try to keep myself as cool as I can, but find it very diffi
cult. However it is my duty not to ' take thought for the
morrow.' I cannot think much of the schools without wishing
much to distinguish myself in them ; and that wishing much
would make me discontented if I did not succeed ; and that is
coveting, for then we covet when we desire a thing so earnestly
as to be discontented if we fail in getting it ; I will not there
fore ask for success, but for good.
Meanwhile his application to his books, which had recom
menced with such vigour in the Long Vacation of 1819, was
now almost an absorption by them ; he gives a retrospective
account of it in a letter to an Irish friend, written in 1821 :
During the Long Vacation of 1819 [he says], I read nearly
at the rate of nine hours a day. From that time to my
examination in November 1820 it was almost a continuous
mass of reading. I stayed in Oxford during the vacations,
got up in winter and summer at five or six, hardly allowed
myself time for my meals, and then ate, indeed, the bread of
carefulness. During twenty out of the twenty-four weeks
immediately preceding my examination, I fagged at an average

1820 Autobiographical Memo/..
of more than twelve hours a day. If one day I .
nine, I read the next fifteen.
The termination of these 'laborious days' was now ap
proaching, and he ushered it in with a long letter to his friend
Mr. Mayer. In the course of it he says :
I am more happy here than I suppose I ever was yet . . .
yet in truth I am in no common situation. The very few
honours that have been taken by men of our college, the utter
absence of first classes for the last ten years, the repeated
failures which have occurred, and the late spirit of reading
which has shown itself among us, render those who attempt
this, objects of wonder, curiosity, speculation, and anxiety.
Five of us were going up for first classes this term ; one has
deferred his examination, one most likely goes up for no
honours at all ; one is expected to fail ; one — whom I think
most certain of success — may before the examination remove
to another college ; one remains. ' Unless,' I am told, 'success
at length attends on Trinity this examination, we have deter
mined it is useless to read.'
The high expectations, too, that are formed of me ; the
confidence with which those who know nothing of me put
down two first classes to my name ; the monstrous notions
they form of the closeness of my application, and, on the other
hand, my consciousness of my own deficiencies — these things ,
may create a smile, in my future life, to think I feared them,
but they are sufficient to dismay me now. I fear much more
from failure than I hope from success.
It was not strangers only who did not know him that felt
so assured that Newman would succeed. His friend Bowden,
who had read with him so long, and, having passed his own
ordeal, had gone home before him, wrote thence to Newman,
prophesying all good things of him, being confident that his
examination would be brilliant. This was in November. ' I
shall expect,' he said, ' to hear in your answer whether they
put you on in any books besides those you took up.' And in
a second letter : ' By the time you receive this, I conclude you
will have completed your labours in the schools and covered
yourself and the college with glory.' Bowden did but express
the expectations of his friends generally, but fortune had gone
against him. He had o.ver-read himself, and being suddenly

John Henry Newman <hap. i
a day sooner than he expected, he lost his head,
, broke down, and, after vain attempts for several days,
. co .retire, only first making sure of his B.A. degree. When
.ne list came out, his name did not appear at all on the
mathematical side of the paper, and in classics it was found
in the lower division of the second class of honours, which at
that time went by the contemptuous title of the ' Under-the-
line,' there being as yet no third and fourth classes.
Though he never was able to satisfy himself how it came
about that he did so little justice on that occasion to his long
and assiduous toil, it must be borne in mind that a similar
affection, after a severe course of reading, overtook him seven
years later, on all' but the same day (November 26, instead of
November 25), when he was exercising his office of University
examiner in the very same schools in which in 1820 he had
failed as examinee, and that that attack came on with greater
violence, for he was obliged to leave Oxford, and for a time
relinquish his office.
During the long days of his ineffectual efforts in the
schoojs he suffered severely ; and again, with especial keenness,
immediately on his having to give those effprts up ; but he
was not long in recovering his composure. His first letter
home ran as follows : To his Father. December 1, 1820.
It is all over, and I have not succeeded. The pain it gives
me to be obliged to inform you and my mother of it, I cannot
express. What I feel on my own account is indeed nothing
at all, compared with the thought that I have disappointed
you. And most willingly would I consent to a hundred times
the sadness that now overshadows me, if so doing would save
my mother and you from feeling vexation. I will not attempt
to describe what I have gone through, but it is past away, and
I feel quite lightened of a load. The examining masters were
as kind as it was possible to be ; but my nerves quite forsook
me and I failed. I have done everything I could to attain
my object ; I have spared no labour, and my reputation in my
college is as solid as before, if not so splendid. If a man falls
vin battle after a display of bravery, he is honoured as a hero;

1820 Autobiographical Memoir 41
ought not the same glory to attend him who falls in the field
of literary conflict 1
His parents answered him, as might be supposed, that they
were more than satisfied with his exertions ; that he must wait
patiently and cheerfully the time appointed for his reaping
the fruit of them. ' The only sorrow we feel,' they said, ' is
for the keenness of your feelings.' By the time this letter
came he had recovered himself, and in his answer to his
Mother he was unwilling to allow that his distress was so
great as she implied it to be : December 3, 1820.
I am ashamed to think that anything I have said should
have led you to suppose that I , am at all pained on my own
account. ... I am perfectly convinced that there are few men
in the college who do not feel for me more than I feel for my
self. ... A man has just left me, and his last words were,
' Well, Newman, I would rather have your philosophy than
the high honours to which you have been aspiring.' I say
this, not in vanity, but to prove the truth of my assertion. . . .
I am sure success could not have made me happier than I am
at present . . . very much I have gone through, but the clouds
have passed away. . . . Since I have done my part I have
gained what is good. '
Only a few words are necessary to complete the outline of
this portion of Mr. Newman's career.
He had been destined by his Father's loving ambition for
the Bar, and with that purpose had been sent to the University,
and in 1819 had entered at Lincoln's Inn ; but his failure in
the schools making his prospect of rising in a difficult pro
fession doubtful, and his religious views becoming more pro
nounced, he decided in the course of 1821, with his Father's
1 The length of time and space Mr. Newman gives to his failure in
the schools is only interesting to the reader as illustrating the indomit
able resolution and industry of the young aspirant for honours. Of
course the cause of his failure was overwork ; he overtaxed his powers
and broke down. There was a determination in him to work up to the
point — just short of health and strength failing him. He overstepped
this point on more than one subsequent occasion, as he did conspicu
ously here.
It may be noted that his confession of certain periods of idleness
would represent the industry of the average undergraduate. — Ed.

42 John Henry Newman chap. .
full acquiescence, on taking Orders. His scholarship at Trinity
continuing for several years still, he was furnished with a
sufficient plea for remaining at Oxford, though a B.A., and for
taking private pupils as a means of support. He wished also
to be of use to his youngest brother, whom he was desirous of
bringing to the University ; and, as the year drew to its close,
and just at the time he began to take pupils, he conceived the
auda6ious idea of standing for a fellowship at Oriel — at that
time the object of ambition of all rising men at Oxford, and
attainable only by those who had the highest academical pre
tensions. It may be called audacious for various reasons, and
certainly would so seem to others ; but, in truth, he had never
himself accepted his failure in the schools as the measure of
his intellectual merits, and in proportion as the relief of mind
ceased to be felt, consequent at first upon his freedom from
scholastic work and its anxieties, a reaction took place within
him, and he began to think about retrieving his losses, and to
aspire to some honourable and permanent place in his loved
University, refusing tempting offers of tutorships in gentle
men's families which would call him away from Oxford, and
applying in whispers to himself the line of Gray :
And hushed in grim repose expects his evening prey.
This change in his state of mind took place in him in the
autumn of 1821, and he has described his feelings at that
time in the following passage in ' Loss and Gain ' :
He recollected with what awe and transport he had at first
come to the University, as to some sacred shrine ; and how
from time to time hopes had come over him that some day or
other he should have gained a title to residence on one of its
old foundations. One night in particular came across his
memory : how a friend and he had ascended to the top of one
of its many towers with the purpose of making observations
on the stars ; and how, while his friend was busily engaged
with the pointers, he, earthly-minded youth, had been look
ing down into the deep gas-lit, dark-shadowed quadrangles,
and wondering if he should ever be Fellow of this or that
college, which he singled out from the mass of academical
buildings.

1821 Autobiographical Memoir

43

It is scarcely necessary to say here that his attempt at
Oriel, startling as it was to his friends and hopeless as it was
in his own calm judgment, was successful. It follows next to
draw out the circumstances under which it was made.

LETTERS AND EXTRACTS CONNECTING CHAP
TERS I. AND II. OF THE MEMOIR
The close of the first chapter of the Autobiographical
Memoir seems the proper occasion for introducing contem
porary letters from the family correspondence, and such
extracts from Mr. Newman's records of the period as throw
further light on the Memoir.
More space may have been given to the mischance of a
failure — due, in fact, to physical causes — than, considering the
subsequent career and reputation of the narrator, may seem
called for ; but, after all, it illustrates the faith in taking pains
which was a feature of his mind through life ; and, in fact,
the history throughout is characteristic. No subsequent in
tellectual triumph would efface this blow in a memory which
held its whole being in so firm a grasp. The intense labour
and capacity for work which later on were the wonder of his
friends, the sensitive nerves, the keenness of pain in disap
pointing the hopes he had raised, all belonged to his mature
nature, as did also the latent undisturbed consciousness of
power — as shown in his next move: — which no failure or
reverse, whether in the schools or elsewhere, could disturb.
At sixteen he wrote an essay on Fame, which shows him
speculating on the question in the tone of his manhood :
. . . But this is not the fame I intend to discuss ; I mean
by fame the knowledge your contemporaries have of you while
living, and posterity when dead. On this I will advance an
assertion which may at first appear strange, but which has
often struck me very forcibly — that is, that there is no such
thing as a person being famed. Let it not be thought a

44" John Henry Newman 1817
quibble when I say it is his name that is celebrated, and not
himself. l
' It was one of the consequences of Mr. Newman beginning
his Oxford career so early that he had no idea of husbanding
his strength. He made his eyesight the test. So long as his
eyes did not pain him he worked on, or, as he called it, fagged,
till he could do no more. The following letter to his Mother,
written early in his Oxford days, tells of a complete break
down, clearly the consequence of overtaxing his strength :
October 28, 1817.
. . . Last Sunday, while in St. Mary's, a dizziness came
over my eyes : I could see nothing, and to my surprise I
found my head was on the shoulder of the gownsman who
sat next to me. He took me out and brought me to my
rooms, for my mind was alive and I could show him the way,
so that while he was stumbling up the stairs, I, by recollection,
did not miss a step. He brought me some water, and he bade
me good morning, and neither his face, his name, nor his rank
in the University (except that he must either be a bachelor
or an undergraduate) have I an idea of. While I was sitting
reading about eight in the evening I dropped asleep for an
hour, and woke quite myself.
In fact, Mr. Newman never had robust health. The letters
from home, even at this early period, show a constant solici
tude on the score of overwork and its consequences. His
constitution showed singular powers of continuous application
all through his life, and even when this was pushed too far
there was a recuperative energy in reserve which saved him
from the ordinary consequences of an overtaxed brain ; but
there was not even in early days the sense or aspect of
exuberant health. In his busiest years toothache was a con
stant suffering and hindrance, and seems to have been some
thing abnormal. His youth, indeed, was chequered by cares ,;
his Mother's tone shows him the sharer of all family anxieties,
and him, indeed, solicitous to share them. Her early letters
show an unbounded confidence in his ' well-regulated mind,'
equal to all trials, whether prosperous or adverse. And how
1 See this thought carried out in the sermon on the • Vanity o£
Human Glory '—Parocltial Sermons, vol. viii.

1819 College Life '45
dear this trust was to him is almost pathetically apparent as
time goes on.1
Answering his Mother's birthday letter of 1819 his memory
goes far back : February 24, 1819.
I woke on the morning of February 21, and, without re
collecting it was my birthday, my mind involuntarily recurred
to the day I was four years old, and said the ' Cat and the Cream
Bowl' [to a party of little ones in Southampton Street], and the
day I was five years old your telling me that now I was a big
boy, and must behave myself accordingly ; to the day I was
six years old, when I spoke Cowper's ' Faithful Friend ' at Ham
(where his grandmother lived]. I have no doubt I shall look
>ack with regret on the time I was at Oxford and on my
birthday of 1819.
In the memoranda of this year 1819 there occurs this
thought :
Sunday evening bells pealing. The pleasure of hearing
them. It leads the mind to a longing after something, I know
not what: It does not bring past years to remembrance ;
it does not bring anything. What does it do ? We have a
kind of longing after something dear to us, and well known to
1 Mr. Newman's eyes, which troubled him so early, were not a per
manent trouble. The rules prescribed by the oculist of the day may
be given, as it were, to impress the fact upon the reader of the short
sightedness which made spectacles a necessity all through his active
life. ' The following is the advice of Mr. Alexander concerning my eyes :
" Those who have a disposition to be short-sighted, books, contracting
as they do the muscles of the eye, are apt to make more so. They first
feel it about twelve years of age ; this short-sightedness increases until
twenty-two. It then stops, and time will bring a longer sight. There
is this consolation for you, you will never be blind. With respect to
what is advisable for you to do, observe the following directions. Strain
not your sight at distant object s, rather use a glass ; when you read
have your neckcloth loose, your head erect; avoid everything like a
stooping posture. In bed your head very high, your feet low, your bed
an inclined plane, your head cool, your feet warm. In your diet avoid
anything which may cause a sudden rush of blood to the head. Keep
jour temperature cool, and apply leeches to your temples once a fort
night. An observance of these directions will keep you from being
worse, and may make you a shade better." Oh, consolation 1 " may " 1 '
It does not appear that the last direction was ever followed ; the
writer makes no comment on it.

46 John Henry Newman 1820
us — very soothing. Such is my feeling at this minute as I
hear them.
. Music in his undergraduate days was a constant recrea
tion. In 1820 he had found sympathisers, and a music club
was formed. To his Sister, H. E. N. February 26.
Our music club at St. John's has been offered and has
accepted the music room for our weekly private concerts.
[Again June 3 :] I was asked by a man yesterday to go to
his rooms for a little music at seven o'clock. I went. An old
Don — a very good-natured man, but too fond of music — played
Bass ; and through his enthusiasm I was kept playing quar
tets on a heavy tenor from seven to twelve ! 0 my poor arm
and eyes and head and back ! [Again he writes later :] I
went to the R.'s" to play the difficult first violin to Haydn,
Mozart, f&c.
He found time for lighter reading ; is enthusiastic to his
Mother on ' Ivanhoe,' especially the second volume ; and writes
to his Father of Crabbe's poems, for which he had a lasting
admiration :
I also send Crabbe's ' Tales of the Hall,' a work of which
I am excessively fond ; but the monotonous gloominess of
which is so great an objection that I can hardly think he
will ever have many admirers. Hardly one of his Tales has
a fortunate ending ; hardly one of his Tales but has the same
ending ; hardly one of his Tales but is disfigured by the most
prosaic lines or degraded by familiar vulgarity. However, for
all this, he seems to me one of the greatest poets of the
present day. His 'Lady Barbara,' out of many beautiful
ones, is the most uniformly elevated and animated.
A letter to his Father of this date mentions Dr. Routh.
It is observable that no Oxford memory ever knew this name
but as associated with the word Venerable. It was a remark
of Mr. Rickards's, who had an early experience of Oxford, not
only that Dr. Routh was old at any given date, but that he
always had been old, and gave the world the impression of
never having known any other stage of being.
One of our Dons is on the eve of marriage, the President

1820 College Life 47
of Magdalen, noted for his learning, his strange appearance,
his venerable age.1
A letter already quoted in the Memoir, ' The Long pro- ?
spect is now before me, &c.,' excited its writer as he read it
in after years to inscribe on it the following comments : ' This
means that I was idle in the Long Vacation 1818,' after gain
ing the scholarship ; and on the whole letter is this notice :
' This is in very Gibbonian style.' It is difficult to connect
the writing of this early date with what has been described
as the short, sharp, terse fire of Mr. Newman's style some ten
or a dozen years later, but at each date his subject mastered
him, whether he leant upon a model for giving his thought
adequate expression, or later on trusted the energy of his
thought to take its course by the most direct road.
We read in the ' Apologia ' that ' when I was fifteen [in •
the autumn of 1816] a great change of thought took place in
me. I fell under the influences of a definite creed, and received
into my intellect impressions of dogma, which through God's
mercy have never been effaced or obscured.' The remarks
noted down during the years of his undergraduateship illus
trate this. The Memoir says, ' In the solitude of the Long I
became graver and graver.' In evidence of this many records
of thought remain, showing a mind set upon subjects far
removed from the ordeal he was preparing for, with such
excessive industry. Thus, in a memorandum dated August 20,
1820 :
It may be supposed that the greatest agony Christ endured
was not that which He suffered in the body, but that inward
horror and darkness which caused the drops of blood in the
garden, and the mysterious exclamation on the Cross. May
not this be stated in such a manner as to repel the objection,
that His corporal sufferings could not cleanse us from sin
which is spiritual ? 2
A few months later the same MS. book contains the follow
ing reflection on mysteries (March 4, 1821) :
1 Dean Burgon gives Dr. Routh's age on marriage as sixty-five. The
marriage took place September 18, 1820.
2 The reader of Mr. Newman's works will recognise in this passage
the dawn of a thought subsequently most powerfully worked out.

<5 John Henry Newman 1821
The Second Person of the Trinity is called the Son of the
Father, the Only Begotten. Not in a literal sense, but as the
nearest analogy in human language to convey the idea of an
incomprehensible relation between the Father and the Son,
Nothing can show this more clearly than the other titles given
to him in Scripture. If He were in every respect a Lamb, He
would not be the Shepherd. If He were in every respect the
Husband of the Church, He could not be the Father.
Again (June 1, 1821) :
About a week ago I dreamed a spirit came to me and dis
coursed about the other world. I had several meetings with
it. Dreams address themselves so immediately to the mind,
that to express in any form of words the feelings produced by
the speeches themselves of my mysterious visitant, were a
fruitless endeavour. Among other things it said that it was
absolutely impossible for the reason of man to understand the
mystery of the Holy Trinity, and in vain to argue about it ;
but that everything in another world was so very, very plain
that there was not the slightest difficulty about it. I cannot
put into any sufficiently strong form of words the ideas that
were conveyed to me. I thought I instantly fell on my knees
overcome with gratitude to God for so kind a message.
It is not idle to make a memorandum of this, for out of
dreams often much good can be extracted.
Again (June 1, 1821) :
When I have heard or read that Horsley, Milner, (fee, were
adverse to the introduction of the doctrine of election, final
perseverance, &c, into the pulpit, I have wondered, and been
sorry for such an opinion. However, when I came to examine
my own opinion on the subject, I have much the same senti
ments. Do we see St. Paul or St. Peter in the Acts addressing
the unconverted in this manner 1
Some touches of his home life and its varying influences
on his character may here be given. In the Long Vacation of
1821, when he was for a short time at home, there occurs
this entry in his journal :
September 30, 1821. Sunday. — After dinner to-day I was
suddenly called downstairs to give an opinion whether I
thought it a sin to write a letter on a Sunday. I found dear
F. had refused to copy one. A scene ensued more painful
than any I have experienced. I have been sadly deficient in

1821 College Life 49
meekness, long-suffering, patience, and filial obedience. With
God's assistance I will redeem my character.
Monday, October 1, 1821. — My Father was reconciled to us
to day. When I think of the utter persuasion he must enter
tain of the justice of his views, of our apparent disobedience,
the seeming folly of our opinions, and the way in which he is
harassed by worldly cares, I think his forgiveness of us an
example of very striking candour, forbearance and generosity.
On the question of his brother Francis going to read with
him in Oxford, he writes to his Father : June 21, 1821.
I am turned out of college in a little more than a fortnight,
and for Trinity term I have engaged lodgings. The Dean
tells me there is nothing extraordinary in a brother coming
up to Oxford to study before entrance at any college. Tell
Charles I cannot find in the Bodleian any work on the mathe
matical principles of chess. [Writing a day or two after :] I
am glad to say that Mr. Short has been good enough to get
me a man of our college for a private pupil. I am to begin
with him after the Long Vacation. He is to give me a
hundred a year. I am naturally much delighted to find you
propose Francis should come to Oxford, and have been
arranging things as well as I can.
J. H. N. to his Mother.
October 26, 1821.
I am very glad to hear you say that yourself and my Father
are both well ; of course whatever you say concerning him
and his anxieties must interest me very much. There is no
one who is on any side without cause of sorrow ; and,
this being the case, it is a most happy thing to feel one's
particular distress comes from without. When I look round,
I see few families but what are disturbed from within. Many
are wasted by death ; many distracted by disagreements ;
many scattered. We have not had to weep over the death of
those we love. We are not disquieted by internal variance ;
we are not parted from each other by circumstances we can
not control. We have kind and indulgent parents, and our
tastes, disposition, and pursuits are the same. How grateful
ought we to be ! Surely it is a joyful thing that that distress,
which must be, leaves unimpaired, or rather heightened, all
domestic affection and love.
vol. 1. E

50 John Henry Newman 1822
And then as to the very trial itself, there is nothing in any
way to fear. ' All things work together for good to those who
love God.' I am firmly and rootedly persuaded of this. Every
thing that happens to them is most certainly the very best,
in every light, that could by any possibility have happened.
God will give good. I will do as much as I can, and then I
have nothing to apprehend. This is indeed a privilege, for it
takes away all care as to the future. His other gifts
All bear the royal stamp that speaks them His,
And are august ; but this transcends them all.
To his sister Harriett he tells of the end of a successful
career, with what may be supposed a personal warning.
January 19, 1822.
I informed you in my last that Dr. Hodson was very ill.
He died yesterday morning. Having attained the Headship
of Brasenose, the Regius Chair of Divinity, and a Canonry of
Ch. Ch. ; when all men looked on in expectation of what
would come next, in the height of his influence with Lord
Grenville and Lord Buckingham, he is suddenly taken ill, and
in a few days died.
I trust I ask sincerely, Give me nothing which will in any
way delay me in my Christian course ; and such prayers God
is accustomed, and promises, to grant.
To his Mother he writes on attaining his majority :
March 6, 1822
Thank you for your very kind letter. When I turn to
look at myself I feel quite ashamed of the praise it contains,
so numerous and so great are the deficiencies that even I can
see. There is an illusion in the words ' being of age ' which
is apt to convey the idea of some sudden and unknown change.
That point, instead of being gained by the slow and silent
progress of one and twenty years, seems to divide, by some
strongly marked line, the past from the to-come. . . . Not
that I am sorry so great a part of life is gone— would that all
were over ! — but I seem now more left to myself, and when I
reflect upon my own weakness I have cause to shudder.
Not unnaturally, his Mother thinks the tone of the last
line morbid. Out of the midst of troubles of her own— which,

1822 College Life 51
indeed, he shared with her — she writes anxiously on his
account : March 11, 1822.
. . . This subject I have been anxious to begin with, but
another is equally pressing on my mind and your Father's ;
that is the state of your health and spirits. We fear very
much, from the tone of your letter, you are depressed ; and if
imperious reasons did not forbid us, you would certainly see
us. We fear you debar yourself a proper quantity of wine. . . .
Take proper air and exercise ; accept all the invitations you
receive ; and do not be over-anxious about anything. Nothing
but your own over-anxiety can make you suppose we give a
thought to Oriel. . . .
To show you I do not think you too old for a mother's
correction and advice, I shall not hesitate to tell you I see one
great fault in your character which alarms me, as I observe it
grows upon you seriously ; and as all virtues may degenerate
into vices, it is everyone's duty to have a strict guard over
themselves to avoid extremes. Your fault is a want of self-
confidence and a dissatisfaction with yourself. . . .
His answer comes by return of post. And first he assures
his Mother his health is not at all in fault.
... I have hardly a moment to write, I am going out to
a wine party, and to the music room in the evening. ... I
am very very much obliged to you for your anxiety, but never
was anxiety so ill founded. I was only the other day congra
tulating myself on the great improvement of my health from
what it was a year ago. . . .
As to my opinions, and the sentiments I expressed in my
last letter, they remain fixed in my mind, and are repeated
deliberately and confidently. If it were any new set of
opinions I had lately adopted, they might be said to arise from
nervousness, or over-study, or ill -health ; but no, my opinion
has been exactly the same for these five years. . . . The only
thing is, opportunities have occurred of late for my mentioning
it more than before ; but believe me, those sentiments are
neither new nor slightly founded. If they made me melan
choly, morose, austere, distant, reserved, sullen, then indeed
they might with justice be the subject of anxiety ; but if, as I
think is the case, I am always cheerful, if at home I am always
ready and eager to join in any merriment, if I am not clouded
E 2

52 John Henry Newman 1822
with sadness, if my meditations make me neither absent in
mind nor deficient in action, then my principles may be gazed
at and puzzle the gazer, but they cannot be accused of bad
practical effects. Take me when I am most foolish at home,
and extend mirth into childishness ; stop me short and ask
me then what I think of myself, whether my opinions are less
gloomy ; no, I think I should seriously return the same
answer, that ' I shuddered at myself.' And what is to make
me so 1 Am I in the midst of persons of the same opinions ?
Am I solitary 1 Neither. However, I have no time to finish
this ; so good-bye.
It is now time to return to Mr. Newman's own account of
himself.

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIB

CHAPTER II
It did certainly startle Mr. Newman's friends at Trinity to
find him contemplating an attempt upon an Oriel fellowship ;
and many of them it pained also, for they were sure it would
end in a second miscarriage. They had not the shadow of a
hope of his succeeding ; they would have thought him wise if,
instead of following an ignis fatuus, he had accepted one of
the family tutorships offered for his acceptance. What would
confirm them in this view was the grave fact, that he had lost
almost the whole of the current year in recreations and diver
sions of his own, instead of devoting the time since he took
his Bachelor's degree in preparation for a difficult competition.
What his actual occupations had been appears accidentally
from a series of passages in his letters home, and in his private
memoranda, some of which shall now be given in the order in
which they were written.
To his Father he writes on his return to Oxford in February
1821, after his failure in the schools :
I arrived here safe the day before yesterday, and have
found a general welcome. Dr. ' and Mrs. Lee have been very
kind. I intend attending the lectures on anatomy and
mineralogy. To the same on March 20 :
I have been with Mr. Kirisey to Abingdon, to the house of
a gentleman who has a fine collection of minerals. We were
employed in looking over them from one to four o'clock. Some
of them are most beautiful. When I come home I shall make
various excursions to the British Museum, if open, for the sake
of the minerals. • The President.

54 John Henry Newman chap, u
During this term he attended the course of lectures on
mineralogy given by Professor Buckland, and made a careful
analysis of them, which is to be found among his papers. To
his Mother in the same month :
Thank Harriett for her skill in steaming away the
superfluous water of the nitro-sulphate of copper. The
mineralogical lectures were finished yesterday. . . .
I am glad to be able to inform you that Signor Giovanni
Enrico Neandrini has finished his first composition. The
melody is light and airy, and is well supported by the harmony.
To the same in June :
I have been very much to myself this term. Buckland's
lectures [on geology] I had intended to have taken down, as I
did last term, but several things prevented me — the time it
takes, and the very desultory way in which he imparts his
information : for, to tell the truth, the science is so in its
infancy that no regular system is formed. (Hence the lectures
are rather an enumeration of facts from which probabilities
are deduced, than a consistent and luminous theory of cer
tainties, illustrated by occasional examples. It is, however,
most entertaining, and opens an amazing field to imagination
and to poetry. I
To these accidental notices of his employment of his time
after his B.A. degree, others may be added, more complete
because in retrospect. He says in passages of his private
memoranda that he had now ' more jeisjjre^orreligjous_exer-
cises^and the study_of the Scriptures than when he was a
fagging drudge7 ; that ' miner.alo^y_^jid^_chemistiy_were his
chief studies, andthe composition of music ' ; though, from the
time he thought of standing at Oriel, he gave considerable
time to L_atin_comgosition, to logic, and to natural philosophy ;
that, as an undergraduate, he used to say, 'When I have
taken my degree I will do many things — compose a piece of
music for instruments, experimentalise in chemistry, thirdly
[on which he insisted much] get up_the Persian_language.'
In consequence of this last design7his~Mother bought him an
Arabic and Persian vocabulary, now in the Oratory library,
but nothing came of it. It does not appear from any papers

1821 Autobiographical Memoir 55
he has left how this study came into his mind. Was it sug
gested by Henry Martyn's history ?
These notices have, perhaps, a claim to be introduced into
this Memoir for their own sake ; but here they are simply
meant to illustrate the surprise and discomposure with which
his good friends at Trinity, nay, almost he himself, in spite of
himself, contemplated his resolution to engage in so forlorn
a hope as an attempt on an Oriel fellowship. None thought
it possible that he could succeed in it ; and, at his suggestion,
Mr. Kinsey wrote to his father with the purpose, as far as
might be, of putting before him the state of the case, and
guarding him against disappointment. He, Eansey, told him
that in the competition at Oriel ' the_siruggJes_of- the.Jbest
hajie-iailed' ; and that, ' knowing the many opponents which
his son would have to encounter, men of celebrity for talent
and reading, he, the writer, with all his eager desire for his
friend's success, did not permit himself to be at all sanguine
as to his beating the field.'
Mr. Short was as little inclined to look hopefully upon
Newman's prospects at Oriel as the rest, but he took a larger
view of the matter, and was not unwilling that he should
stand. He knew enough of him to expect that he would do
himself and his college credit, and he had strongly expressed
this to friends of Newman in London, who, being sincerely
interested in him, and anxious about his future, asked Mr.
Short what he had to say on the subject, who answered them
that Newman would not succeed, but that he would show what
was in him, and thereby in a certain measure retrieve his un
expected failure the year before ; he wished the Oriel men to
have an opportunity of passing a judgment on him. In truth,
it was, naturally and fairly, a matter of personal and collegiate
interest with Mr. Short, over and above his goodwill towards
Newman. The opening of the Trinity scholarships was Short's
doing, and he had actually recommended him -to stand in
1818. In the election, formidable out-college opponents had
been put aside for him, and his failure in examination had
been an untoward incident in the first start of a great reform.
Mr. Short had brought out these feelings to him with the
greatest delicacy, soon after his misfortune. On his asking

56 John Henry Newman chap, n
Chort, in April 1821, whether he should write for one of the
Chancellor's prizes, yearly given for the best English and
Latin essays, Mr. Short answered in the affirmative, and
went on to give the following reasons for wishing it : '' I have
no doubt,' he said, ' of your producing something that either
will succeed now or train you to certain success another year.
In fact, the uppermost wish in my mind respecting you is
that you may^stin^ujsh_y3r^£Jm_the.j^^ruim.and prove
to the world, what is already__well_ Anown.Jia-jaujafiiYe_s, that
thejaurity of our^ elections is unsullied. For should your old
competitor at Worcester obtain high honours in the schools,
sneerers will not be wanting to amuse themselves at your and
our expense. Perhaps these reasons never occurred to VO/V-'
Short had said, in a former part of the letter, that he should
himself have suggested to him to attempt the essay long
before, but he had been anxious "whether Mr. Newman's health
allowed it.
By a singular coincidence Oriel College that same year,
and at that very time, was subjecting itself, and even more
directly and wittingly, to a criticism upon its impartiality in
conducting its competitive examinations, fiercer and more
public than this, which Mr. Short only feared for Trinity.
Though in that day the acknowledged centre of Oxford in-
tellectualism, Oriel had never professed, in its elections, simply
to choose the candidate who passed the best examination;
and, though on its foundation were for the most part men
who had taken the highest honours in the schools, it never
made the school standard its own. Religious, ethical, social
considerations, as well as intellectual merits, external to the
curriculum of the schools, all told in its decisions ; the votes
fell on the men whom each elector in his conscience thought
best to answer to the standard of a Fellow of Oriel, as the
statutes of Adam de Brome and King Edward II. determined
it. In consequence, there was ever the chance of the election
of a candidate of a nature to startle his competitors and
the public at large, as being unexpected and unaccountable.
Such an anomalous election, as many men thought it, had
taken place in 1821, just three days before Newman's letter to
Mr. Short above spoken of. A second-class man had been

1821 Autobiographical Memoir 57
preferred to one whose name stood in the first class ; and
though the successful candidate did, as if in justification of
his selection, gain the Chancellor's Latin essay prize a few
months later, yet it so happened his rival, whom he had
beaten, was able, at the annual Commemoration, to hurl de
fiance at him in the theatre from the opposite rostrum, as
having been the successful competitor for the English essay.
This essay, as being in English, gave opportunity for vigorous,
brilliant, and popular writing, which was denied to a com
position written in Latin ; and judgment on the rival merits of
the two men was thus shifted to a public opinion, external both
to college and University, and in fact that judgment was passed
in certain influential quarters to the disadvantage of the suc
cessful candidate and his electors. There was a Review of
great name, then as now, which had for many years been in
feud with Oxford, and especially with Dr. Copleston, Provost
of Oriel, and his Society. An editor, whoever he be, taking
human nature at the best, sometimes ' dormitat,' however
' bonus ' ; and an article against Oriel found its way into his
July number, so exceptionable, to use a mild word, that in a
second edition — according to the recollection of the present
writer — sentences or expressions were erased from it.
The article is upon classical study ; and after speaking of
the English Universities generally in that connexion, it directs
its attention to their open fellowships, and to the nature of
the examination usual for determining the choice between
the candidates, and to the proceedings and the result of the
election. The allusion to Oriel, and to the election made at
the preceding Easter, was unmistakable. The following is a
portion of the writer's invective, for such it must be called.
[N.B. — Let it be observed I have concealed the really
bad fact that the writer was the unsuccessful candidate. But
Copleston has blabbed it.]1
Let a young man only abdicate the privilege of thinking —
to some no painful sacrifice — and devote his whole body and
soul to the sordid ambition of success, and the way to win
1 Wherever a note enclosed in brackets occurs in the text, it is to
be understood that it comes from the pen of J. H. N., as writer 01
transcriber, whether these initials appear or not.

58 - John Henry Newman chap, h
with such electors is no formidable problem. . . . After a dull
examination in the schools — if a failure so much the better —
he may begin to be the butt of Common-Rooms, circulate tutor's
wit, and prose against the ' Edinburgh Review.' . . . Guiltless
of fame, of originality, or humour, our tyro may then approach
the scene of action, secure that the judges will take good care
that ' the race shall not be to the swift nor the battle to the
strong.' Hardy professions of impartiality are indeed held
forth, to attract unwary merit ; and selfish mediocrity finds
the most exquisite of all its gratifications in the momentary
chance of harassing the talent it would tremble to confront.
The candidates are locked up to write themes, solve a sorites,
discover the Latin for an earthquake, and perform other
equally edifying tasks ; and the close of this solemn farce is the
annunciation of a choice that had been long before determined,
in proportion to the scrapings, grins and genuflections of the
several competitors. Who can be surprised if, under a system
like this, genius and knowledge should so seldom strike a
lasting root ? or that maturity, which succeeds to a youth so
prostituted, should produce, by its most vigorous efforts, nothing
better than learned drivelling and marrowless inflation 1
It is scarcely necessary to say that this tirade against
Oxford and Oriel was as unjust as4 it was unmannerly ; how
ever, diis aliter visum. Such a spirited denunciation seems to
have been considered in a high quarter just what was wanted
to show the world what retribution was to descend, and what
terrible examples would be made, if an Oxford college presumed
to maintain a standard and exercise a judgment of its own, on
the qualifications necessary in those who were to fill up vacant
places on its foundation ; and, though the Oriel Fellows were
of too independent and manly a cast of mind, and had too
high a repute and too haughty pretensions, to succumb to a
self-appointed and angry censor, yet, in spite of their natura?
indignation at his language, the charge brought against them,
as coming with so weighty a sanction, would necessarily tend
to make them more wary of the steps they took in the ensuing
election of 1822— more unwilling, if it could be helped, to run
risks, and more anxious that their decisions should be justified
by the event. This state of things, then, at Oriel cannot be
said to have told in Mr. Newman's favour, when at length he

1821 Autobiographical Memoir 59
resolved on submitting his talents and attainments, such as
they were, to the inspection of Provost and Fellows. For they
could not pronounce in his favour without repeating, in an
exaggerated form, their offence of the foregoing year : that is,
without passing over the first-class competitors, and electing
instead of them one whose place in the paper of honours was
ever taken, in popular estimation, as the token of a mistake or
a misfortune ; an intimation, known and understood by all
men, that there had been an attempt at something higher and
a failure in attaining it.
Such being the external view presented to us by Mr. New
man's venturous proceeding, let us trace seriatim, from his
private memoranda, how it presented itself to his own mind.
The examination was to be in the first days of the ensuing
April ; it was now the middle of November ; he had at least
four good months before him. He notes down on November 15 :
I passed this evening with the Dean — Mr. Kinsey — whose
Oriel cousin was there. He said the principal thing in the
examination for Fellows was writing Latin. I thought I ought
to stand ; and, indeed, since, I have nearly decided on so doing.
(How active still are the evil passions of vainglory, ambition,
&c, within me ! 1 After my failure last November, I thought
that they would never be unruly again. Alas ! no sooner is
any mention made of my standing for a fellowship than
every barrier seems swept away ; and they spread, and
overflow, and deluge me v wa-vep £vv hrirovs ijv(.oo-Tpo$S
8p6fj.ov, (fee.1
He continues (December 1) :
There is every reason for thinking I shall not succeed, and
I seem to see it would not be good for me^but my heart boils
over with vainglorious anticipations of success.-1 It is not
likely, because I am not equal to it in abilities or attainments ;
it seems probable that I shall fail once or twice, and get some
fellowship somewhere at last.
Two months later, February 5, 1822, he writes :
To-day I called on the Provost of Oriel, and asked his
permission to stand at the ensuing election. I cannot help
» Choepli. 1009.

6o John Henry Newman chap. »
thinking I shall one time or other get a fellowship there : most
probably next year. I am glad I am going to stand now ; I
shall make myself known, and learn the nature of the examina
tion. The principal thing seems to be Latin composition, and
a metaphysical turn is a great advantage ; general mathematics
are also required. . . . Last 5th of January [1821], I wrote
to my aunt : ' I deprecate the day in which God gives me any
repute, or any approach to wealth.' Alas, how I am changed !
I am perpetually praying to get into Oriel, and to obtain the
prize for my essay. O Lord ! (dispose of me as will best pro
mote Thy glory, but give me resignation and contentment.,)
On February 21 be came of age, and he writes to his
Mother in answer to her congratulations : ' I thought of the
years that are gone, and the expanse which lies before me,
and qnite shed tears to think I could no longer call myself a
boy ' / and then, after noticing his employments, he continues :
' What time I have left, I am glad — and, indeed, obliged— to
devote to my attempt at Oriel, wishing to prepare myself for
that which (after all) will not admit of preparation.' )
Then he says, in corroboration of what Mr. Kinsey was
saying in the letter above quoted :
I was very uneasy to find by something in my Father's and
your letter, that you thought I had a chance of getting in this
time. Do not think so, I entreat. You only hear, and cannot
see the difficulties. Those on the spot think there is little or
no chance ; and who, indeed, will not rightly wonder at the
audacity of him who, being an under-the-line himself, presumes
to contend with some of the first men in the University, for a
seat by the side of names like Keble and Hawkins 1
He wished his home friends not to share his hopes, lest
they should have to share his disappointment. The chances
were much against him ; his hopes, nevertheless, were high,
but while an avowal of this might mislead those who did hot
know Oxford, it would incur the ridicule of those who did.
His hopes are recorded in a memorandum made the next
day :
I have called on Tyler to-day [the then Dean of Oriel]. I
do not know how it happens, but I certainly feel very confident
with respect to Oriel, and seem to myself to have a great

1822 Autobiographical Memoir 6i
chance of success. Hope leads me on to fancy my confidence
itself has something of success in it, and I seem to recol
lect something of the same kind of ardour when I stood at
Trinity. However, before many weeks were out, he was obliged to
let out to his Father the hopes he had been so carefully con
cealing from him. Made anxious by the tone of his son's
letter, written on occasion of his birthday, he wrote to warn
him that, if he continued in the desponding temper which his
letters home betokened, he certainly would not be able to do
justice to his talents and attainments, and would be the cause
of his own failure. This obliged him to answer on March 15
thus :
I assure you that they know very little of me, and judge
very superficially of me, who think I do not put a value on
myself relatively to others. I think (since I am forced to
speak boastfully) (few have attained the facility of compre
hension which I have arrived at from the regularity and con
stancy of my reading, and the laborious and nerve-bracing
and fancy-repressing study of mathematics, which has been
my principal subject.1
On the 18th he repeats in a private memorandum :
I fear I am treasuring up for myself great disappointment ;
for I think I have a great chance of succeeding. I lay great
stress on the attention I have given to mathematics, on account
of the general strength it imparts to the mind. Besides, ever
since my attempts at school, I have given great time to com
position. As when I was going up for my degree examination
every day made my hopes fainter, so now they seem to swell
and ripen as the time approaches.
The examination was now close at hand, and he suffered
some reaction of feeling when he plunged into it. On the
close of it he thus writes :
I have several times been much comforted yesterday and
to-day by a motto in Oriel hall [in a coat of arms in a window],
Fie repone te. I am now going to bed, and have been very
calm the whole evening. Before I look into this book again
it will be decided.

62 John Henry Newman chap, ii
Next day — the Friday in Easter week — he writes : ' I
have this morning been elected Fellow of Oriel.' 1
Some account of what passed in this, to him, memorable
day is introduced in bis ' Apologia ' ; other incidents of it are
noted in his letters to members of his family, and others again
he used to recount at a later date to his friends. When the
examination had got as far as the third day, his papers had
made that impression on Dr. Copleston and others of the
electors, that three of them — James, Tyler, and Dornford—
went over to Trinity to make inquiries of the Fellows about
his antecedents and general character. This, of course, was
done in confidence ; nor did his kind tutor, Mr. Short, in any
degree violate it ; at the same time he was himself so excited
by this visit, that he could not help sending for Mr. Newman
on the pretext of inquiring of him what had been his work,
and how he had done it ; and by the encouraging tone in
which he commented on his answers, he did him a great deal
of good.2 Newman used to relate how, when sent for, he found Mr.
Short at an early dinner in his rooms, being about to start
from Oxford ; and how Short made him sit down at table and
partake of his lamb cutlets and fried parsley— a bodily re
freshment which had some share in the reassurance with
which Short's words inspired him. He wrote to his Mother
in retrospect, some three weeks after, ' Short elevated me so
much, and made me fancy I had done so well, that on Wednes
day I construed some part of my \yiva voce] passages with very
great readiness and even accuracy.'
Mr. Newman used also to relate the mode in which the
announcement of his success was made to him. The Provosts
butler— to whom it fell by usage to take the news to the
fortunate candidate — made his way to Mr. Newman's lodgings
in Broad Street, and found him playing the violin. This in
itself disconcerted the messenger, who did not associate such
1 Writing to his Father, the words were, ' I am just made Fellow
Of Oriel. Thank God ! '
2 Mr. Short told him on February 27, 1878, when he was in Oxford
on the occasion of his being elected Honorary Fellow of Trinity, that,
on sending for him, he found Mm intending to retire from the examina
tion, and that he persuaded him to continue the contest.

1822 Autobiographical Memoir 63
an accomplishment with a candidateship for the Oriel Common-
Room ; but his perplexity was increased when, on his deliver
ing what may be supposed to have been his usual form of
speech on such occasions, that ' he had, he feared, disagreeable
news to announce, viz. that Mr. Newman was elected Fellow
of Oriel, and that his immediate presence was required there,'
the person addressed, thinking that such language savoured of
impertinent familiarity, merely answered, ' Very well,' and
went on fiddHng. This led the man to ask whether, perhaps,
he had not mistaken the rooms and gone to the wrong person,
to which Mr. Newman replied that it was all right. But, as
may be imagined, no sooner had the man left, than he flung
down his instrument, and dashed down stairs with all speed
to Oriel College. And he recollected, after fifty years, the
eloquent faces and eager bows of the tradesmen and others
whom he met on his way, who had heard the news, and well
understood why he was crossing from St. Mary's to the lane
opposite at so extraordinary a pace.
He repeats, in his letter to his Mother, a circumstance in
his first interview, which followed, with the Provost and
Fellows — which in his ' Apologia ' he has quoted from his
letter to Mr. Bowden : ' I could bear the congratulations of
Copleston, but when Keble advanced to take my hand I quite
shrank, and could have nearly shrunk into the floor, ashamed
at so great an honour — however, I shall soon be used to this.'
He pursues his history of the day thus :
. . . The news spread to Trinity with great rapidity. I
had hardly been in Kinsey's room a minute when in rushc '.
Ogle like one mad. Then I proceeded to the President's, and
in rushed Ogle again. I find that Tomlinson rushed into
Eehalaz's room, nearly knocking down the door, to communi
cate the news. Echalaz in turn ran down stairs ; Tompson
heard a noise and my name mentioned, and rushed out also ;
and in the room opposite found Echalaz, Ogle, and Ward. Men
hurried from all directions to Trinity to their acquaintance
there, to congratulate them on the success of their college.
The bells were set ringing from three towers (I had to pay for
them). The men who were staying up at Trinity, reading for
their degree, accuse me of having spoilt their day's reading.

64 John Henry Newman chap, n
There is a letter from him to his brother Charles, in which
he says : ' I took my seat in chapel, and dined with a large
party in the Common-Room. I sat next to Keble, and, as I
had heard him represented, he is more like an undergraduate
than the first man in Oxford ; so perfectly unassuming and
unaffected in his manner.'
And, lastly, he says in a letter to his Father : ' I am abso
lutely a member of the Common-Room ; am called by them
" Newman," and am abashed, and find I must soon learn to
call them " Keble," " Hawkins," "Tyler."'
So ends the eventful day.
As to Mr. Newman, he ever felt this twelfth of April, 1822,
to be the turning-point of his life, and of all days most memor
able. It raised him from obscurity and need, to competency
and reputation. He never wished anything better or higher
than, in the words of the epitaph, ' to live and die a Fellow of
Oriel.' Henceforth, his way was clear before him ; and he
was constant all through his life, as his intimate friends know,
in his thankful remembrance year after year of this great
mercy of Divine providence. Nor was it in its secular aspect
only that it was so unique an event in his history ; it opened
Upon him a theological career, placing him upon the high
and broad platform of University society and intelligence, and
bringing him across those various influences, personal and
intellectual, and the teaching of those various schools of eccle
siastical thought, whereby the religious sentiment in his mind,
which had been his blessing from the time he left school, was
gradually developed and formed and brought on to its legiti
mate issues.
This narrative of his attempt and its success will be most
suitably closed by the judgment on his examination, as given
by the very man to whom, more than to anyone, the Oriel
examinations owed their form and colour, and who specially
on that account had to meet the stress of those Northern
criticisms which, in their most concentrated and least defen
sible shape, have been exhibited above. ' That defect,' says
Bishop Copleston, speaking of the qualifications of a Fellow,
in a letter to Dr. Hawkins under date of May 2, 1843,
'which I always saw and lamented in examiners, and in

1822 Autobiographical Memoir 65
vain endeavoured to remedy, still seems not only to exist but
increases — the quackery of the schools. Every election to a
fellowship which tends to discourage the narrow and almost
the technical routine of public examinations, I consider as an
important triumph. You remember Newman himself was an
example. He was not even a good classical scholar, yet in
mind and power of composition, and in taste and knowledge,
he was decidedly superior to some competitors who were a
class above him in the schools.'
As Mr. Newman held the important offices of tutor and
public examiner in the years which followed, it may be right
to observe here that immediately on his becoming Fellow of
Oriel, he set himself to make up his deficiency in critical
scholarship, and with very fair success. Whately, soon after
his election, among his other kind offices, signified this to him,
being what he said a little bird had told him.

LETTERS AND EXTRACTS CONNECTING CHAP
TERS II. AND III. OF THE AUTOBIOGRAPHI
CAL MEMOIR
There remains a letter, from a schoo fellow and University
friend, which shows the popular estimate of an Oriel fellowship
as well as the Writer's sense of his friend's power :
F. R. Thresher to John Henry Newman.
April 12, 1822.
Behold you now a Fellow of Oriel, the great object of the
ambition of half the Bachelors of Oxford. Behold you (to
take a peep into futurity) in Holy Orders, taking pupils in
college, and having a curacy within a short distance ; then
Public Tutor, Vicar of  , Provost, Regius Professor of
Divinity, Bishop of  , Archbishop of Canterbury ; or shall
we say thus — Student-at-law, Barrister, Lord Chancellor, or
at least Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench 1 Which of
these ladders is it your intention to cliinb 1 You now have it
in your power to decide.
vol. 1. F

66 John Henry Newman isua
In a letter with some college details to his Father he speaks
of Keble : May 16, 1822.
... I shall only mention Keble. At eighteen he took
two first classes. Soon after he gained the two essays in
one year, and a fellowship at Oriel. He is the first man in
Oxford. To his Sister Harriett. August 2, 1822.
. . . Whately sets off for his living, bidding adieu to the
Towers of Oxford, after a residence of fifteen years, on Tuesday
next. I dined with him last Monday. Some years back I
found bound up in tracts an old number of the ' Quarterly
Review,' and in it I found the review of a Latin work of
Dr. Whitaker's. The criticisms I thought so judicious that
I copied them out and nearly got them by heart. Indeed,
for a long time, wandering as I was without a guide, wishing
to write Latin and having no one to inform me how to set
about it, those criticisms were my only comfort, the only
remarks which seemed vigorous and certain, and on which I
felt I could lean. How much was I surprised by Whately's
incidentally mentioning that the article was written by
Copleston ! He was surprised in his turn, saying he was
sure the Provost would be much gratified at hearing I had
copied them out, since he had written them for the very
purpose of instructing those who were aiming at Latin com
position. Whately tells me, if I have any desire ever to write
in the ' Quarterly,' I have nothing to do but to mention it to
the Provost [Copleston], and that the editor will quite jump
at anyone recommended from so high a quarter ; but what if
the Provost will not recommend me 1 I should not think of
writing yet.
The following lines speak of the fatigue to hand and
wrist that continuous writing was to Mr. Newman through
life: To his Sister. August 17, 1822.
Excuse my bad writing. You cannot tell how hurried I
am and how tired my hand is with writing. [Again :] My
hand is very tired ... O my poor hand ! ... My hand will
not compose a flowing sentence.

1C22 College Life 67
Possibly the care and attention used to defy this weakness
may have contributed to the beauty and precision which Mr.
Newman's handwriting maintained to the end.
Mr. Newman spent the Long Vacation of 1822 in Oxford,
where his youngest brother Francis, about to enter Worcester
College, joined him. In expectation of his arrival he writes
to his Mother : September 25, 1822.
. . . Expecting to see Frank, I am in fact expecting to see
you alL I shall require you to fill him full of all of you, that
when he comes I may squeeze and wring him out as some
sponge. . . .
The only way ultimately to succeed is to do things
thoroughly. I lost much time by superficial reading during
the whole Long Vacation this time two years. Francis shall
not go such bad ways to work. Liber sum (my pupil having
gone), and I have been humming, whistling, and laughing loud
to myself all day.
At the end of the following letter a name occurs which
was in the future to be closely connected with his own.
To his Father.
Dr. and Mrs. Lee were kind enough to call on me and ask
me to dinner to meet Serjeant Frere, Head of Downing College.
Mrs. Frere sings finely. Serjeant Frere seems to have a great
veneration for Copleston, and asked me much about him.
He did not know him. Directly he heard I was of Oriel
he turned round, as if the name of the college was an old
acquaintance. I mentioned to you the names of Greswell, Pusey, and
Churton, who are to stand next year. Surely I should have
had no chance next year if I had not succeeded this.
Of his brother Francis, who was reading with him up to
November 29 of this year, when he was entered at Worcester
College, Mr. Newman writes to his Mother :
Oriel: November 5, 1822.
. . . My time has been so engaged that I have hardly had
an opportunity of exainining Frank as I could wish. As far
as I have done so he seems to have much improved. To say
v 2

68 John Henry Newman 1822
that he knows more than most of those who iake common
degrees would be saying little. I am convinced that he knows
much more of Greek as a language than most of those who
take first classes, and to complete the climax, because it is
I who say it, he certainly knows much more of Greek as a
language, in fact is a much better Greek scholar, than I.
Recollect I am not talking of history or anything which is the
subject of Greek. Again he is a much better mathematician
than I am. I mean he reads more mathematically, as Aristotle
would say. ...
It was a time of family anxieties, in which Mr. Newman
eagerly took his part. To his Father he had written, Dec. 5,
1822 : ' Everything will — I see it will — be very right if only
you will let me manage '; telling him in the same letter of his
work lately undertaken for the ' Encyclopaedia Metropolitana.'
Mrs. Newman acknowledges his letter a few days after :
December 12, 1822.
Your Father forwarded to me your delightful letter, which
I know it will gratify you to hear gave him so much pleasure,
that I have not seen anything cheer and comfort him like it
a long time. I am quite at a loss to say anything adequate
to my feelings on the whole business. ... I congratulate
Francis on his matriculation, and am delighted to anticipate
that he will, whenever opportunity occurs, do you credit, and
reward all your labours and anxiety for him. I fully accord
with you when you say, ' Let me alone, I shall do it all well.
If you will let me manage, all will be right.' This is just the
text I have preached from, whenever your Father and I have
discussed the subject. For many months I always begin and
end by saying, ' I have no fear, John will manage.'
And that he did manage may be gathered from indirect
notices. Looking back in 1823 on the past year 1822, Mr.
Newman writes in a private journal :
This year past (1822) has been a scene of laborious study
from the commencement to the close. Let me praise that
excessive mercy which has blessed me with so strong a frame.
I have sometimes quite trembled on retiring to rest at my own
exertions. Quite well, indeed, am I; free from headache and
every pain.

1823 College Life 6g
Recalling this year later on, there is added :
For the Long Vacation of 1822 I took, for I do not know
how long, only four hours' sleep.
The year 1823 begins busily. To his Mother Mr. Newman
¦writes :
I have four pupils. I have since had an application from
a Merton man, and this morning from a Wadham man. My
fourth pupil is from Exeter, very docile and very nice. . . .
Mr. Mayer passed through Oxford on Tuesday, and dined
with me in Hall. The President of Corpus died about ten
days since. He was the father of the University, being entered
in George IL's time. To his Sister Harriett. July 23, 1823.
You are continually in my thoughts, and I should contrive
to write to you oftener, perhaps, than I do, were I sure I was
writing to you alone ; not because there would be anything in
my communications that I should mind the world knowing,
but from that instinctive feeling in consequence of which, the
smaller the company the freer and more intimate becomes our
conversation, and those things which we should delight to im
part to each individually, we cannot force ourselves to disclose
to them all together. You are, as I said before, continually
in my thoughts ; need I add, continually in my prayers 1
The Oriel election is coming on very soon. There are very
strong men standing. Besides Mr. Pusey, whom I think you
have heard me mention, there are two Queen's men (one a
double first), a Brasenose, who has read (his friends are ready
to depose) twelve hours a day ever since he came to Oxford ;
a Balliol ; Mr. Proctor, of Jesus ; an Oriel ; and two Trinity.
All are first classes except the two last.
In a book of private memoranda occur the following
thoughts written in 1823 :
April 6. — If a man speaks incoherently, as I think, on
regeneration, if he speaks of the merit of works, if he speaks
of man's natural free will, I may suppose I do not understand
him, and that we differ in terms. But when he talks of our
natural sin as an iifirmity and I as a disease, he as an imper
fection and I as a poison, he as making man imperfect, as the

70 John Henry Newman 1823
angels may be, I as making him the foe of God, and an object of
God's wrath, here we can come to no argument with each other,
but one or other of us must fearfully mistake the Scriptures.
Again :
April 1 3. — We are apt to get censorious with respect to
others as soon as we ourselves have adopted any new strictness.
At least, that is the case with me. For a long time after God
had vouchsafed His grace to me, I saw no harm in going to
the play. [Till 1821. But I don't suppose I can have gone
more than once or twice between 1816 and 1820.] Directly I
changed I grew uncharitable towards those who went. While
I was an undergraduate I profaned Sunday ; for instance, I
made no objection to reading newspapers on Sunday ; yet the
minute I leave off this practice, I can hardly bring myself to
believe anyone to have a renewed mind who does so. Humility
is the root of charity. Charity hopeth all things, even as
regards those who outwardly appear offending.
The following letter, to a young man of sceptical opinions,
is of the same date — 1823 :
... I cannot conclude this without adverting to the sub
ject which engaged our attention on our last walk. We find
one man of one opinion on religion, another of another ; and
thus may be led hastily to conclude that opinions diametrically
opposed to each other, may be held without danger to one side
or the other in a future state. But contradictions can be no more
true in religion than in astronomy or chemistry ; and there is
this most important distinction between scientific and religious
opinions, that, whereas errors in the former are unattended
with danger to the person who maintains them, he who 'holdeth
not the faith ' (I am not now determining what that faith is),
such a one is said to be incapable of true moral excellence, and
so exposed to the displeasure of God. The first point, then, is
to press upon the conscience that we are playing with edged
tools ; if, instead of endeavouring perseveringly to ascertain
what the truth is, we consider the subject carelessly, captiously,
or with indifference. Now it will be found, I presume, on a
slight examination, that the generality of men have not made
up their religious views in this sincere spirit. . . . This is not
the frame of mind in which they can hope for success in any
worldly pursuit ; why then in that most difficult one of religious

1823 College Life 71
truth ? . . . I should be grieved if you thought I was desirous
of affecting superior wisdom, or gaining converts to a set of
opinions. In every one of us there is naturally a void, a rest
lessness, a hunger of the soul, a craving after some unknown
and vague happiness, which we suppose seated in wealth,
fame, knowledge, in fact any worldly good which we are not
ourselves possessed of. . . .
Mr. Newman's letters to his sisters about this date show
an active sympathy and interest in their education, and pro
gress in thought and accomplishments. They sent their verses
to him for criticism, and his answers always show interest and
a mind at work.
August 22, 1823, he writes to H. E. N. :
My first reason for not having been down to see you is
that I wish to give you time for perfecting your translation
of Tasso, and your Andante minor.
Again, speaking of his sister :
Harriett has been showing me what she has done of the
passage of Gibbon ; of course it may be corrected, but it does
her much credit. It is a harder thing to do than might at
first be imagined.
In a postscript he writes :
Jemima is an ingenious girl, and has invented a very correct
illustration of the generation of asymptotic curves.
In a letter to his Mother he sets his youngest sister of
eleven a task :
For Mary I hang on the end of this letter a string of
grammatical questions.1
The following advice was written about the time when,
acting on his own precepts, he had committed the Epistle to
the Ephesians to memory :
1 Perhaps some reader may like to see these questions. ' Mary,
supply the words omitted in the following elliptical expressions and
phrases :. Wake Duncan with the knocking — would thou couldst. The
Duke, brave as he was, shuddered. So far from it that he fled the
enemy. 0 well is thee, and happy sbalt thou be I You are as odd
a girl as ever I saw. A thrill how sweet, who feels alone can know.'

72 John Henry Newman ioao
To his Sister Harriett. October 13, 1823.
If you have leisure time on Sunday, learn portions of
Scripture by heart. The benefit seems to me incalculable. It
imbues the mind with good and holy thoughts. It is a re
source in solitude, on a journey, and in a sleepless night ;
and let me press most earnestly upon you and my other dear
sisters, as well as on myself, the frequent exhortations in
Scripture to prayer.
The following letter to his Mother lets the reader into the
social habits, with regard to costume, of the Oxford of some
seventy years ago : November 1, 1823.
What a significant intimation yesterday's snow has given
us of a severe winter ! Trees have been torn up by the wind
in all directions. And to-day the Cherwell is so swollen
with the rains, that it nearly overflows Christ Church water
walk. My lodgings are in the High Street, some way from
Oriel, so you may fancy it is very inconvenient to paddle to
dinner in thin shoes and silk stockings.
I am beginning to attend some private lectures in divinity
by the Regius Professor, Dr. Charles Lloyd, which he has been
kind enough to volunteer to about eight of us ; 1 so you may
fancy my time is much occupied. I have taken a ride or two,
make it a practice to be in bed by eleven o'clock, and rise with
the lark at half -past five. When I rise I sometimes think that
you are lying awake and thinking — and only such apprehen
sions make me uncomfortable.
The year 1824 naturally brought reflections with it, such
as are found among his memoranda :
February 21. — I quite tremble to think the age is now come
when, as far as years go, the ministry is open to me. Is it
possible ? have twenty-three years gone over my head ? The
days and months fly past me, and I seem as if I would cling
hold of them and hinder them from escaping. There they lie,
entombed in the grave of Time, buried with faults and failings,
and deeds of all sorts, never to appear till the sounding of
1 Dr. Mozley's Old Testament Lectures, delivered to Masters of Arts,
were undertaken by him as following the example of Dr. Lloyd.

1824 College Life 7$
the last trump. . . . Keep me from squandering time — it is
irrevocable. Writing to his sister Jemima, after telling of the preva
lence of smallpox in Oxford, owing, it is said, to the poorer
sort of persons persisting in having their children inoculated,
and of his own re-vaccination, the letter goes on :
March 8, 1824.
Bishop Hobart, of New York, is in Oxford. I dined with
him at the Provost's yesterday. He is an intelligent man,
and gave us a good deal of information on the affairs of the
American Episcopal Church. . . . W. Coleridge and Lipscombe
are, I believe, to be the West Indian Bishops. . . .
Keble has declined one of the Archdeaconries. . . . The
other day I had a letter from Bowden. He tells me that Sola,
his sister's music master, brought Rossini to dine in Grosvenor
Place not long since ; and that, as far as they could judge (for
he does not speak English), he is as unassuming and obliging
a man as ever breathed. He seemed highly pleased with
everything and anxious to make himself agreeable. Labour
ing, indeed, under a very severe cold, he did not sing, but
he accompanied two or three of his own songs in the most
brilliant manner, giving the piano the effect of an orchestra.
. . . As he came in a private not a professional way, Bowden
called on him, and found him surrounded, in a low, dark
room, by about eight or nine Italians, all talking as fast as
possible, who, with the assistance of a great screaming macaw,
and of Madame Rossini, in a dirty gown and her hair in curl
papers, made such a clamour that he was glad to escape as
fast as he could.
We are going through ' Prideaux's Connexion' with Dr.
Charles Lloyd. A very fine class we are ! Eleven individuals
and eight first-classes.
Mr. Newman was ordained deacon on Trinity Sunday,
June 13, 1824. Amongst his papers is the following memo
randum, written shortly before that event :
May 16, 1824. — St. Clement's Church is to be rebuilt ; but
before baginning the subscription, it is proposed to provide a
curate who shall be a kind of guarantee to the subscribers,
that every exertion shall be made, when the church is built,
to recover the parish from meeting-houses, and on the other

74 John Henry Newman ibz*
hand ale-houses, into which they have been driven for want of
convenient Sunday worship. . . . The only objection against
my taking it is my weakness of voice. . . . Mr. Mayer advises
me to take it, so do Tyler, Hawkins, Jelf, Pusey, Ottley.
Through Pusey, indeed, it was offered.
Yesterday I went and subscribed to the Bible Society,
thinking it better to do so before engaging in this under
taking. To his Father he wrote when the matter was so far
settled : May 25, 1824.
I have delayed writing because I wished to tell you par
ticulars. Directly I knew that I had got a curacy, I did let
you know. I am convinced it is necessary to get used to
parochial duty early, and that a Fellow of a college, after ten
years' residence in Oxford, feels very awkward among poor
and ignorant people. The rector of the parish, being infirm,
wanted a curate, and applied to a Fellow of Balliol [C. Girdle-
stone], who, through a friend of mine [Pusey], offered the curacy
to me. The parish consists of 2,000 inhabitants, and they
wish to build a new church, since the present holds but 300.
I have much more business on my hands than I ought to
have. . . .
Again he writes : To his Father. June 3, 1824.
... In the autumn of 1801 the parish of St. Clement's
contained about 400 inhabitants ; in 1821 about 800. Since
that time Oxford has become more commercial than before,
owing to the new canals, &c, all which has tended to increase
the population. But the increase of this particular period
has been also owing to the improvements in the body of the
town. Old houses which contained, perhaps, several families,
have been pulled down to make way for collegiate buildings,
to widen streets, to improve the views. This had made build
ing a very profitable speculation on the outskirts of the place,
and the poor families, once unpacked, have not been induced
to dwell so thickly as before. The parish in which I am inte
rested I find consists at present of 2,000, and it is still increas
ing. The living, I am told, is worth about 80£. ; I do not
suppose the curacy will be more than iOl. or 50J.

i»a4 COLLEGE LIFE 75
As I shall be wanted as soon as possible, my present in
tention is to run away from Oxford by a night coach on Trinity
Sunday night, or Monday morning, stopping an hour or two
at Strand,1 thence proceeding to London, and returning to
Oxford Wednesday or Thursday. More time neither my pupils
nor the duties of the curacy will allow, and I wish, if possible,
to see you all before I am nailed down to Oxford.
I finished the Cicero on Friday last ; finished the correc
tions (fee. by Tuesday, and despatched my parcel to town by a
night coach. It will appear, I expect, in the course of a month
or five weeks.2 To his Mother. July 28, 1824.
You must have thought me very silent, but I have not had
time to write. ... I was at Cuddesdon yesterday ; at Warton,
Saturday to Monday ; 3 at Deddington shortly before ; at
N'uneham before that ; and expect to go to Pusey, which is
fourteen miles off, in the course of next week.
About ten days ago I began my visitation of the whole
parish, going from house to house, asking the names, numbers,
trades, where they went to church, &c. I have got through,
as yet, about a third (and the most respectable third) of the
1 Where his aunt, Mrs. Elizabeth Newman, resided.
* When the edition of 1 872 was brought out, the following prefatory
notice was added, but finally cancelled by the author {Historical
Sketches, vol. i. p. 245) :
'If the following sketch of Cicero's life and writings be thought
unworthy of so great a subject, the author must plead the circumstances
under which it was made.
' In the spring of 1824, when his hands were so full of work, Dr.
Whately paid him the compliment of asking him to write for the En-
cyclopcedia Metropolitana, to which he was at that time contributing
himself. Dr. Whately explained to him that the editor had suddenly
been disappointed in the article on Cicero, which was to have appeared.
in the Encyclopedia, and that in consequence he could not allow more
than two months for the composition of the paper whi^h was to take
its place ; also lhat.it must contain such and such subjects. The author
undertook to finish it under these conditions. It will serve to show hnw
busy he was at the time, to say that one day, after working with his
private pupils till the evening, he sat down to his article till four o'clock
next morning, and then walked over from Oxford to Warton, a distance
of eighteen miles, in order to appear punctually at the breakfast table
of a friend, the Rev. Walter Mayer, who on quitting home had com*
mitted his pupils in his parsonage to the author's charge.'
* Mr. Newman preached his first sermon, June 23, at Warton.

76 John Henry Newman 1824
population. In general they have been very civil ; often ex
pressed gratification that a clergyman should visit them ;
hoped to see me again, <fec. (fee. If in the habit of attending
the dissenting meeting, they generally excused themselves on
the plea of the rector being old, and they could not hear him ;
or the church too small, (fee. ; but expressed no unwilling
ness to come back. I rather dread the two-thirds of the
parish which are to come ; but trust (and do not doubt) I shall
be carried through it well, and as I could wish. It will be a
great thing done ; I shall know my parishioners, and be known
by them. I have taken care always to speak kindly of Mr.
Hinton, the dissenting minister, expressed a wish to know
him, etc. ; said I thought he had done good — which he had— in
the place.
Last Sunday I had it given out in church that there would
be an afternoon sermon during the summer. From what I
hear, on talking to various people about it, I doubt not, with
God's blessing, it will answer very well. I am glad to say the
church is so full in the morning that people go away ; but
that is not saying much. As you recollect, it only holds two
hundred ; however, there often used not (I am told) to be more
than fifty at church. I wish very much to establish a Sunday
School. The only Sunday I have been absent from St.
Clement's was last Sunday, when I was at Warton. I had
three services and sermons there in the day ; but did not feel
fatigue. The sermons I send you were not intended for compositions :
you will find them full of inaccuracies. I am aware they con
tain truths which are unpalatable to the generality of man
kind ; but the doctrine of Christ crucified is the only spring of
real virtue and piety, and the only foundation of peace and
comfort. I know I must do good. I may and shall meet with
disappointments, much to distress me, much (I hope) to humble
me ; but as God is true, He will go with the doctrine : magna
est Veritas et prcevalebit.
On the subject of preaching, a memorandum, written this
year of his ordination, remains :
September 16.— (Those who make comfort the great subject
of their preaching seem to mistake the end of their ministry.
Holiness is the great end. There must be a struggle and a
toil here. Comfort is a cordial, but no one drinks cordials
from morning to night. )

1824 College Life 77
The following letter seems to show that his Father had
questioned the wisdom of house-to-house visitation — a feeling
prevalent with lay Churchmen of that day, by many of whom
these uninvited clerical calls were regarded as an infringe
ment of the Englishman's privilege of feeling his house his
castle. To his Father. August 9, 1824.
So far from this invasion of an Englishman's castle being
galling to the feelings of the poor, I am convinced by facts that
it is very acceptable. In all places I have been received with
civility, in most with cheerfulness and a kind of glad surprise,
and in many with quite a cordiality and warmth of feeling.
One person says, ' Aye, I was sure that one time or other
we should have a proper minister.' Another, that she had
understood from such a one that a ' nice young gentleman had
come to the parish ' ; a third ' begged I would do him the
favour to call on him, whenever it was convenient to me.'
(This general invitation has been by no means uncommon.)
Another, speaking of the parish she came from, said, 'The
old man preached very good doctrine, but he did not come to
visit the people at their houses as the new one did.' Singu
larly enough, I had written down as a memorandum a day
or two before I received your letter, ' I am more convinced
than ever of the necessity of frequently visiting the poorer
classes — they seem so gratified at it, and praise it.' Nor do I
visit the poor only ; I mean to go all through the parish ;
and have already visited the shopkeepers and principal
people. These, it is obvious, have facilities for educating
their children, which the poor have not ; and on that ground
it is that a clergyman is more concerned with the children
of the latter, though our Church certainly intended that, not
only schoolmasters of the poorer children, but all schoolmasters
high and low, should be under her jurisdiction. The plan was
not completed, and we must make the best of what we have
got. I have not tried to bring over any regular dissenters.
Indeed, I have told them all ' I shall make no difference be
tween you and church-goers. I count you all my flock, and
shall be most happy to do you a service out of church if I
cannot within it.' A good dissenter is, of course, incomparably
better than a bad churchman, but a good churchman I think
better than a good dissenter. There is too much irreligion in

78 John Henry Newman 1824
the place for me to be so mad as to drive away so active an
ally as Mr. Hinton seems to be. Thank you for your letter
and pardon my freedom of reply.
From his Mother. August 30, 1824.
. . I thank you for your sermons. They arrived at the
happy moment to be valuable to me . . . those I most par
ticularly admire are ' Wait on the Lord ' ; and ' Man goeth
forth to his work, and to his labour,'1 and the one on prayer.
I am very loth to part with them. . . .
Pray take care of your health. Your dear Father desires
his love. Adieu, my dear— that the Almighty may guide and
preserve you in all things is my earnest prayer.

To his Mother. August, 1824.
. . . Thank you for your kind hint about future sermons,
which I shall attend to. At the same time I doubt whether
I shall have occasion to preach on the texts you mention for
some little time. My parish (I fear) wants to be taught the
very principles of Christian doctrine. It has not got so far as
to abuse them. Different places, of course, require different
treatment. I shall certainly always strive in every pulpit so
to preach the Christian doctrines as at the same time to warn
people that it is quite idle to pretend to faith and holiness,
unless they show forth their inward principles by a pure dis
interested upright line of conduct.
My afternoon sermons have, thank God, succeeded very
well, and I find myself much stronger in voice than when I
began preaching.
Thank Charles for his two French letters. Tell him the
article in the ' Quarterly ' on pulpit eloquence is by Milman.
In the autumn of this year Mr. Newman was called home
by grave accounts of his Father's illness, and found him on his
death-bed. 1 The Editor was once told, by Mr. Newman's sister, that this was
the text of his first sermon.

1824 College Life 79

From his Mother. August 17, 1824.
My letters mentioned your dear Father's indisposition. I
lament to say it has much increased in the last month. . . .
He found it necessary to apply to some physician. . . . On
Tuesday he told him that, as the best of such cases were
serious, he should feel more satisfied to have a second opinion
in consultation with him. ... I thank God your Father has
been much relieved from pain for the last three or four days.
... I have postponed writing to you the last week, hoping to
send you better news ; but I think it would no longer be kind
to keep you in ignorance of his sad illness.
In a private diary are some touching entries on his Father's
last days, in which he ministered to him. The father and son
were very dear to each other :
That dread event has happened. Is it possible ? O my
Father ! I got to town on Sunday morning. He knew me ;
tried to put out his hand, and said ' God bless you ! ' Towards '
the evening of Monday he said his last words. He seemed in
great peace of mind. He could, however, only articulate ' God
bless you ; thank my God, thank my God ! ' and, lastly, ' My
dear.' Dr. C. came on Wednesday and pronounced him dying.
Towards evening we joined in prayer, commending his soul to
God. ... Of late he had thought his end approaching. One
day on the river he told my Mother, ' I shall never see another
summer.' On Thursday he looked beautiful. Such calmness,
sweetness, composure, and majesty were in his countenance.
Can a man be a materialist who sees a dead body ? I had
never seen one before. His last words to me, or all but his
last, were to bid me read to him the 53rd chapter of Isaiah.
Mr. Newman died on Wednesday, September 29, 1824. In
the same diary is the following entry :
October 6. — Performed the last sad duties to my dear
Father. When I die, shall I be followed to the grave by my
children 1 My Mother said the other day, she hoped to live
to see me married ; but I think I shall either die within

80 John Henry Newman 1824
college walls, or as a missionary in a foreign land. No matter
where, so that I die in Christ.1
Shortly after the loss of his Father, Mr. Newman hears
from his aunt, Mrs. Elizabeth Newman, of his grandmother's
declining state.
Mrs. E. Newman to J. H. N.
November 4, 1824.
My poor dear 6tKer1is\Mjnuch the same as when you saw
her, but still weaker and in much pain ; but when she does
speak she talks more of you and Francis than of anybody.
She lived to the May of the following year, having attained
the age of ninety-one. On the notice of her death occur these
words : ' She was my earliest benefactor, and how she loved
me!'2 Some private notes remain of Mr. Newman's visits to his
sick parishioners. One of these experiences may be given, as
telling something of the matter and manner of his pastoral
visiting :
. . . August, 1824 [or possibly 1825]. — John C. . . ., perhaps
thirty-five : had been a coachman, and all his life in the society
of coachmen. . . . For some months past, hearing he was in a
declining way, I have called from time to time, and particularly
1 In the Apologia, referring to an earlier date, we read : ' I am
obliged to mention, though I do it with great reluctance, another deep
imagination that at this time, the autumn of 1816, took possession of
me. There can be no mistake about the fact, viz. that it wou'd be the
will of God that I should lead a single life. This anticipation, which
has held its ground almost continuously ever since . . . was more or
less connected in my mind with the notion that my calling in life would
require such a sacrifice as celibacy involved ; as, for instance, missionary
work among the heathen, to which I had a great drawing for some
years. It also strengthened my feeling of separation from the visible
world, of which I have spoken above.'— Apologia pro Vita sua, p. 7.
2 See stanzas to his brother, F. W. N., in the volume of poems en
titled Verses. In her affection all had share —
All six, she loved them all ;
Yet on her early-chosen pair
Did her full favour fall ;
And we became her dearest theme,
Her waking thought, her nightly dream.

1824 College Life 8i
left Doddridge's ' Rise and Progress.' At length, the day
before yesterday, I was sent for. He seemed very near his
end, and was very desirous of seeing me. He talked of sin being
a heavy burden, of which he wished to be released. ' God was
most merciful in having spared him ; and he ought to be most
thankful ' (and he said it with energy) ' that he was favoured
with a clergyman to attend him.' Such is the substance of the
conversation I had with him yesterday and the day before.
To-day I found that he had suddenly declared the weight of
sin was taken off him, and tears burst from him, and he said
he was so rejoiced. He seems very humble and earnest, and
willingly listened to what I said about the danger of deception.
I was indeed much perplexed, fearing to speak against the
mysterious working of God (if it was His working), yet equally
fearing to make him satisfied with a partial repentance and
with emotions, and should do harm to his wife, (fee. 1 spoke
very strongly on our being sinful and corrupt till death ; on
the necessity of sin being found a burden always, on the fear
of self-deception and of falling away even after the most vivid
feelings ; and on the awful state of those who, having left religion
for their death-bed, could give no evidence of their sincerity.
All this he seemed to admit, and thanked me very fervently.
I am thinking of the cause of this. His mother, I see, is a
religious woman. She cannot be indiscreet ? Doddridge could
not mislead him — or is it the work of the Holy Spirit even in
its suddenness 1
The correspondence of this date shows that Mr. Newman's
name was becoming known beyond his parish or the walls of
his college. The Athenseum Club was formed in 1823 'for
the association of persons of scientific and literary attainments,
and artists ; and noblemen and gentlemen, patrons of learning,
&c.,' by the Earl of Aberdeen, Marquis of Lansdowne, Davy,
Scott, Mackintosh, Faraday, Chantry, Lawrence and others.
Mr. Heber to Rev. J. H. Newman.
November 29, 1824.
Mr. Heber presents his compliments to Mr. Newman, and
encloses for his inspection a list of the Athenseum.
If Mr. Newman should wish to become a member, Mr.
Heber will be happy to propose his name to the committee as
a candidate for election without ballot.
[N.B. I declined.— J. H. N.]
vol. i. a

82 John Henry Newman 1825
To his Mother. January 17, 1825.
I got down very safely on Saturday by half -past three. It
was very cold on the journey, the wind blowing against us all
the way. To my great mortification I was obliged, not merely
to put on my cloak, but even to wrap myself in it. I had the
satisfaction, however, of observing that the outside passengers
in front had close box coats as well as cloaks ; and on arriving
at Oxford I had the additional gratification of hearing it was
the coldest day we have had. I bathed the following morning
[the cold bath at Holywell] — yesterday — and got through the
duties of the day without fatigue. The waters have retired
from the flat country about us, and have left effluvia which are
neither agreeable nor wholesome.
The subscription for St. Clement's Church amounts to
above 2,600?., and the colleges are yet to come. Mr. Peel has
subscribed 1001., so has Mr. Heber. Lord Liverpool's carriage
being at the Bishop's door, has collected a crowd : Mr. Canning
is with him. I forgot to talk to you about your delightful plan
for next Long Vacation.
In a note-book he writes :
As yet the church subscription flourishes greatly, and my
Sunday school is in a good train for success. I find I am
called a Methodist. To his Sister Harriett. February 14, 1825.
Will you think me out of my senses when I tell you I have
engaged to write in two publications in spite of my other
occupations 1 and one of them the ' Encyclopsedia ' ! But I
must explain myself. I was conditionally engaged, as you
know, to the ' Theological Review,' when Whately sent me a
message that he wanted me to write some theological articles
(ecclesiastical history, for instance) in the 'Encyclopaedia.'
And so firmly was his mind made up on the subject, that
before he received my answer he wrote to Smedley about it,
who, in sending me a draft for my Cicero article (HI), ex
pressed his hope in a civil way that I should comply with
Whately's arrangement. I had made up my mind in the affir
mative, and for the following reasons : (1) I am persuaded, as

1825 College Life 83
Whately suggested, that sermon-writing by its-ilf has a ten
dency to produce a loose, rambling kind of composition, nay
even of thought. (2) The ecclesiastical articles at present are in
the hands of a person whom a certain friend of mine [Whately]
does not like, and wishes kindly to substitute me. Now I
thought, in so important a work as an Encyclopaedia, when an
opportunity was there offered me of influencing the religious
tone of the work, it was my duty to avail myself of it. (3)
My great objection to writing a second time in the work was
because I wished to devote my time to studies more connected
with my profession. This is now removed ; I do not, however,
begin till June next.
To his Mother.
February 14, 1825
The subscription to the church amounts to 3,700?. We
hope to get 500?. from the Society, and a liberal person has
said he will subscribe whatever is finally wanted to the amount
of 1,000?. I fear the church will cost 6,000?.
At last I have managed to begin a Sunday school. We
could get no Room of any kind. So Pusey was kind enough
to give the church a stove, and now we muster in the church,
but there is no Room.
These words explain what follows. In order to use the
church a temporary gallery was found necessary. The body
of the old church, small as it was, being no doubt crowded
with pews, and thus affording no proper standing or sitting
room for scholars or teachers. To his Mother. March 4, 1825.
. . . The difficulty of warming has been overcome, and
now to the more serious one of the erection of a gallery. It
was estimated at 20?. An objection was anticipated on the
score of its being likely to hurt the subscription to the new
church. This made it necessary that not a shilling of the
money should come from the parish, and that the subscription
should be quite private. The bishop [Legge] was not against
it. A friend of mine has subscribed 10?., his father or mother
5?., and various other friends 5?., besides my own subscription.
After all difficulties it was begun on Monday and finished
a 2

84 John Henry Newman 1825
yesterday. It will contain ninety-four children. We are in
some want of teachers, but get on better than we did.
I have undertaken for the ' Encyclopsedia Metropolitana
the memoir of ApoUonius Tyanseus, and the argument on
Miracles, as connected with it. It is a very difficult subject,
and I hesitated before I accepted it. It requires a great deal
of reading and much thought. No doubt it will improve me
much, but it must be done by September, and cannot be begun
till June. I trust God will carry me through it. I am in
hopes the ' Theological Review ' will not claim my promise.
[This hope proved fallacious.] To his Mother. March 29, 1825.
You have seen by the papers, perhaps. Dr. Elmsley's death,
and Whately's appointment to the Headship of St. Alban Hall.
He has done me the honour of appointing me Vice-Principal.
This will not be a great addition to my income — perhaps 50?.
a year ; but it is a post of considerable authority and respon
sibility. I am Dean, Tutor, Bursar, and all — in his absence,
indeed, Principal. I think I hinted something of the kind to
you last summer as a possible thing. . . .
The following tender mother's letter needs perhaps an
apology for its insertion ; but hers was a troubled life, and
such pleasure as the letter shows, would have been at any time
the greatest reward that her son's successes could earn him :
Mrs. Newman to her Daughter H. E. N.
March 31, 1825.
. . . Next, my dear, I have a very agreeable piece of news
to tell you. On my return I was delightfully greeted by a letter
from John, to say he can and will come here next Wednesday to
stay till Saturday morning. Though short, it will be a delight
ful peep at him. Of course you will wish, if possible, to return
to us on Wednesday evening. I look forward to Wednesday as
a happy day, please God ! Next, my dear, I must beg you to
be prepared to treat John with the proper respect due to a real
' Don.' To be serious ; Dr. Elmsley of St. Alban Hall is dead.
John's friend Whately is appointed 'Principal,' and he has
nominated John 'Vice-Principal.' . . . Were it anyone but
John I should fear it would be too much for his head or his

1825 College Life 85
heart at so early an age ; but in him I have the comforting
anticipation that he will use his power for the benefit of those
who entrust him with it ; that he will not be high-minded ;
that he will be sedulous to avail himself of his talents and
authority, to correct and improve a Hall. . . .
Rev. Dr. Jenkyns, Vice-Chancellor, to
Rev. J. H. Newman.
April 30, 1825.
Allow me to take the opportunity of requesting you to
favour the University with a sermon at St. Mary's, either in
the morning or afternoon of Whitsunday next.
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. Dr. Jenkyns.
April 30, 1825.
Allow me to express my sense of the kindness with which
you have honoured me, by the offer of a preacher's turn in
the University pulpit. 1 am as yet, however, so inexperienced
[N.B. — I was only a Deacon], and feel myself so insufficient
for such an office that I must beg to decline it.
Accept my most sincere thanks for your kind liberality to
the orphans of my parishioners, who, I can assure you, stand
in need of every assistance.
On May 29, 1825, Mr. Newman was ordained Priest.
Mr. Newman seems to have been at this time in all but
universal favour in his parish ; but, if there must be an excep
tion, his journal records what all experience will be prepared
for as the obvious one : ' I had a dispute with my singers in
May, which ended in their leaving the church, and we now
sing en masse.'
To H. E. N.
June 10, 1825.
My singers are quite mute ; and the business seems to have
dropt. Pusey left London for Germany, Wednesday last. He
will not, alas ! assist me [in the St. Clement's curacy] till
Christmas. In the summer of this year it was arranged that on tho
Principal of St. Alban's (Whately) leaving Oxford with his

86 John Henry Newman ioao
family for the vacation, Mrs. Newman and her daughters
should occupy the Principal's lodgings during two months of.
the Long Vacation. To his Mother. July^ 1825i
I need not say how glad I am you are coming. I intend
to have a sacrament August 7, at St. Clement's, and it will be
a great satisfaction to me, if two of my sisters for the first
time partake of it the first time you hear me do duty. [I
administered it as priest for the first time.]
His sisters Jemima and Mary had lately been confirmed.
To J. C. N. Jvlyt 1825t
. . . Pusey, by this time, I suppose, is near Gottingen, and
Xvprov (Churton) on his way to Rome ; and Pope on his way
to his curacy, which is near Bath.
The Provost [Copleston] has been so indisposed that he
has been to Cheltenham, and goes again, I fancy. Dr. Burrows
has called on me, and in very polite language pressed me to
write a third article, which I declined ; to which he gave a
rebutter, and I a sur-rebutter ; and there the matter dropped.
Tell Mary I sometimes think of her.
Rev. John Keble to Rev. J. H. Newman. July 19, 1825.
'Tis a shame to give the curate of St. Clement's any
additional trouble this hot weather, but now you are a brick-
and-mortar man [he was rebuilding St. Clement's Church]
and must learn to bear the heat. I wish you joy of your
grand work being begun; may it prosper, in the best sense.
. . . The leaves are beginning to shrink and fall as if they
were frozen, and the corn is almost ready to cut. Wishing
you a cool breeze and plenty of ice and lemonade, I remain
very warmly and affectionately yours, j Kbblb junr>
Rev. E. Hawkins to Rev. J. H. Newman. August, 1825.
I hope by this time your essay on Miracles a priori and
h posteriori parts, and all the contents of all the books in the
window-seat, are in a beautiful state of effervescence.

10ZD COLLEGE LIFE
E. B. Pdsey, Esq. (Fellow of Oriel) to Rev. J. H. Newman.
Gottingen: August 19, 1825.
I have not at any time forgotten my engagement to read
the part of Less [qy. Lessing] that relates to miracles, but I
own I was disappointed with the result. Some single points
seem well done, others are overstrained ; and though the
whole work seems to be prized as the fullest and most satis
factory here, I did not seem to recognise the master who is
seen in the translated piece. I will, however — not to do
nothing — extract any points, illustrations, &c, which may
furnish you with any matter for thought. ... Of our books,
Clarke and Ditton on the Resurrection seem to be very much
prized, so Lord Lyttelton. I would have read Nosotti's
' Defence ' for you also, but it is not in the library.
I have now been here six weeks, read not so much as I
wish, attend three lectures a day for the sake of the German,
see what society I can, and hope to be able, at the end of the
time, to understand German pretty well, but have not yet read
long enough and variety enough to know it. As to what I
have seen of German inquiry in different subjects, it seems to
be much more solid than usually among us.
I hope your church is rising rapidly, and that, without
hurting your health, you feel the good you are doing.
Rev. J. Pope to Rev. J. H. Newman.
September 10, 1825.
I am extremely sorry to discover that, owing no doubt to
the multipKcity of business in your hands, you are in a com
plete nervous fever. You certainly overwork yourself, and
your epistle informed me, without your mentioning it, that
you were in low spirits. Come down and pay me your promised
visit. Country air, novelty, superb scenery, and relaxation
from intense and overwhelming study ; a hearty welcome, with
a beautiful pony, &c.
Rev. Dr. Whately to Rev. J. H. Newman.
September 27, 1825.
As you so much admire my fallacy, I will honour you by
commurjicating a very good way of classifying the errors of
Romanists : namely, according to Aristotle's enumeration in

6 John Henry Newman i82«
the ' Poetics ' of the manoeuvres performed on words ; some are
curtailed, some enlarged, some altered, some invented, some
borrowed from foreigners, some transferred from one sense to
another, some tacked on where they are not wanted, and some
confounded together.
I trust to come out the beginning of the term with a volume
of essays made out of University sermons.
Rev. E. Hawkins to Rev. J. H. Newman.
September 27, 1825.
. . I have also replaced forty volumes for you in the
library, but I perceive you have, still several in your keeping.
Enjoy your holiday and return to your duty the better for it.
In the Long Vacation Mr. Newman takes a short holiday
with his friend Bowden in the Isle of Wight, and writes of its
beauties : To his Sister Harriett.
Peartree, Southampton : September 29, 1825.
Bowden's is in a very fine situation ; exquisite in scenery.
Yesterday we made an expedition in a yacht to the Needles.
The beauty of water and land only makes me regret that our
language has not more adjectives of admiration.
To his Mother. Peartree: October 2, 1825.
I have tried to write, for I have little or no time, from a
different reason, indeed, from my want of time at Oxford, for.
here it has been from drives, sailings, music, &c. I hope this
recreation will quite set me up for the ensuing term. The
weather, indeed, has been beautiful. I have been persuaded
to stay my whole holiday here. Jelf takes my duty for me.
We have been round the Needles, made an excursion to
Carisbrooke, dined with Mr. Ward ; we breakfasted also with
Judge Bailey. We have had music almost every evening;
Bowden, you know, plays the bass. I saw Kinsey a,t Mr.
Ward's. I have not been idle ; I am reading Davison on
Primitive Sacrifice, and have written much on other subjects,
and thought about some sermons. I return Wednesday next
to Oxford.

1825 College Life 89

To his Mother.
Oxford: October 26, 1825.
My holiday was passed very pleasantly at Peartree. They
wished me to come again in the course of the autumn, and
when they found that impossible, pressed me to come at
Christmas. I have promised, however, to make the visit
annual. Pusey is just returned, after having been nearly lost
at sea. To his Mother. Oriel: November 14, 1825.
I have taken bark according to Dr. Bailey's prescription
for three weeks ; and this, added to my excursion, has made
me so strong that parish, hall, college and ' Encyclopaedia,' go
on together in perfect harmony. I have begun the essay on
Miracles in earnest, and think I feel my footing better and
grasp my subject more satisfactorily.
I can pursue two separate objects better than at first. It
is a great thing to have pulled out my mind. I am sure I
shall derive great benefit from it in after life.
I have" joined in recommending Pusey not going into orders
yet. He has so much to do in the theological way in Hebrew
and Syriac.
Looking back in 1826 on the work done in 1825, there are
again allusions to the clash of occupations pressing at this
time. The refreshment of Mr. Newman's holiday had enabled
him to return to the various calls on his energies with less
sense of painful effort than he suffered from when such en
forced breaks upon concentration of thought were for any
length of time the rule.
I have been involved in work against my will. This time
last year Smedley asked me to write an article in the ' Encyclo
paedia.' After undertaking it Whately offered me the Vice-
Principalship. The Hall accounts, (fee, behig in disorder, have
haunted me incessantly. Hence my parish has suffered. I
have had a continual wear on my mind, mislaying memo
randa, forgetting names, &c. . . . The succeeding to the tutor
ship at Oriel has occasioned my relinquishing my curacy to

90 John Henry Newman 1825
Mr. Simcox, of Wadham, at Easter next ; at the same time
resigning the Vice Principalship of St. Alban Hall, being
succeeded by the Rev. Samuel Hinds.
The interval of a year and a half between Mr. Newman's
election to Oriel and his ordination has been illustrated by his
letters. It is now time to return to the Memoir, and its
history of the influence of Oriel within that period on his
mind and principles.

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR

CHAPTER III
The responsibility of becoming guarantee to the University,
that Newman, in spite of his ill success in the schools, was
deserving of academical distinction, was now transferred from
Trinity to Oriel ; and, if it had required courage in him to
offer himself to his electors in the latter college, it also
required courage, as has been said, in them to take hitr
Strong as they might be in their reliance on the independence
and purity of their elections, and broad as were their shoulders
if public opinion was invoked against them, still they had, in
choosing him, taken on themselves a real onus, and a real
anxiety in the prospect of his future ; and, if the sense of such
generosity towards him had remained at all times present
with him, he might have been saved from the hard thoughts
and words, and the impatient acts to which in after times he
was led to indulge at the expense of some of them. However
true might be the principles and sacred the interests which,
on the occasions referred to, he was defending, he had no call
to forget the past, no license at an after date to forget, that
if he was able to assert his own views in opposition to theirs
it was, in truth, they who had put him into a position enabling
him to do so.
As to their anxiety, upon his election, how he would turn
out, there were certainly, on his first introduction to the
Common-Room, definite points about him which made him
somewhat a difficulty to those who brought him there. In
the first place, they had to deal with his extreme shyness. It
disconcerted them to find that, with their best efforts, they
could not draw him out or get him to converse. He shrank
into himself when his duty was to meet their advances. Easy

92 John Henry Newman chap, m
and fluent as he was among his equals and near relatives,
his very admiration of his new associates made a sudden
intimacy with them impossible to him. An observant friend,
who even at a later date saw him accidentally among
strangers, not knowing the true account of his bearing, told
him he considered he had had a near escape of being a
stutterer. This untowardness in him was increased by a
vivid self-consciousness, which sometimes inflicted on him days
of acute suffering from the recollection of solecisms, whether
actual or imagined, which he recognised in his conduct in
society. And then there was, in addition, that real isolation
of thought and spiritual solitariness which was the result of
_his Calvinistic beliefs. His electors, however, had not the key
to the reserve which hung about him ; and in default, of it
accounts of him of another kind began to assail their ears
which increased their perplexity. With a half-malicious intent
of frightening them, it was told them that Mr. Newman had
for years belonged to a club of instrumental music, and had
himself taken part in its public performances, a diversion
innocent indeed in itself, but scarcely in keeping or in sym
pathy with an intellectual Common-Room, or promising a
satisfactory career to a nascent Fellow of Oriel.
It was under the circumstance of misgivings such as these
that Mr. Tyler, Mr. James, and other leading Fellows of the
day took a step as successful in the event for their own relief
as it was advantageous to Mr. Newman. Mr. Whately, after
wards Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, who had lately relin
quished his fellowship by marriage, was just at that time
residing in lodgings in Oxford previously to his taking pos
session of a Suffolk benefice, and they determined on putting
their unformed probationer into his hands. If there was a
man easy for a raw bashful youth to get on with it was
Whately— a great talker, who endured very readily the silence
of his company, original in his views, lively, forcible, witty
in expressing them, brimful of information on a variety of
subjects — so entertaining that, logician as he was, he is said
sometimes to have fixed the attention of a party of ladies to
liis conversation, or rather discourse, for two or three hours
at a stretch ; free and easy in manners, rough indeed and

1825 Autobiographical Memoir 93
dogmatic in his enunciation of opinion, but singularly gra
cious to undergraduates and young masters who, if they were
worth anything, were only too happy to be knocked about in
argument by such a man. And he on his part professed to be
pleased at having cubs in hand whom he might lick into
shape, and who, he said, like dogs of King Charles's breed,
could be held up by one leg without yelling.
Mr. Newman brought with him the first of recommenda
tions to Whately in being a good listener, and in his special
facility of entering into ideas as soon as, or before, they were
expressed. It was not long before Mr. Whately succeeded in
drawing him out, and he paid him the compliment of saying
that he was the clearest-headed man he knew. He took him
out walking and riding, and was soon able to reassure the
Oriel men that they had made no great mistake in their
election. Mr. Newman, on his part, felt the warmest admi
ration for Whately, much gratitude and a deep affection. If
his master was now and then sharp, rude and positive, this
inflicted no pain on so young a man, when relieved by the
kindness of heart, the real gentleness and generous spirit,
which those who came near him well understood to be his
characteristics. The worst that could be said of Whately was
that, in his intercourse with his friends, he was a bright June
sun tempered by a March north-easter.
During these months Whately was full of the subject of
logic ; which, in spite of the Aldrich read for his B.A. exami
nation, was quite a novelty to Mr. Newman. He lent him the
MS. of his 'Analytical Dialogues,' never printed and now very
scarce, and allowed him to take copies of it, which are to be
found among his (Mr. Newman's) papers. At length he went
so far as to propose to him to cast these dialogues into the
shape of a synthetical treatise. It was a peculiarity of
Whately's to compose his books by the medium of other
brains. This did not detract at all from the originality of
what he wrote. Others did but stimulate his intellect into the
activity necessary for carrying him through the drudgery of
composition. He called his hearers his anvils. He expounded
his views as he walked with them ; he indoctrinated them ;
made them repeat him; and sometimes even to put him on

94 John Henry Newman chap, m
paper, with the purpose of making use of such sketches when
he should take in hand the work which was to be given to the
public. He attempted to make, at one time, Mr. Rickards
such an anvil, at another Mr. Woodgate ; he succeeded best
with Mr. Hinds, afterwards Bishop of Norwich ; and it was
in some such way that he began to write his well-known
Treatise upon Logic through Mr. Newman — that is, under the
start he gained by revising and recomposing the rude essays
of a probationer Fellow of twenty one.
This work, however — namely, his ' Elements of Logic ' —
was not actually published till four years later ; and in his
Preface to it he thus graciously speaks of Mr. Newman's
infinitesimal share in its composition :
I have to acknowledge assistance received from several
friends, who have at various times suggested remarks and
alterations. But I cannot avoid particularising the Rev. J.
Newman, Fellow of Oriel College, who actually composed a
considerable portion of the work as it now stands, from manu
script not designed for publication, and who is the original
author of several pages.
Newman, much gratified by this notice, thus acknowledged
it to Whately : November 14, 1826.
I cannot tell you the surprise I felt on seeing you had
thought it worth while to mention my name as having con
tributed to the arrangement of the material [of the work].
Whatever I then wrote I am conscious was of little value, &c.
&c. . . . Yet I cannot regret that you have introduced my
name in some sort of connexion with your own. There are
few things which I wish more sincerely than to be known as
a friend of yours, and though I may be on the verge of pro
priety in the earnestness with which I am expressing myself,
yet you must let me give way to feelings which never want
much excitement to draw them out, and now will not be re
strained. Much as I owe to Oriel in the way of mental im
provement, to none, as I think, do I owe so much as to you.
I know who it was that first gave me heart to look about me
after my election, and taught me to think correctly, and
(strange office for an instructor) to rely upon myself.

1826 Autobiographical Memoir 95
It was with reference to these first Oriel experiences of
Newman, his bashfulness, awkwardness, and affectionate aban
donment of himself to those who were so kind to him, as
contrasted with his character as it showed to outsiders in
succeeding years, that Bishop Copleston, after the notice of
him quoted above, goes on to say : ' Alas, how little did we
anticipate the fatal consequences ! ' and then applies to him
the passage of -fEschylus :
lOpzxj/ev Se XiovTd.
aiviv 8o/j.ois aydXaKTOV
a/itpov, evc^iAoVaiSa, k.t.X. — Agam. 717.
Whately's formal connexion with Oriel had closed before
Newman was introduced to him ; and he was but an occasional
visitor at the University till the year 1825, when, on the
death of Dr. Elmsley, he was preferred by Lord Grenville — the
Chancellor — to the Headship of Alban Hall. On this occasion
he showed his good opinion of the subject of this Memoir by
at once making him his Vice-Principal, and though, to the
sorrow of both parties, this connexion between them lasted
only for a year — Mr. Newman succeeding in 1826 to the
Tutor's place at Oriel vacated by Mr. R. W. Jelf — Whately
continued on familiar terms with him down to the promotion
of the former to the archbishopric of Dublin in 1831.
That when this great preferment came he manifested no
such desire to gain Mr. Newman's co-operation in his new
sphere of action, as had led him to ask his assistance at
Alban Hall, was no surprise to Mr. Newman. Great changes
had taken place in the interval in Mr. Newman's views and
position at Oxford, and he sorrowfully recognised to the full,
the gradual but steady diminution of intimacy and sympathy
between himself and Dr. Whately, which had accompanied
the successive events of those five years. In a correspondence
which passed between them in 1834, and which has been
published in part by the Archbishop's executors, and in full
by Dr. Newman in his ' Apologia,' is traced the course of this
mournful alienation. At length, in 1836, Mr. Newman in
curred the Archbishop's deep displeasure on his taking part
against Dr. Hampden's appointment to the chair of Divinity ;

96 John Henry Newman chap, hi
so much so that, on Dr. Whately's coming to Oxford in 1837,
Mr. Newman felt it necessary to use the intervention of a
friend befbre venturing to call on him; and twenty years
later, when Mr. Newman — then a Catholic priest — was in
Dublin, in the years 1854-1858, on his making a like applica
tion, he was informed in answer, from various quarters, that
his visit would not be acceptable to the Archbishop.
Dr. Whately honoured Mr. Newman with his friendship
for nearly ten years. During the year in which they were in
close intimacy at Alban Hall, Mr. Newman served him with
all his heart as his factotum — as tutor, chaplain, bursar, and
dean ; and he ever found in him a generous, confiding, and
indulgent superior. Never was there the faintest shadow of
a quarrel, or of even an accidental collision between them,
though in their walks they often found themselves differing
from each other on theological questions. As to theology, Mr.
Newman was under the influence of Dr. Whately for four
years, from 1822 to 1826 ; when, coincident^ with his leaving
Alban Hall, he began to know Mr. Hurrell Froude. On
looking back he found that he had learned from Dr. Whately
one momentous truth of Revelation, and that was the idea of
the Christian Church as a Divine appointment, and as a sub
stantive visible body, independent of the State, and endowed
i with rights, prerogatives and powers of its own.
There was another person, high in position, who, on Mr.
Newman s becoming Fellow of Oriel, had a part in bringing
him out of the shyness and reserve which had at first per
plexed his electors. This was Dr. Charles Lloyd, Canon of
Christ Church, and Regius Professor of Divinity. This
eminent man' who had been the tutor, and was the intimate
friend of Mr. Peel, was in an intellectual and academical
point of view diametrically opposite to Dr. Whately, and it
was a stiange chance which brought Mr. Newman under the
immediate notice of divines of such contrary schools. At that
time there was a not unnatural rivalry between Christ Church
and Oriel ; Lloyd and Whately were the respective represen
tatives of the two societies, and of their antagonism. Sharp
words pissed between them ; they spoke scornfully of each
other, and stories about them and the relation in which they

lazts Autobiographical Memoir 97
stood towards each other were circulated in the Common-
Rooms. Lloyd was a scholar, and Whately was not. Whately
had the reputation specially of being an original thinker, of
which Lloyd was not at all ambitious. Lloyd was one of the
high-and-dry school, though with far larger views than were
then common; while Whately looked down on both High
and Low Church, calling the two parties respectively Sadducees
and Pharisees. Lloyd professed to hold to theology, and laid
great stress on a doctrinal standard, on authoritative and
traditional teaching, and on ecclesiastical history ; Whately
called the Fathers ' certain old divines,' and, after Swift
or some other wit, called orthodoxy ' one's own doxy,' and
heterodoxy ' another's doxy.' Lloyd made much of books and
reading, and, when preacher at Lincoln's Inn, considered he
was to his lawyers the official expounder of the Christian
religion and the Protestant faith, just as it was the office of
his Majesty's Courts to lay down for him peremptorily the
law of the land ; whereas Whately's great satisfaction was to
find a layman who had made a creed for himself, and he
avowed that he was prima facie well inclined to a heretic, for
his heresy at least showed that he had exercised his mind
upon its subject-matter. It is obvious which of the two
men was the more Catholic in his tone of mind. Indeed, at a
later date Mr. Newman availed himself, when accused of
Catholicity, of the distinctions which Dr. Lloyd in an article
in a Review had introduced into a controversy with Rome ;
and others who came within his influence [I believe, Mr.
Oakeley] have testified to that influence in their case having
acted in a Catholic direction. But such men attended his _
lectures some years later than Mr. Newman, whose debt to
him was of a different kind.
These lectures were an experiment which Dr. Lloyd made
on becoming Regius Professor, with a view of advancing theo
logical studies in the University. An annual set of public
lectures had been usual, attendance on them being made a
sine qua non for ordination ; but Dr. Lloyd's new lectures
were private and familiar. He began them in 1823, the year
after Mr. Newman's election at Oriel, and the year of Mr.
Pusey's. His initial class consisted of eight : four Fellows of
vol. 1. H

98 John Henry Newman chap, m
Oriel — Jelf, Ottley, Pusey and Newman— and four of Christ
Church. Others were soon added, notably Mr. Richard Gres-
well, of Worcester, whose acquaintance with theological topics
was, for a young man, wonderful. The subjects of the lectures
betokened the characteristic tastes and sentiments of the
• lecturer. He had more liking for exegetical criticism, histori
cal research and controversy, than for dogma or philosophy.
He employed his mind upon the grounds of Christian faith
rather than on the faith itself ; and in his estimate of the
grounds he made light of the internal evidence for revealed
religion, in comparison with its external proofs. During the
time that Mr. Newman attended his lectures, the years 1823
and 1824 — when he left them on taking orders and a parochial
charge — the class went through Sumner's ' Records of Crea
tion ' ; ' Graves on the Pentateuch' ; ' Carpzov on the Septua-
gint'; 'Prideaux's Connexion,' and other standard works,.
getting up the books thoroughly ; for Dr. Lloyd made the
lecture catechetical, taking very little part in it himself be
yond asking questions, and requiring direct, full and minutely
_ accurate answers. It is difficult to see how into a teaching
such as this purely religious questions could have found their
- way ; but Dr. Lloyd, who took a personal interest in those
he came across, and who always had his eyes about him, cer
tainly did soon make out that Mr. Newman held what are
called Evangelical views of doctrine, then generally in disre
pute 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 injiis 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 ques
tions, gathering their answers, and taking snuff as he went
along, he would sometimes stop before Mr. Newman, on his
speaking in his turn, fix 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

1824 Autobiographical Memoir 99
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 Newman
retained to old age an affectionate and grateful memory of
Lloyd. Many of his pupils rose to eminence, some of them
through his helping hand. Mr. Jelf was soon made preceptor
to Prince George, the future King of Hanover ; Mr. Churton,
who died prematurely, became chaplain to Howley, Bishop of
London, afterwards Primate ; Mr. Pusey he recommended to
the Minister for the Hebrew professorship, first sending him
to Germany to study that language in the Universities there.
As to Mr. Newman, before he had been in his lecture-room
half a year, Lloyd paid him the compliment of proposing to
him, young as he was, to undertake a work for students in
divinity, containing such various information as is for the
most part only to be found in Latin or in folios, such as the
history of the Septuagint version, an account of the Talmud,
&c. ; but nothing came of this design.
His attendance on Dr. Lloyd's lectures was at length
broken off in 1824 by his accepting the curacy of St. Clement's,
a parish lying over Magdalen Bridge, where a new church was
needed, and a younger man than the rector to collect funds for
building it. From this time he saw very little of Dr. Lloyd,
who in 1827 was promoted to the See of Oxford, and died pre
maturely in 1829. At the former of these dates the Bishop
knew of his intention to give himself up to the study of the
Fathers, and expressed a warm approval of it.
Mr. Newman held the curacy of St. Clement's for two
years, up to the time when he became one of the public tutors
of his College. He held it long enough to succeed in collect
ing the 5,000?. or 6,000?. which were necessary for the new
church. It was consecrated after he had relinquished his
u 2

loo John Henry Newman chap, m
curacy, probably in the Long Vacation, when he was away
from Oxford ; but so it happened by a singular accident that
neither while it was building nor after it was built, was he
ever inside it. He had no part whatever in determining its
architectural character, which was in the hands of a committee.
The old church, which stood at the fork of the two London
roads as they join at Magdalen Bridge, was soon afterwards
removed ; and it thus was Mr. Newman's lot to outlive the
church, St. Benet Fink, in which he was baptized, the school-
house and playgrounds at Ealing, where he passed his boyhood,
and the church in which he first did duty. At St. Clement's
he did a great deal of hard parish work, having in the poor
school, which he set on foot, the valuable assistance of the
daughters of the rector, the Rev. John Gutch, Registrar of
the University, at that time an octogenarian.
' It was during these years of parochial duty that Mr.
Newman underwent a great change in his religious opinions,
a change brought about by very various influences. Of course
the atmosphere of Oriel Common-Room was one of these ; its
members, together with its distinguished head, being as re
markable for the complexion of their theology and their union
among themselves in it, as for their literary eminence. This
unanimity was the more observable inasmuch as, elected by
competition, they came from various places of education, public
and private, from various parts of the country, and from any
whatever of the colleges of Oxford ; thus being without ante
cedents in common, except such as were implied in their being
Oxford men and selected by Oriel examiners. Viewed as a
body, we may pronounce them to be- truly conscientious men,
ever bearing in mind their religious responsibilities, hard or
at least energetic workers, liberal in their charities, correct in
their lives, proud of their college rather than of themselves,
and, if betraying something of habitual superciliousness
towards other societies, excusable for this at that date, con
sidering the exceptional strictness of the then Oriel discipline,
and the success of Oriel in the schools. In religion they were
neither High Church nor Low Church, but had become a new
school, or, as their enemies would say, a clique, which was
characterised by its spirit of moderation and comprehension,

1824 Autobiographical Memoir ioi
and of which the principal ornaments were Copleston, Davison,
Whately, Hawkins and Arnold. Enemies they certainly had.
Among these, first, were the old unspiritual, high-and-dry —
then in possession of the high places of Oxford — who were
suspicious whither these men would go, pronounced them
' unsafe,' and were accused of keeping Copleston from a
bishopric — a class of men who must not be confused with such
excellent persons as the Watsons, Sykes, Crawleys, of the old
London Church Societies and their surroundings, though they
pulled with them ; next and especially, the residents in the
smaller and less distinguished colleges — the representatives,
as they may be considered, of the country party, who regarded
them as angular men, arrogant, pedantic, crotchety, and both
felt envy at their reputation and took offence at the strictness
of their lives. Their friends, on the other hand, as far as they
had exactly friends, were of the Evangelical party, who, un
used to kindness from their brethren, hailed with surprise the
advances which Copleston seemed to be making towards them
in his writings and by his acts, and were grateful for that
liberality of mind which was in such striking contrast with
the dominant High Church ; and who, in Keble again — in spite
of his maintenance of baptismal regeneration — recognised, to
use their own language, a spiritual man. What a large num
ber of the Evangelical party then felt, Mr. Newman as one of
them felt also ; and thus he was drawn in heart to his Oriel
associates in proportion as he became intimate with them.
The Oriel Common-Room has been above spoken of as a
whole ; but the influence thence exercised on Mr. Newman
came especially from two of its members, Mr. Hawkins and
Mr. Pusey, of whom Pusey was external to what may be
technically called the Oriel School. Though senior in age by
just half a year, he was junior to Newman in both University
and College standing, being elected at Oriel the year after
Newman. He was a disciple of Lloyd's, not of Whately's, or
perhaps it may be said not even of Lloyd's. The son of a man
conspicuous for his religious earnestness and his charities, he
left Eton and Christ Church for Oriel, not only .an accurate
scholar and a portentous student, but endowed with a deep
seriousness and a large-minded open-handed zeal in the service

102 John Henry Newman chap, m
of God and his neighbour, which he had inherited from his
home. Newman first saw him on his dining, as a stranger,
at Oriel high-table, when a guest of his Eton friend Jelf, and
as a future candidate, as it was reported, for a fellowship.
Newman used to speak in after life of this first introduction
to one with whom eventually he was so closely united, and to
' the blessing of ' whose ' long friendship and example,' as he
said in the Dedication to him of his first volume of Sermons,
he had owed so much. His light curly head of hair was
damp with the cold water which his headaches made necessary
for his comfort ; he walked fast, with a young manner of
carrying himself, and stood rather bowed, looking up from
under his eyebrows, his shoulders rounded, and his bachelor's
gown not buttoned at the elbow, but hanging loose over his
wrists. His countenance was very sweet, and he spoke little.
This chronic headache nearly lost him his election in the
following year. After commencing the paper work of the
examination, he found himself from the state of his head
utterly unable to complete it. He deliberately tore up the
exercise on which he was engaged, and withdrew from the
scene of action. But this abandonment of his expectations
did not please his friends, and they would not allow it ; they
forced him back, and one of the Fellows, then a stranger to
him, Dr. Jenkyns, afterwards Canon of Durham, gathered up
the fragments of his composition as they lay scattered on the
floor, and succeeded so happily in fitting and uniting them
together that they were used by his examiners as a portion of
his trial. His headaches continued beyond his Oriel years,
but he was always full of work. When Newman was offered
the curacy of St. Clement's, it was at Pusey's suggestion, and
Pusey was to have taken part in its duties, when Dr. Lloyd
sent him off to Germany.
It is interesting to trace the course of Newman's remarks
on Pusey in his private journal, commencing as they do m a
high patronising tone, and gradually changing into the expres
sion of simple admiration of his new friend. April 4, 1823,
he writes, speaking of the election of Fellows : ' Two men
have succeeded this morning' [E. B. Pusey and W. R. Churton]
' who, I trust, are favourably disposed to religion, or at least

1823 Autobiographical Memoir 103
moral and thinking, not worldly and careless men ' ; and he
goes on to pray that they may be brought ' into the true
Church.' On the 13th he notes down : ' I have taken a short
walk with Pusey after church and we have had some very
pleasing conversation. He is a searching man, and seems to
delight in talking on rebgious subjects.' By Slay 2 Newman
has advanced further in his good opinion of him. He writes :
I have had several conversations with Pusey on religion
since I last mentioned him. How can I doubt his seriousness ?
His very eagerness to talk of the Scriptures seems to prove it.
May I lead him forward, at the same time gaining good from
him ! He has told me the plan of his Essay for the Chan
cellor's prize, and I clearly see that it is much better than
mine. I cannot think I shall get it ; to this day I have
thought I should.
And on May 17 he remarks :
That Pusey is Thine, O Lord, how can I doubt 1 His deep
views of the Pastoral Office, his high ideas of the spiritual rest
of the Sabbath, his devotional spirit, his love of the Scriptures,
his firmness and zeal, all testify to the operation of the Holy
Ghost ; yet I fear he is prejudiced against Thy children. Let
me never be eager to convert him to a party or to a form of
opinion. Lead us both on in the way of Thy command
ments. What am I that I should be so blest in my near
associates !
Nothing more is said in these private notes about Pusey
before the Long Vacation ; but hardly is it over when he notes
down : ' Have just had a most delightful want with Pusey :
our subjects all religious, all devotional and practical. At
last we fell to talking of Henry Martyn and missionaries. He
spoke beautifully on the question, " Who are to go 1 " ' On
February 1 of the next year (1824) he notes down, ' Have just
walked with Pusey ; he seems growing in the best things —
in humility and love of God and man. What an active
devoted spirit ! God grant he may not, like Martyr, " burn
as phosphorus !"' Lastly, on March 15, when the year from
his first acquaintance with Pusey had not yet run out, he
writes : ' Took a walk with Pusey : discoursed on missionary

104 John Henry Newman chap, m
subjects. I must bear every circumstance in continual re
membrance. We went along the lower London road, crossed
to Cowley, and, coming back, just before we arrived at Mag
dalen Bridge turnpike, he expressed to me ' . . . . There
is a blank in the MS. The writer has not put into words
what this special confidence was which so affected him. He
continues : 'Oh, what words shall I use? My heart is full.
How should I be humbled to the dust ! What importance
I think myself of ! My deeds, my abilities, my writings !
Whereas he is humility itself, and gentleness, and love, and
zeal, and self-devotion. Bless him with Thy fullest gifts, and
grant me to imitate him.'
These extracts reached to within a few months of Mr. .
Newman's ordination, which took place on June 13, 1824, at /
the hands of Dr. Legge, Bishop of Oxford. It was by this/
important event in his life, and the parochial duties which j
were its immediate supplement, that he was thrown into a
close intimacy with his other friend, Mr. Hawkins, then vicar [
of St. Mary's— an intimacy not less important in the mark it
left upon him, though far other than his familiar intercourse
with Pusey. Hawkins bore a very high character, and to
know his various personal responsibilities, and his conduct
under them, was to esteem and revere him ; he had an abiding
sense of duty, and had far less than others of that secular
spirit which is so rife at all times in places of intellectual
eminence. He was clear-headed and independent in his
opinions, candid in argument, tolerant of the views of others,
honest as a religious inquirer, though not without something
of self-confidence in his enunciations. He was a good parish
priest, and preached with earnestness and force, collecting
about him undergraduates from various colleges for his
hearers. At this date— 1824, 1825— -on the ground *f health
he never drank wine, and was accustomed to say that he
should not live beyond forty. He has already reached eighty-
five years, and in the full use of all his faculties. On him,
then, bound as he was by his parochial charge to residence
through the year, Mr. Newman, then curate of St. Clements,
was thrown in a special way. In the Long Vacation, when
the other Fellows were away, they two had Hall and Common-

1825 Autobiographical Memoir 105
Room to themselves. They dined and read the papers ; they
took their evening walk, and then their tea, in company;
and, while Mr. Newman was full of the difficulties of a
young curate, he found in Mr. Hawkins a kind and able
adviser. There was an interval of twelve years between their ages,
but Mr. Hawkins was, in mind, older than his years, and
Mr. Newman younger ; and the intercourse between them was
virtually that of tutor and pupil. Up to this time the latter
took for granted, if not intelligently held, the opinions called
Evangelical ; and of an Evangelical cast were his early sermons,
though mildly such. His first sermon, on ' Man goeth forth
to his work and to his labour until the evening,' implied in
its tone a denial of baptismal regeneration ; and Mr. Hawkins,
to whom he showed it, came down upon it at once on this
score. The sermon divided the Christian world into two
classes, the one all darkness, the other all light ; whereas,
said Mr. Hawkins, it is impossible for us, in fact, to draw
such a line of demarcation across any body of men, large or
small, because difference in religion and moral excellence is one
of degree. Men are not either saints or sinners ; but they are
not as good as they should be, and better than they might be —
more or less converted to God, as it may happen. Preachers
should follow the example of St. Paul ; he did not divide
his brethren into two, the converted and unconverted, but he
addressed them all, as 'in Christ,' 'sanctified in Him,' as
having had ' the Holy Ghost in their hearts,' and this while he
was rebuking them for the irregularities and scandals that had
occurred among them. Criticism such as this, which of course
he did not deliver once for all, but as occasions offered, and
which, when Newman dissented, he maintained and enforced,
had a great, though a gradual, effect upon the latter, when
carefully studied in the work from which it was derived, and
which Hawkins gave him ; this was Sumner's ' Apostolical
Preaching.' This book was successful in the event beyond
anything else in rooting out Evangelical doctrines from Mr.
Newman's creed.
He observes in his Private Journal, under date of August 24,
1824:

io6 John Henry Newman chap, m
Lately I have been thinking much on the subject of grace,
regeneration, &c, and reading Sumner's ' Apostolical Preach
ing,' which Hawkins has given me. Sumner's book threatens
to drive me into either Calvinism or Baptismal Regeneration,
and I wish to steer clear of both, at least in preaching. I am
always slow in deciding a question ; and last night I was so
distressed and low about it that the thought even struck me I
must leave the Church. T have been praying about it before
I rose this morning, and I do not know what will be the end
of it. I think I really desire the truth, and would embrace it
wherever I found it.
On the following January 13 he writes :
It seems to me that the great stand is to be made, not
against those who connect a spiritual change with baptism,
but those who deny a spiritual change altogether. [Here he i
alludes to Dr. Lloyd, rightly or wrongly.] All who confess
the natural corruption of the heart, and the necessity of a
change (whether they connect regeneration with baptism or
not), should unite against those who make regeneration a mere
opening of new prospects, when the old score of offences is
wiped away, and a person is for the second time put, as it
were, on his good behaviour.
Here he had, in fact, got hold of the Catholic doctrine that
forgiveness of sin is conveyed to us, not simply by imputation,
but by the implanting of a habit of grace.
Mr. Newman, then, before many months of his clerical life
were over, had taken the first step towards giving up the
Evangelical form of Christianity ; however, for a long while
certain shreds and tatters ' of that doctrine hung about his
preaching, nor did he, for a whole ten years, altogether sever
himself from those great religious societies and their meetings
which then, as now, were the rallying ground and the strength
' This phrase, ' shreds and tatters,' had jarred on the reader (the
Editor), who, encouraged to make comments, ventured to criticise what
seemed its tone. A letter, treating on other matters connected with
the task in hand, has this postscript :
' P.S. — I am surprised you should think that by shreds and tatters
I meant to express contempt. Even a king's robe may be cut up into
unintelligible bits. I have not looked out the passage ; but I am sure
I meant patches. Catholicism may be held in bits and pieces ; but I
will look out the phrase.'

i&z> autobiographical Memoir 107
of the Evangelical body. Besides Sumner, Butler's celebrated
work, which he studied about the year 1825, had, as was
natural, an important indirect effect upon him in the same
direction, as placing his doctrinal views on a broad philo
sophical basis, with which an emotional religion could have
little sympathy.
There was another great theological principle which he
owed to Mr. Hawkins, in addition to that which Sumner's
work had taught him. He has already mentioned it in his
' Apologia ' — namely, the ^wasi-Catholic doctrine of Tradition,
as a main element in ascertaining and teaching the truths of
Christianity. This doctrine Hawkins had, on Whately's
advice, made the subject of a sermon before the University.
Whately once said of this sermon to Newman in conversation :
' Hawkins came to me and said, " What shall I preach about ? "
putting into my hands at the same time some notes which he
thought might supply a subject. After reading them I said
to him, "Capital ! Make a sermon of them by all means. I
did not know till now that you had so much originality in
you.'" Whately felt the doctrine to be as true as he considered
it original. Though the force of logic and the influence of others had
so much to do with Mr. Newman's change of religious opinion,
it must not be supposed that the teaching of facts had no
part in it. On the contrary, he notes down in memoranda
made at the time, his conviction, gained by personal experience,
that the religion which he had received from John Newton
and Thomas Scott would not work in a parish ; that it was
unreal ; that this he had actually found as a fact, as Mr.
Hawkins had told him beforehand ; that Calvinism was not a
key to the phenomena of human nature, as they occur in the
world. And, in truth, much as he owed to the Evangelical
teaching, so it was he never had been a genuine Evangelical.
That teaching had been a great blessing for England ; it had
brought home to the hearts of thousands the cardinal and
vital truths of Revelation, and to himself among others. The
Divine truths about our Lord and His person and offices, His
grace, the regeneration of our nature in Him ; the supreme
duty of living, not only morally, but in his faith, fear, and

108 John Henry Newman chap, in
love ; together with the study of Scripture, in which these
truths lay, had sheltered and protected him in his most
dangerous years, had been his comfort and stay when he was
forlorn, and had brought him on in habits of devotion, till
the time came when he was to dedicate himself to the Christian
ministry. And he ever felt grateful to the good clergyman
who introduced them to him, and to the books, such as
Scott's 'Force of Truth,' Beveridge's 'Private Thoughts,' and
Doddridge's ' Rise and Progress,' which insist upon them ;
but, after all, the Evangelical teaching, considered as a system
and in what was peculiar to itself, had from the first failed to
find a response in his own religious experience, as afterwards
in his parochial. He had, indeed, been converted by it to a
spiritual life, and so far his experience bore witness to its
truth ; but he had not been converted in that special way
which it laid down as imperative, but so plainly against rule,
as to make it very doubtful in the eyes of normal Evangelicals
whether he had really been converted at all. Indeed, at
various times of his life, as, for instance, after the publication
of his ' Apologia,' letters, kindly intended, were addressed to
him by strangers or anonymous writers, assuring him that he
did not yet know what conversion meant, and that the all-
important change had still to be wrought in him if he was to
be saved. And he himself quite agreed in the facts which were the
premisses of these writers, though, of course, he did not feel
himself obliged to follow them on to their grave conclusion.
He was sensible that he had ever been wanting in those
special Evangelical experiences which, like the grip of the
hand or other prescribed signs of a secret society, are the sure
token of a member. There is, among his private papers, a
memorandum on the subject much to the point, which he set
down originally in 1821, and transcribed and commented on
in 1826. In 1821 — the date, be it observed, when he was
more devoted to the Evangelical creed, and more strict in his
religious duties than at any previous time — he had been draw
ing up at great length an account of the Evangelical process
of conversion in a series of Scripture texts," going through its
stages of conviction of sin, terror, despair, news of the free

1826 Autobiographical Memoir 109
and full salvation, apprehension of Christ, sense of pardon,
assurance of salvation, joy and peace, and so on to final per
severance ; and he there makes this N.B. upon his work :
I speak of conversion with great diffidence, being obliged
to adopt the language of books. For my own feehngs, as far
as I remember, were so different from any account I have ever
read that I dare not go by what may be an individual case.
This was in 1821 ; transcribing the memorandum in 1826,
he adds :
That is, I wrote juxta prcescriptum. In the matter in
question, that is, conversion my own feehngs were not violent,
but a returning to, a renewing of, principles, under the power
of the Holy Spirit, which I had already felt, and in a measure
acted on when young.
He used in later years to consider the posture of his mind,
early and late, relatively to the EvangeHcal teaching of his
youth, an illustration of what he had written in his essay on
Assent, upon the compatibility of the indef ectibility of genuine
certitude with the failure of such mere belief as at one time
of our lives we took for certitudes.1
We may assent [he there says] to a certain number of
propositions altogether — that is, we may make a number of
assents all at once ; but in doing so we run the risk of putting
upon one level, and treating as if of the same value, acts of
the mind which are very different from each other in character
and circumstance.
Now a religion is not a proposition, but a system ; it is a
rite, a creed, a philosophy, a rule of duty, all at once ; and to
accept a religion is neither a simple assent to it nor a complex
assent, neither a conviction nor a prejudice . . . not a mere
act of profession, nor of credence, nor of opinion, nor of
speculation, but it is a collection of all these various kinds of
assent, some of one description, some of another ; but out of
all these different assents how many are of that kind which I
have called certitude 1 For instance, the fundamental dogma
of Protestantism is the exclusive authority of Scripture ; but
in holding this a Protestant holds a host of propositions,
explicitly or implicitly, and holds them with assents of various
1 Grammar of Assent, p. 243.

no John Henry Newman chap, m
character. . . . Yet if he were asked the question, he would
probably answer that he was certain of the truth of Pro
testantism, though Protestantism means a hundred things at
once, and he believes, with actual certitude, only one of them
all. Applying these remarks to his own case, he used to say
that, whereas, upon that great change which took place in
him as a boy there were four doctrines, all of which forth
with he held, as if certain truths — namely, those of the Holy
Trinity, of the Incarnation, of Predestination, and of the
Lutheran apprehension of Christ— the first three, which are
doctrines of the Catholic religion, and, as being such, are true,
and really subjects of certitude and capable of taking indefec
tible possession of the mind, and therefore ought not in his
case to have faded away, remained indelible through all his
changes of opinion, up to and over the date of his becoming a
Catholic ; whereas the fourth, which is not true, though he
thought it was, and therefore not capable of being held with
certitude, or with the promise of permanence, though he
thought it was so held, did in the event, as is the nature of
a mere opinion or untrue belief, take its departure from
his mind in a ve*ry short time, or, rather, was not held by
him from the first. However, in his early years, according to
the passage quoted from his essay, he confused these four
distinct doctrines together, as regards their hold upon him,
and transferred that utter conviction which he had of what
was revealed about the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity and
the Divine Economy to his state of mind relatively to Luther's
tenet of justification by faith only.
Having this confused idea of Christian doctrine, and of his
own apprehension of it, and considering the Evangelical teach
ing true, because there were great truths in it, he had felt and
often spoken very positively as to his certainty of its truth,
and the impossibility of his changing his mind about it. On
one occasion in particular he has recorded his feelings when
he found himself affectionately cautioned by his Father, from
his own experience of the world, against the Lutheran doctrine
and a headstrong acceptance of it. This was shortly before
he succeeded at Oriel, and he takes a note of it in his Private

1825 Autobiographical Memoir hi
Journal. In the course of conversation, avaiKng himself of
some opportunity, his Father is there reported to have said :
* Take care ; you are encouraging a morbid sensibility and
irritability of mind, which may be very serious. Religion,
when carried too far, induces a mental softness. No one's
principles can be estabbshed at twenty. Your opinion in
two or three years will certainly change. I have seen many
instances of the same kind. You are on dangerous ground.
The temper you are encouraging may lead to something
alarming. Weak minds are carried into superstition, and
strong minds into infidelity ; do not commit yourself, do
nothing ultra.' On these prudent warnings his son observes,
after prayer against delusion, pride, or uncharitableness, 'How
good God is to give me "the assurance of hope " ! If any
one had prophesied to me confidently that I should change
my opinions, and I was not convinced of the impossibility,
what anguish should I feel ! ' Yet, very few years passed
before, against his confident expectations, his Father's words
about him came true.
Fifty or sixty years ago the intellectual antagonist and
alternative of the Evangelical creed was Arminianism. The
Catholic faith, Anglo-Catholicism, Irvingism, Infidelity, were
as yet unknown to the religious inquirer.
A cold Arminian doctrine, the first stage of Liberalism,
was the characteristic aspect for the high-and-dry Anglicans
of that day and of the Oriel divines. There was great reason
then to expect that, on Newman leaving the crags and preci
pices of Luther and Calvin, he would take refuge in the flats
of Tillotson and Barrow, Jortin and Paley. It cannot be said
that this was altogether a miscalculation ; but the ancient
Fathers saved him from the danger that threatened him. An
imaginative devotion to them and to their times had been the
permanent effect upon him of reading at school an account of
them and extracts from their works in Joseph Milner's 'Church
History,' and even when he now and then allowed himself, as
in 1825, in criticisms of them, the first centuries were his
beau-ideal of Christianity. Even then what he composed was
more or less directed towards that period, and, however his
time might be occupied or bis mood devotional, he never was

112 John Henry Newman chap, ui
unwilling to undertake any work of which they were to be the
staple.
< Thus in 1823 he drew up an argument for the strict
observance of the Christian Sabbath from the writings of St.
Chrysostom and other Fathers ; in 1825-6, when he had not
only Alban Hall and St. Clement's on his hands, but, in addition,
the laborious task of raising sums for his new church, he wrote
a Life of ApoUonius and his Essay on Miracles. In 1826 he
projected writing for the ' Encyclopaedia Metropolitana ' a
history of the first three centuries of Christianity, and in 1827
he drew up a defence of infant baptism from the patristical
testimonies furnished to him in Wall's well-known treatise.
In the same year he gave a commission to his friend Pusey,
who was then in Germany, to purchase for him as many
volumes of the Fathers as came to his hand. And in 1828 he
began systematically to read them.

LETTERS AND EXTRACTS CONNECTING
CHAPTERS III. AND IV. OF THE MEMOIR
Surveying from a distance the excessive work of this
period of his life, there stands in Mr. Newman's own hand
the following admission :
This close application [to his Essay on Miracles] did not
hinder my daily work in my parish and St. Alban Hall,
visitings, &c, and two fresh sermons every Sunday. It was
now first that I felt what, in the event, became a chronic
indigestion from which I have never recovered. I overworked
myself at this time.
The correspondence of this date illustrates what the
Memoir has touched on, both of his literary labours and his
early devotion to the Fathers. The following letter to his
sister relates to his Essay on Miracles, which, months before,
Mr. Hawkins had spoken of, as 'filling the window-seat' with
books out of the college library.

1*""* College Life 113
J. H. N. to H. E. N.
January 26, 1823.
. . . ApoUonius is a crafty old knave. After surveying ;
the essay itself, I took hold of him, thinking to lift him up to
the level of completion without much ado; but the old fellow,
clung so tight to me that I could hardly get rid of him. He,
asked me ever so many questions about my authorities fori
saying this or that of him, made me poke into dusty books inj
wild-goose chases, &c. &c. In fact, instead of despatching himi
in two days, I was ten. He detained me till St. Alban]
claimed me. You know I am going over to St. Mary's. [Qyi
to be tutor at Oriel.]
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. E. Smedley,
January 27, 1826.
On thinking over your proposal concerning the article on
the Fathers of the second century, I cannot but be apprehen
sive that it would be much too large an undertaking for the
time that I could give to it in the course of a year. May I
venture to inquire whether it would fall in with your arrange
ments were I to undertake the Fathers of the second and
third centuries in one paper — that is, in fact, the ante-Nicene
Fathers — engaging to send it to you this time two years. The ;
period between the Apostolical Fathers and the Nicene Council j
would then be treated as a whole, embracing the opinions of
the Church and so much of Platonism and Gnosticism as may /
be necessary to elucidate it.
P.S. — I fear I must decline the article on Music ; my
acquaintance with the subject is not at all sufficient to justify
me in undertaking to write upon it.
Mr. Smedley declines the proposition of comprising the
second and third centuries in one paper, in spite of its general
advantages, as ' covering too large a space for the particular
system of our work,' with suggestions how to meet the diffi
culty. ' Could you not find some convenient break — the reign
of Pertinax, perhaps — which might enable you to terminate a
first paper 1 ' A proposal he does not seem to have acted
upon. VOL. I. I

114 John Henry Newman 1826
Mes. Newman to J. H. N.
February 17, 1826.
As you are to consider this a birthday letter, I must not
omit begging you to accept the kindest wishes that a mother
can offer to a son who has ever been her greatest consolation
in affliction, and a comfort and delight at all times and in all
situations. We are daily receiving great instruction and
advantage, I trust, from the course of sermons you last sent
us. We all agreed that a week was much too long to wait
between each ; and when we have read these repeatedly I hope
you will let us have some more.
Again (March 6) :
I assure you your sermons are a real comfort and delight
to me. They are what I think sermons ought to be— to en
lighten, to correct, to support, and to strengthen. It is, my
dear, a great gift to see so clearly the truths of religion ; still
more to be able to impart the knowledge to others. You will,
I am sure, duly appreciate the treasure, and make it valuable
to many besides yourself.
These tender and happy mother's letters are given for a
purpose which the reader will understand as time advances.
Even now their tone is too confiding to be allowed to pass
without some touch of warning.
To his Mother.
I feel pleased you like my sermons. I am sure I need not
caution you against taking anything I say on trust. Do not
be run away with by any opinion of mine. I have seen cause
to change my mind in some respects, and I may change again.
I see I know very little about anything, though I often think
I know a great deal.
I have a great undertaking before me in the tutorship
here. I trust God may give me grace to undertake it in a
proper spirit, and to keep steadily in view that I have set my
self apart for His service for ever. There is always the
danger of the love of literary pursuits assuming too prominent
a place in the thoughts of a college tutor, or his viewing his
situation merely as a secular office — a means of a future pro
vision when he leaves college.

1826 College Life 115
The Oriel election and fellowship was this year a momentous
one to Mr. Newman, as bringing him into intimacy with the
friend whose influence he ever felt powerful beyond all others
to which he had been subject. He writes of the election to
his mother : March 31, 1826.
... I go to Bath to-morrow morning, and while in the
neighbourhood must employ myself in transcribing my essay,
for I must have done it by a week hence. I return to Oxford
¦ on Thursday, and commence my labours at Oriel the following
Monday. I gave up my church last Sunday, and my parish
duty this day. I shall preach one or two sermons more. I
did not send my letter to you before mid-day Saturday, and
had then begun neither of my sermons for the following
day. ...
By-the-bye, I have not told you the name of the other
successful candidate — Froude of Oriel [Robert Wilberforce was
the first]. We were in grave deliberation till near two this
morning, and then went to bed. Froude is one of the acutest
and clearest and deepest men in the memory of man. I hope
our election will be in honorem Dei et Sponsos suae Ecclesia
salutem, as Edward II. has it in our statutes.
To his Mother. April 29, 1826.
I send Blanco White's book. We have just given a diploma
degree to Blanco ... he is, however, too violent. I have
received your letter, and have just despatched my famous
essay by the night coach to town. ... I have felt much that
my engagements of late drove me from you, hindered my
conversing with you, making me an exile, I may say, from
those 1 so much love.
But this life is no time for enjoyment, but for labour, and
I have especially deferred ease and quiet for a future life in
devoting myself to the immediate service of God.
A foregoing letter fixes the day when Mr. Newman was to
enter upon his tutorial office. As it may interest some readers
to know an undergraduate's first impressions of Mr. Newman,
as tutor, some sentences may be given from old letters in the
Editor's possession. 12

u6 John Henry Newman 1826
Mr. Thomas Mozley to his Mother.
Oriel: April 28, 1826.
... I have at last had an interview with my new tutor,
Mr. Newman, who gave me much good advice on the subject
of themes, and gave me a manuscript treatise on composition
written by Whately, who is a famous man here. This I have
copied, and have all the week been furiously engaged in causes
and effects and antecedent probabilities and plausibilities,
which, as I have never read a line of logic, have been very
abstruse. Again, writing a month or two later : June, 1826.
. . . Newman — my new tutor — has been very attentive and
obliging, and has given me abundance of good advice. He
has requested me to consider carefully what information and
instruction I require for my course of reading, and also to
determine what books to take up, and he will have a little
conversation with me before the vacation.
The same pen, writing in December of the same year
(1826): ... I have received very great attentions this term, both
from my tutor (Newman) and the Dean. I go up to Collections
next Thursday ; after that I shall stay in Oxford a week to
read Dr. Whately's ' Rhetoric ' preparatory to making a careful
study of Aristotle's ' Rhetoric ' at home, which Newman, my
tutor, strongly recommends.
. Our college will make but a poor figure in the class list,
which comes out, I believe, to-day. Our best is expected to
be only a double second. Our men are getting so dreadfully
dissipated ; perhaps as bad as any in the University.
The following letter from Mr. Newman, in answer to his
sister Harriett's petition that he will give her something to
do, may suggest a task to some youthful, or indeed to some
maturer, reader: May 1, 1826.
You could not have proposed a more difficult question than
in asking me to give you 'something to do.' I will write

i8io College Life 117
down a few suggestions as they occur to me ; but whether they
are rich or barren, difficult or easy, agreeable or disagreeable,
I will not pretend to determine :
Compare St. Paul's speeches in the Acts with any of his
Epistles, with a view of finding if they have any common
features. Make a summary of the doctrines conveyed in Christ's
teaching, and then set down over against them what St. Paul
added to them, what St. Peter, what St. John,, and whether
St. Paul differs from the other three in any points ; whether
of silence, or omission, or whether they all have peculiar doc
trines, &c. &c.
... I am about to undertake a great work, perhaps. As
I have not room to tell you about it, I must refer you to
Jemima's letter.
Such a particular interest attaches to the name of Mr.
Newman's youngest sister — Mary — whose early death was
commemorated by him in many touching lines, and whose
loss constituted that ' bereavement ' which checked tendencies
of thought at a critical time, as related in the ' Apologia ' — ¦
that a letter of hers to her brother written at the age of
fifteen or sixteen, characteristic in its nature and simplicity,
as showing the mingled awe and familiarity which such an
elder brother inspired, will not be out of place here :
May 5, 1826.
Dear John, how extremely kind you are. Oh, I wish I
could write as fast as I think. I cannot tell why, but what
ever I write to you I am always ashamed of. I think it must
be vanity ; and yet I do not feel so to most others. And now
all I have written I should like to burn.
Thank you for your long letter, which I do not deserve.
I wish I could see your rooms. Are they called generally by
the titles you give them ? I hope the ' brown room ' is not
quite so grave as the name would lead one to suppose. At
least Harriett would not be in the number of its admirers.
You know brown is not a great favourite of hers. I had no
idea you lectured in your rooms. . . .
Oh, how delightful if you can do as you say ! It really
will be quite astonishing to have you for so long — but poor
Frank ! I wish, oh, that he might be with us too ! . . . I

n8 John Henry Newman 1826
did not imagine, John, that with all your tutoric gravity, and
your brown room, you could be so absurd as your letter (I
beg your pardon) seems to betray.
How very thoughtless I must be ! I have proceeded so
far without saying one word of your ' unwellness,' which ought
to have come first ; 1 hope it was worthy of no higher appella
tion. ... In the Long Vacation, you know, we shall be able
to nurse you. . . .
Well, I really think I have found out the secret of my
difficulty in writing to you. It is because I never told you
that difficulty. At least, I find I write much easier since my
confession. J. C. N. (his Sister) to J. H. N. May 5, 1826.
I am very sorry to hear you have been so poorly. I
feared you were not well when you were last here. The
design you have formed of reading through the Fathers
reminds me of Archbishop Usher ; he was eighteen years in
accomplishing the task, and he began at twenty. What is
meant by ' the Fathers ' 1 Surely not all the authors from
the second century to Bernard 1
June 6, 1826, Mrs. Newman writes on Mr. Francis
Newman's double first, taken with especial distinction.
I think I must congratulate you equally with Frank on
his success, as I suspect your anxiety on the occasion has
been much greater than even his.
Again (June 13) :
It is very delightful about Frank. I am more thankful
on your account than on his. He is a piece of adamant.
You are such a sensitive being.1
John W. Bowden, Esq., -to Rev. J. H. Newman.
August 4, 1826.
. . . Now touchant les miracles, do you recollect our re
marking that all sceptical ways of accounting for the estab
lishment of Christianity are much more marvellous and diffi-
1 In November of this year Mr. F. W. Newman got a fellowship at
Balliol.

185,1, COLLEGE LIFE 1 19
cult of belief than the system which admits its miraculous
nature 1 I find in Dante exactly the same idea. ' St. Peter
asks him why he believes in the inspiration of the Scriptures :
he refers to the miracles. But why believe those miracles
themselves ? Then follows this passage : ' If the world turned
itself to Christianity,' said I, 'without miracles, this one is
such that the others are not the hundredth part of it.'
J. C. N. to J. H. N.
August 5, 1826.
Mary desires her love, and begs that the next time you
write you will be so kind as to enlighten her on the uses of
reading the Fathers.
Rev. Samuel Rickards to Rev. J. H, Newman.
Ulcombe : June 28, 1826.
You must come and make acquaintance with Mrs. Rickards,
that in future, when I write to you, as I hope I often may, I
may send you her kind regards as well as my own.
Shortly after this date Mr. Rickards, himself a late Fellow
of Oriel, planning that he and Mrs. Rickards should leave his
parish in Kent for a few weeks, arranged with Mr. Newman
to fill his place in the interval. As a Long Vacation rest,
this suited Mr. Newman, and after Mr. and Mrs. Rickards'
departure he and his sister Harriett arrived at Ulcombe, and
occupied the deserted rectory.2
From the leisure of Ulcombe Mr. Newman writes to Mr.
Keble : it is the first time the two names are seen in corre
spondence. Ulcombe : September 1, 1826.
I have been commencing Hebrew in this retreat, an object
I have long had in view and had begun to despair of accom
plishing, and just finishing' Get esis, though I had hoped to
have made much further progress. The interest attending it
has far surpassed all my anticipations, high as they were,
and, though I clearly see I could never be a scholar without
1 Farad, xxiv. 88-111.
• At this time the Essay on Miracles passed through the press.

120 John Henry Newman 1826
understanding Chaldee, Syriac and Arabic, yet I think I may
get insight enough into the language at least to judge of the
.soundness of the criticisms of scholars, and to detect the
superficial learning of some who only pretend to be scholars.
Is it not very difficult to draw a line in these studies ? There
seems no natural limit before the languages above mentioned
are mastered. And is it not very tantalising to stop short of
them ? I should like to know whether those languages are so
formidable, as is sometimes said ; in Greek we have a variety
of dialects, and works in every diversity of style ; can the
Semitic tongues all together contain one hundredth part of the
difficulty of Greek 1 Considering, too (as I suppose is the
case with them all), their greater simplicity of structure ? I
^wish we began learning Hebrew ten years sooner. Hoping
we shall meet well and happily in October,
I remain, my dear Keble, most truly yours.
The following letter, opening with an amusing grievance,
shows the writer in an unaccustomed vein :
To his Sister Jemima.
Ulcombe: September 5, 1826.
I know you will not consider me unmindful of you because
I am silent. Three letters I have received from you, and yet
you have not heard from me ; but now I will try to make
amends. You must not suppose that the letters you send to
Harriett are in any measure addressed to me or read by me ;
if that were the case, I should be still more in your debt than
I am. But Harriett is very stingy, and dribbles out her
morsels of information from your letters occasionally and
graciously, and I have told her I mean to complain to you of
it. I, on the contrary, am most liberal to her of my letters.
And in her acts of grace she generally tells me what you and
Mary, &c. say in her words. Now it is not so much for the
matter of letters that I like to read them as for their being
written by those I love. It is nothing then to tell me that so
and so ' tells no news,' ' says nothing,' &c. ; for if he or. she
says nothing, still he or she says, and the saying is the thing.
Am not I very sensible 1 You have received from H. such
full information of our, I cannot say movements, but sittings,
here, that it will be unnecessary for me to add anything.
I hope to finish Genesis the day after to-morrow (Thurs-

1826 College Life 121
c'ay), having gained, as I hope, a considerable insight into the
language. At first I found my analytical method hard work,
but after a time it got much kss laborious, and though as yet
I have not any connected view of Hebrew grammar, yet the
lines begin to converge and to show something of regularity
and system. I think it a very interesting language, and
would not (now I see what it is) have not learned it for any
consideration. I shall make myself perfect in the Penta
teuch before I proceed to any other part of Scripture, the
style being, I conceive, somewhat different, and I wish to
become sensible of the differences. I read it with the Septuagint.
On Mr. and Mrs. Rickards' return to Ulcombe an intimacy
was at once formed ; the ladies were friends from the first ;
Mr. Rickards's influence told at once on Harriett, and she
ever retained for him the warmest admiration and respect for
his judgment. To those who knew Mr. and Mrs. Rickards,
it would seem natural that Harriett should write home an
enthusiastic description of both, with a report, also, of her
brother's 'ordeal,' as she termed it, Mr. Rickards doubtless
bringing his penetration to bear on the man who, for several
weeks, had had his parish in charge. A full sheet from Mrs.
Newman and Mary remains in answer to this letter.
Mary — ' Joy of sad hearts and light of downcast eyes ' —
in writing to her sisters, had habitually a style of her own,
perfectly expressive, but embarrassed by requiring too much
from her pen. Thus, at fourteen, wishirg to impress on
Harriett how clever she thinks her, ' what imagination you
have,' she can only exclaim, ' How tiresome it is that in letters
one cannot speak ! I wish I knew what inflections to put, and
then you would see by the tone of my voice that I was in
earnest,' and sensible of the restrictions of sober grammar,
proposes a compact to Jemima. Jemima must supply the
adjectives, &c. &c, and she the interjections.
Mary Sophia Newman to her Sister Harriett.
September 25, 1826.
I sit down, dear Harriett, in a frenzy of delight, sorrow,
impatience, affection and admiration ; delight at your
happiness, sorrow at your letter [Harriett had complained of

122 John Henry. Newman 1826
headache], disappointment, impatience to see you, admiration
at you all ! How much I should like to know Mr. and Mrs.
Rickards ! And yet, I don't know, perhaps I should be
afraid ; but no, I should not be afraid. O Harriett 1 I want
to say such an immense number of things, and I cannot say
one. I will try to be a little quiet ; but how is it possible
while Mamma is reading to Aunt your charming description
of John's ' ordeal ' 1 Poor girl with a headache, poor girl —
' outrageous ' ; sweet girl ! nice girl ! dear girl ! Oh, what
shall I begin with ? Mamma's arrival on Friday quite
revived me just as I was sinking in a torpid despondency.
[Then follow home details, and apologies for writing in such a
scramble.] On the return of the pastor to his parish, Mr. Newman's
task was done. He left Ulcombe, his sister remaining some
time longer on a visit to her new friends.
H. E. N. to J. H. N.
Ulcombe: September 25, 1826.
How strange it is to me that I cannot come and consult
you as I have been so long happy and' able to do ! Dear John,
take care of yourself, and be sure you let me know from
authority how you are. Mr. Rickards dreamed that you
wrote saying you had been extremely happy here, and the
only want you at all perceived in him was a hat. ' You begged
to present him with one. Is it not ridiculous} He must
have discovered our thoughts by chiromancy.
J. H. N. to his Mother. October 13, 1826.
Mudiford is a very bracing place, and the air and bathing
did me more good than the air and sea of Worthing or the
Island. The sands are beautiful. The truth must be spoken :
the air of Oxford does not suit me. I feel it directly I return
to it. . . .
Of course the new arrangements in college will increase my
business considerably. 1 don't know what the Fathers will
say to it. 1 A future letter will explain this.

1826 College Life 123
The following letter is written in prospect of the Tutor
ship :
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. S. Rickards.
October 13, 1826.
... I am sorry to say the Provost [Copleston, about to
be consecrated Bishop of Llandaff] has been very unwell at
Chester ; he is better now. The news of Tyler's departure
from Oriel nearly overset him. You, I suppose, recollect the
circumstances which attended Tyler's election to the Dean's
office. The Provost feels he is now losing one whom he
selected from the Fellows as his confidant and minister ; and
that, too, at the very moment when new duties take himself
in part from the college. We who remain are likely to have
a great deal of work and responsibility laid upon us ; nescio
quo pacto, my spirits, most happily, rise at the prospect of
danger, trial, or any call upon me for unusual exertion ; and
as I came outside the Southampton coach to Oxford, I felt as
if I could have rooted up St. Mary's spire, and kicked down
the Radcliffe.
Rev. S. Rickards to Rev. J. H. Newman.
November 2, 1826.
I have no great village news to tell .... If I had ] ob
felt towards you as I do — that is, if you will allow me to say
so — very warmly, I should have been much more punctilious
in writing to you in the way of inquiries and thanks. This
much, however, I may be bold to say, that my sense of the
value of your late kind services is not lessened by finding, as I
have found since you left, that the good folks of the village
are quite determined never to forget you. They speak of you
as if they were conscious you had done them good. Now this
is comfort enough for any one man at a time, and I pray you
to hoard it up, and take a glint of it only sometimes if you
happen to be pestered and well-nigh tired out by a graceless
booby congregation in the shape of a class. It is well for a
man who is liable to such circumstances to have some bright
parts of his life to look to, just to cheer him up and tell him
that it does not all run to waste.
Much of the following letter has been given in the Memoir,
and is therefore omitted here ; but one or two passages must

124 John Henry Newman 1826
be repeated, to give place to the strain of memory and reflec
tion awakened by it. Transcribing this letter in 1860, Dr.
Newman supplements it with the note in brackets.
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. R. Whately, D.D.
November 14, 1826.
My dear Principal, — I have just received, through Hinds,
your kind and valuable present, for which accept my best
thanks [Whately's ' Logic' on its first appearance]. On look
ing through it I find you have enriched your treatise with so
much more matter that, compared with the article in the
' Encyclopaedia,' it is in many respects a new work.
Much as I owe to Oriel in the way of mental improvement,
to noiie, as I think, do I owe so much as to you. I know who
it was that first gave me heart to look about me after my
election, and taught me to think correctly, and — strange
_ office for an instructor — to rely upon myself. Nor can I
forget that it has been at your kind suggestion that I have
been since led to employ myself in the consideration of several
subjects [N.B. — In the articles in the ' Encyclopaedia Metro-
politana ~\ which, I cannot doubt, have been very beneficial to
my mind.
[There is scarcely anyone whom in momory I love more
than Whately, even now. How gladly would I have called
upon him in Dublin, except that, again and again by his
friends and my own, I have been warned off. He is now
pursuing me in his new publications, without my having any
part in the provocation. In 1836 he was most severe upon
me in relation to the Hampden matter. In 1837 he let me
call on him when he was in Oxford ; I have never seen him
since. I ever must say he taught me to think. A remarkable
phrase is to be found in the above letter — ' strange office for
an instructor, [you] taught me to rely upon myself' The
words have a meaning — namely, that I did not in many things
agree with him. I used to propose to myself to dedicate a
work to him if I ever wrote one, to this effect : 'To Richard
Whately, D.D., &c. who, by teaching me to think, taught me
to differ from himself.' Of course more respectfully wrapped
up.—J. H. N., November 10, I860.]
A passage like this needs in fairness some comment. Per
sons of strong views and convictions hold in memory their

1826 College Life 125
feelings and conflicts of feeling, but of course are unconscious
of the expression of countenance that is apt to go along with
strong disapprobation in temperaments of this class. They
relapse into tenderness, and think nothing of the ' lofty and
sour stage,' which has conveyed its meaning to the observer.
A friend, looking back to a day when Whately, then Arch
bishop of Dublin, was in Oxford, ' remembers accusing Mr.
Newman to his face of being able to cast aside his friends
without a thought, when they fairly took part against what he
considered the truth. And he said, " Ah, Rogers, you don't
understand what anguish it was to me to pass Whately in the
street coldly the other day." Possibly Whately's alienation
from Newman might also have had its touch of anguish, never
allowed to transpire.'
The following letter has an allusion to the cares of Mr.
Newman's new office as college tutor :
To his Sister Harriett. November, 1826.
... I have some trouble with my horses [college pupils],
as you may imagine, for whenever they get a new coachman
they make an effort to get the reins slack. But I shall be
very obstinate, though their curvetting and shyings are very
teasing. November 9.
Pray wish Mary, from me, many happy returns of this
day, and tell her I hope she wili grow a better girl every year,
and I think her a good one. I love her very much ; but I
will not say (as she once said to me) I love her better than she
loves me.
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. S. Rickards.
Oriel College: November 26, 1826.
My dear Rickards, — In our last conversation I think you
asked me whether any use had occurred to my mind to which
your knowledge of our old divines might be applied. Now
one has struck me — so I write. Yet very probably the idea
is so obvious that it will not be new to you, and if so, you
will not think it worth paying postage for. I begin by
assuming that the old worthies of our Church are neither

126 John Henry Newman 1826'
Orthodox nor Evangelical, but intractable persons, suspicious
characters, neither one thing nor the other. Now it would be <
a most useful thing to give a kind of summary of their opinions. :
Passages we see constantly quoted from them for this side and
for that ; but I do not desiderate the work of an advocate,
but the result of an investigation — not to bring them to us,
but to go to them. If, then, in a calm, candid, impartial
manner, their views were sought out and developed, would
not the effect be good in a variety of ways 1 I would advise
taking them as a whole — a corpus theolog. and ecclesiast.
— the English Church — stating, indeed, how far they differ
among themselves, yet distinctly marking out the grand, bold,
scriptural features of that doctrine in which they all agree.
They would then be a band of witnesses for the truth, not
opposed to each other (as they now are), but one — each
tending to the edification of the body of Christ, according to
the effectual working of His Spirit in everyone, according to
the diversity of their gifts, and the variety of circumstances
under which each spake his testimony. For an undertaking
like this few have the advantages you have ; few the requisite
knowledge, few the candour, few the powers of discrimination
— very few all three requisites together. The leading doctrine
to be discussed would be (I think) that of regeneration ; for it
is at the very root of the whole system, and branches out in
different ways (according to the different views taken of it)
into Church of Englandism, or into Calvinism, Antipcedo-,
baptism, the rejection of Church government and discipline,
and the m.ere moral system. It is connected with the doctrines
of free-will, original sin, justification, holiness, good works,.
election, education, the visible Church, (fee. Another leading
doctrine would be that connected with the observance of the
Lord's Day, connected with which the Sabbatarian controversy
must be introduced. Again, on Church government, union,
schism, order, &c; here about Bible Society, Church Missionary
(sodes /), &c. Again, upon the mutual uses, bearings, objects,
&c, of the Jewish and Christian covenants, on which points I
shall be rejoiced to find them (what / think) correct. This is,
indeed, a large head of inquiry, for it includes the questions
of the lawfulness of persecution, national blessings, judgmentsi
union of Church and State, and again of the profitableness,
often, of the uses and relative value of facts at the present
day, of the gradual development of doctrines, of election, (fee.
Again the opinions of these doctors concerning the Trinity and

1826 College Life 127.
Incarnation — how far they give in to Platonic doctrines, &c.
Ac. I have mixed subjects together unpardonably, and have
made, as Whately would tell us, cross divisions. Never mind.
The first subject, regeneration, is by far the most important-
and useful, I think. . . .
It is six years yesterday since I passed my examination ;
and if you knew all about me which I know, at and since that
time, you would know I have very much to be serious about ,
and grateful for. I trust I am placed where I may be an '¦
instrument for good to the Church of God. May you (as you '
are, and more than you are) be a blessing to all around you
for miles and miles. And may we both and all the members
of Christ work together in their respective stations for the
edification of the whole body. This is Sunday, and I cannot
better conclude my letter than by such a prayer.
Ever yours very sincerely,
John H. Newman.
Tlie subject Mr. Newman proposes to Mr. Rickards was
one for which he would seem naturally, as well as by his
course of reading, well fitted ; but he had an objection to
'big books.' The following characteristic answer gives his
grounds for declining the proposed task :
Rev. S. Rickards to Rev. J. H. Newman.
January 9, 1827.
You entertained me by the magnificent work with which
you design that I should ennoble myself ; and by your so
quietly taking for granted two such very debatable points as
that I could write it and that other people would read it.
Your plan pleased me much by its comprehensiveness and by
its ingenuity too ; but I do not quite agree with you in think
ing that much can be done in these times of ours, through
the weight of old authorities. I am not of opinion that any
considerable regard would be paid to them except by a few
thoughtful men, however well they might be collected ; and
even they would be hardly inclined to listen to a man offering
to do this for them ; and, in fact, I guess the materials will
be found too stubborn and discrepant to work well in the
form in which you are naturally so desirous to see them. My
impression is that our old writers are excellent men to keep
company with, if you wish to strengthen your powers by

128 John Henry Newman 1826
conversing with great and original thinkers ; they will help
you greatly to form a solid judgment for yourself, but they
seldom give you a conclusion so wrought out as that you can
use it for an argument in the shape in which they present it
to you. Hooker and Bishop Sanderson are almost the only
exceptions to this.
It seems to me, in these days, the way to draw attention
and to make oneself useful, is rather by possessing oneself of
the matter of those old venerable men than by leaning upon
their names ; by taking advantage of their fertility and ful
ness, and adding to these the clearness of conception and the
strict yet luminous method of reasoning in which, I think, we
have it in our power completely to outdo them. There is an
old proverb, 'A man may say " on my conscience " once a
year,' and I believe we must do much the same with the
writers we are speaking of. We shall employ them to the
most purpose by keeping them constantly in our own sight
and out of other people's.
I am not dealing out this by way of admonition to you
' de legitimo usu Patrum ' ; but to tell you that I cannot write
a big book. Rev. J. H. Newman to his Sister Harriett.
November 25, 1826.
The term wears away. I have felt much the delight of
having but one business [the college tutorship]. No one can
tell the unpleasantness of having matters of different kinds to
get through at once. We talk of its distracting the mind ;
and its effect upon me is, indeed, a tearing or ripping open of
the coats of the brain and the vessels of the heart.
When I first wrote a thing— my first review— I expected
to have opinions given me about it, to be corrected, &c. &c. ;
but now, old stager as I am, I have learned to take too ' large
views ' to look out for any immediate notice of a composition,
such as ' Miracles,' in the ' Encyclopaedia.' Whether it is the
number of failures I have had in prize essays, &c. (fee, have
made me patient, or whether it is insensibility or fickleness,
certain it is I rarely give a thought to the success of anything,
though it halfgiven me even as much trouble as this essay.
Mr. Blanco White plays" the violin, and has an exquisite
ear. I wish I could tempt him to Brighton.
The fourth and last chapter of the Memoir has now to be
given.

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIE

CHAPTER IV
In 1826, as has been already said, Mr. Newman was appointed
one of the Public Tutors of Oriel College, resigning the Vice-
Principalship of Alban Hall and the curacy of St. Clement's.
In 1827 he was appointed by Dr. Howley, the then Bishop of
London, one of the preachers at Whitehall. In 1827-1828
he held the University office of Public Examiner in Classics
for the B.A degree, and for the Honour list attached to the
examination. In 1828, on Mr. Hawkins becoming Provost of
Oriel, he was presented by his College to the vicarage of St.
Mary's, the University church. In 1830 he served as Pro-
proctor; in 1831-1832 he was one of the University Select
Preachers. This may be called his public career. He relin
quished the college tutorship in 1832, and the vicarage, which
was neither a University nor college office, in 1843. The other
offices enumerated were of a temporary character.
As regards his tutorship at Oriel and his incumbency, both
of which were permanent appointments, his separation from
each of them in turn, though not abrupt, had something of
violence in its circumstances. He had accepted each of them
as if for an indefinite term of years, or rather for life. He
did not look beyond them; he desired nothing better than
such a lifelong residence at Oxford ; nothing higher than
such an influential position as these two offices gave him.
How, by his own act, slowly brought into execution, he broke
off his connexion with St. Mary's, he has described in his
' Apologia ' ; how he gradually, at the end of a few years, died
out of his tutorship, shall be told in the pages that follow
It is too important an event in his history to pass it over,
together with the sentiments and motives which led to it ; for,
vol. i. K

1 30 John Henry Ne wman chap, iv
as the Oxford theological movement proper (so to call it) may
be said to have ended in his resignation of St. Mary's, so it
dates its origin from his and Hurrell Froude's premature
separation from the office of college tutor.
The story, however, cannot be told without mention of the
mournful differences, which arose between Mr. Newman and
his dear friend the new Provost of Oriel — Dr. Hawkins — who,
on Dr. Copleston's promotion to the bishopric of Llandaff, at
the end of 1827, succeeded to the Headship; but in a case in
which each party in the quarrel held his own ground on
reasons so intelligible and so defensible, and with so honest a
sense of duty, the narrative which is now to follow will involve
as little to the disparagement of Dr. Hawkins as of Mr.
Newman. There was a standing difference of opinion among religious
men of that day, whether a college tutorship was or was not
an engagement compatible with the ordination vow ; and Mr..
Newman's advisers of different schools had, with more or less
of emphasis, answered for him the question in the negative.
His friends of the Low Church party, though they might wish
him to take orders early, had not thought of his doing so as
the qualification, which it was then commonly considered, for.
holding the office of college tutor. He thus speaks on the
point in his Private Journal of June 1823 :
Scott says, as a general rule, not soon. Hawkins says the
same : Why bind yourself with a vow when there is no
necessity, and which may mean something incompatible with
staying at college and taking pupils ? [He continues :] R.
doubts the propriety of college tutors being clergymen ; Mr.
Mayers (and he has been consulting Marsh of Colchester)
advises immediate entrance into the Church by all means.
' Nothing,' he says, ' does the Church want so much as clergy
men who, without the tie of regular duty, can make pro
gresses among their brethren, and relieve them at certain
seasons.' So far his Private Journal ; here we are principally con
cerned with Dr. Hawkins's view, as just given. It will be
observed that, in his view of the principle laid down, he did
not go so far as to pronounce college employments directly

1826 Autobiographical Memoir 131
and formally unclerical, but it was a question with him
whether they might not be so ; they required an apology, and
raised at first sight a reasonable scruple. The onus probandi
that a college tutorship was in the instance of a clergyman
allowable, lay upon its advocates, as (to take cases which some
might think parallel) whether it was allowable for him to
hunt, shoot, or go to the theatre. It was lawful for a time,
or under circumstances, but anyhow, it was no fulfilment of
the vow made at ordination, nor could be consistently exercised
by one who was bound by such a vow as his lifelong occupa
tion. Just this, neither more nor less, it is here believed was
the decision of Dr. Hawkins.
But far other was Mr. Newman's view of the matter.
He had as deep a sense of the solemnity of the ordination vow
as another could have, but he thought there were various
modes of fulfilling it, and that the tutorial office was simply
one of them. As to that vow he has recorded in his Private
Journal what he calls his terror at the obligation it involved.
He writes the hour after he had received the Diaconate, ' It
is over ; at first, after the hands were laid on me, my heart
shuddered within me ; the words " For ever " are so terrible.'
The next day he says, ' For ever ! words never to be recalled.
I have the responsibility of souls on me to the day of my
death.' He felt he had left the secular line once for all, that
he had entered upon a Divine ministry, and for the first two
years of his clerical life he connected his sacred office with
nothing short of the prospect of missionary work in heathen
countries as the destined fulfilment of it. When then, as
time went on, the direct duties of a college exerted a more
urgent claim upon him, and he became Tutor, it must be
understood that, in his view, the tutorial office was but
another way, though not so heroic a way as a mission to idola
ters, of carrying out his vow. To have considered that office
to be merely secular, and yet to have engaged in it, would
have been the greatest of inconsistencies. Nor is this a
matter of mere inference from the sentiments and views re
corded in his Journal. On occasion of his Father's death,
three months after his ordination, he observes, ' My Mother
said the other day she hoped to live to see me married, but I
k2

132 John Henry Newman chap, rv
think I shall either die within college walls, or as a mission
ary in a foreign land,' thus coupling the two lives together,
_ dissimilar as they were in their character. A few years later
we find in his verses a like reference to college engagements,
not as a clergyman's accident of life, but as his divinely ap
pointed path of duty. He says that he is 'enrolled' in a
sacred warfare, and that he would not exchange it for any
other employment ; that he is a ' prisoner ' in an Oxford
' cell,' according to the ' High dispose ' of Him ' who binds on
each his part ' — that he is like the snapdragon on the college
walls, and that such a habitat was so high a lot that well
might he ' in college cloister live and die.' And, when it was
decided that he was to be one of the Public Tutors, and he
was about to enter upon the duties of his new office, he says
in his Journal, ' May I engage in them, remembering that I
am a minister of Christ, and have a commission to preach the
Gospel, remembering the worth of souls, and that I shall have
to answer for the opportunities given me of benefiting those
who are under my care.' It will be seen presently why it is
necessary thus distinctly to bring out Mr. Newman's view
^of the substantially religious nature of a college tutorship.
It was in Easter term, 1826, that Newman entered upon
duties which he felt thus sacred, and he commenced them with
an energy proverbial in the instance of 'new brooms.' He
was one of four tutors, and the junior of them, and, though
it would be very unjust to say of him that he intentionally
departed from the received way of the College, it cannot be
denied that there was something unusual and startling in his
treatment of the undergraduate members of it who came under
his jurisdiction. He began by setting himself fiercely against
the gentlemen commoners, young men of birth, wealth, or
prospects, whom he considered (of course, with real exceptions)
to be the scandal and the ruin of the place. Oriel he considered
was losing its high repute through them, and he behaved to
wards them with a haughtiness which incurred their bitter
resentment. He was much annoyed at the favour shown them
in high quarters, and did not scruple to manifest as much
annoyanse with those who favoured as with those who were
favoured. lie had hardly got through his first month of office

1826 Autobiographical Memoir 133
when he writes in his Private Journal, ' There is much in the
system which I think wrong ; I think the tutors see too little
of the men, and there is not enough of direct religious in
struction. It is my wish to consider myself as the minister
of Christ. Unless I find that opportunities occur of doing
spiritual good to those over whom I am placed, it will become
a grave question whether I ought to continue in the tuition.'
He was especially opposed to young men being compelled,
or even suffered as a matter of course, to go terminally to
communion, and shocked at the reception he met with from
those to whom he complained of so gross a profanation of the
sacred rite. When he asked one high authority whether there
was any obligation upon the undergraduates to communicate,
he was cut short with the answer, ' That question never, I
bebeve, enters into their heads, and I beg you will not put it
into them.' When he told another that a certain number of
them, after communion, intoxicated themselves at a champagne
breakfast, he was answered, 'I don't believe it, and, if it is
true, I don't want to know it.' Even Hawkins was against
him here ; and when one of the well-conducted minority ' of
the gentlemen commoners — for, as has been said, it must not
be supposed that there were none such — keenly feeling the
evil of the existing rule from what he saw around him,
published a pamphlet of remonstrance against it, Hawkins
published an answer to him in defence of it.
In consequence, in much disgust with the state of the
undergraduates at large, Newman turned for relief to his own
special pupils, and primarily to the orderly and promising
among them. He offered them his sympathy and help in
college work, and in this way, as time went on, he gained first
their attachment and then their affection. He set himself
against the system of private tutors — that is, as a system, and
except in extraordinary cases — viz. the system then prevailing
1 ['In my letter of October 1884 in answer to Lord Ma'mesbury's
report of my conduct at that time, I say tbat the well-conducted por
tion of the college was the majority. Ttese separate statements need
not be contradictory. The undergraduates were no stationary body,
but continually changing in number. In the years between 1824-1828
what was the majoiity in one term, or half-year, might be the minority
in another.']

134 • John Henry Newman chap. r»
of young graduates, bachelors or masters, undertaking the
work of preparing candidates for the honours of the schools,
and by their interposition between college tutor and pupil
inflicting an expense on the latter, and a loss of legitimate
influence on the former, which neither party was called upon
to sustain. He laid it down as his rule, which in great measure
he was able to carry out, that, on such of his pupils as wished
to work for academical honours, he was bound to bestow time
and trouble outside that formal lecture routine which was pro
vided for undergraduates generally in the Table of Lectures
put forth at the beginning of each term. With such youths
he cultivated relations, not only of intimacy, but of friend
ship, and almost of equality, putting off as much as might be
the martinet manner then in fashion with college tutors, and
seeking their society in outdoor exercise on evenings and ill
Vacation. And, when he became vicar of St. Mary's in 1828,
the hold he had acquired over them led to their following him
on to sacred ground, and receiving directly religious instruction
from his sermons ; but from the first, independently of St.
Mary's, he had set before himself in his tutorial work the aim
of gaining souls to God.
About the time of his entering upon his vicarage, important
changes took place in the Oriel staff of tutors, and that in a
direction favourable to his view of a tutor's duties. The two
seniors retired, their places being supplied by two young Fel
lows, Mr. Robert Isaac Wilberforce and Mr. R. Hun-ell Froude,
disciples of Mr. Keble, and both of them, as being such, in
practical agreement with Mr. Newman, as to the nature of the
office of college tutor. As Mr. Dornford, who was the senior
of the new tutorial body, was far from indisposed to the viewi
of his three colleagues, there ensued in consequence a sudden,
though at first unobserved, antagonism in the college adminis
tration between Provost and tutor, the former keeping to that
construction of a tutor's duties towards the young men which
he had held hitherto, and which may be called the discipli
narian, and the four tutors adhering to the pastoral view of
those duties. And thus, strangely enough, Mr. Newman, at
the very moment of his friend Dr. Hawkins's entering upon
the Provostship, became conscious for the first time of his

1826 Autobiographical Memoir 135
own congeniality of mind with Keble, of which neither Mr.
Keble nor he had had hitherto any suspicion, and he under
stood at length how it was that Keble's friends felt so singular
an enthusiasm for their master.
It had been Froude's great argument in behalf of Keble,
when the election of Provost was coming on, that Keble, if
Provost, would bring in with him quite a new world, that
donnishness and humbug would be no more in the college, nor
the pride of talent, nor an ignoble secular ambition. But such
vague language did not touch Newman, who loved and admired
Hawkins, and who answered with a laugh that, if an angel's
place was vacant, he should look toward Keble, but that they
were only electing a Provost.1 Little did Newman suspect
that Froude's meaning when accurately brought out was that
Keble had a theory of the duties of a college towards its
alumni which substantially coincided with his own. Nor was
it only deficiency in analysis of character which caused Froude's
advocacy of his master to be thus ineffectual with Newman ;
by reason of that almost fastidious modesty and shrinking
from the very shadow of pomposity, which was the character
istic of both Keble and Froude, they were, in a later year as
well as now, indisposed to commit themselves in words to a
theory of a tutor's office, which nevertheless they religiously
acted on. Newman, on the contrary, when he had a clear
view of a matter, was accustomed to formulate it, and was apt
to be what Isaac Williams considered irreverent and rude in
the nakedness of his analysis, and unmeasured and even im
patient in enforcing it. He held almost fiercely that secular
education could be so conducted as to become a pastoral cure.
He recollected that Origen had so treated it, and had by means
of the classics effected the conversion of Gregory the Apostle
of Pontus, and of Athenodorus his brother. He recollected
that in the Laudian statutes for Oxford, a tutor was not a
mere academical policeman or constable, but a moral and
religious guardian of the youths committed to him. If a tutor
was this, he might, allowably, or rather fittingly, have received
1 Pusey expresses the same feeling in his sermon on the opening of
Keble College Chapel in 1876, where he says that ' We thought Hawkins
the more practical man.'

136 John Henry Newman chap, rv
Holy Orders ; but if the view of Hawkins was the true one
then he, Newman, felt he was taking part in a heartless
system of law and form in which the good and promising were
sacrificed to the worthless and uninteresting. On this he was
peremptory, but in all this he received no sympathy from the
new Provost, who, as far as he mastered Newman's views,
maintained that Newman was sacrificing the many to the few,
and governing not by intelligible rules and their impartial
application, but by a system, if it was so to be called, of mere
personal influence and favouritism.
This conflict of opinion, however, between Provost and
tutor did not affect their united action all at once. For a
time all went on well, with the prospect of a future tinted
with that rose-colour which prevails at the opening of a new
reign. The Provost loyally and energetically backed up his
tutors in their measures for the enforcement of discipline and
the purification of the College. He inflicted severe punish
ment on offenders ; he showed no hesitation in ridding the
place of those who were doing no good there either to them
selves or to others. It began to be the fashion at Oriel to be
regular in academical conduct, and admission into the tutors'
set became an object of ambition to men hitherto not remark
able for a strict deportment. First classes were once more
looming in the offing. With whatever occasional rubs and
disputes between Provost and tutors, the former, as a man of
straightforward religious principle and severe conscientious
ness, could not but be much gratified at finding himself so
well served by them, and they, eager and hopeful in their
work, had no anticipation that they should not get on well
with him. This was, on the whole, the state of things in
1828 ; but still there was at bottom that grave though latent
difference in principle, as has been described above, which was
too likely at one time or another to issue in a serious collision
between the one party and the other.
At length the cause of quarrel came, and, when it came,
it was so mixed up with both academical and ecclesiastical
differences between the two parties, difficulties which it would
involve much time and trouble, as well as pain, to bring out
intelligibly now, that a compromise was hopeless. Its im-

1828 Autobiographical Memoir 137
mediate occasion was a claim of the tutors to use their own
discretion in their mode of arranging their ordinary terminal
lecture-table — a claim which, on the Provost's denying it, they
based upon the special relation existing, from the nature of
the case and the University statutes, between each tutor and
his own pupils, in contrast with his accidental relation to the
rest of the undergraduates whom he from time to time saw in
lecture. The Provost practically made the relation very much one
and the same in both cases ; but at least three of the tutors —
Newman, Wilberforce, and Froude — considered that their in
terest in their office was absolutely at an end, and they could
not continue to hold it, unless they were allowed to make a
broad distinction between their duties severally to their own
pupils and those of other tutors.
A long discussion and correspondence followed, of which
nothing came, reaching through 1829 to June 1830. Then
the Provost closed it, by signifying to Newman, Wilberforce,
and Froude his intention to stop their supply of pupils, as he
had a right to do, thus gradually depriving them of their office,
according as their existing pupils took their degrees and left
the University. After expressing in a last letter on the subject
the reluctance which he had all along felt to allude to any course
of action which might have the air of a threat, he continues :
And I am most reluctant to do so still, but I yield to what
you seem to desire, and feel bound, therefore, to say that, if
you cannot comply with my earnest desire, I shall not feel
justified in committing any other pupils to your care.
Among Mr. Newman's papers are letters written by Dorn-
ford and Froude at the very beginning and at the close of the
controversy, and as they accurately express what Newman
himself felt also on the points in debate, and afford him the
sanction of their concurrence in his first step and in his last,
they shall here be given.
Dornford's, written in December 1828, states distinctly his
opinion that the arrangement of the college lectures, which
was the point in dispute, lay with the tutors and not with
the Provost. Froude's insists upon the practical effect upon

138 John Henry Newman chap.it
himself, and upon his view of duty, of that particular arrange
ment of lectures which alone the Provost would hear of.
1. Dornford, under date of December 26, 1828 :
And now for your new plan of lecturing. There is much
in it that I like, and at a first glance it seemed open to no
objection ; but now it appears to me that it is much better
adapted to 200 men than to 50, and . . . will add very much
to the labour. . . . However, there can be no objection, I
think, if you all feel strongly about it, to make the experiment
and see how it works. And I perfectly agree with you here
that we are not at all bound to consult anyone but ourselves
on the adoption of it.
2. This was when the new system of lectures was just
contemplated. When the Provost had finally disposed of it by
depriving the tutors who advocated it of their office, Froude
wrote to him as follows :
June 10, 1830. — I do not find that your explanation sets
the system you recommend in a light in any respect different
from that in which I have before considered it. I have,
therefore, no need to deliberate long as to my answer.
In order to comply with such a system I should be obliged
to abandon all hope of knowing my pupils in the way in
which I know them at present, and, consequently, of retaining
that influence over them which I believe I now possess.
Of this I can be certain from my knowledge of myself and
from my present experience, slight as it may be.
But, in abandoning this hope, I should be giving up the
only thing which makes my present situation satisfactory to
myself, and should, therefore, have no inducement to retain
it, except a wish to obviate the inconvenience which a sudden
vacancy might occasion.
For this reason, in the event of its being proved to me that
I cannot with propriety act contrary to your wish on this
point, I shall be desirous of withdrawing from my situation
at the earliest time which suits your convenience, and at any
rate shall resign at Christmas.
He (Froude) wrote again on June 15 to the Provost thus :
I have never thought, as you suppose, that [your] view
itself is necessarily at variance with the Statutes. When I
appealed to them as a sanction of my conduct, it was not to

1830 Autobiographical Memoir 139
show that they disallowed the system which you approve, but
simply that they recognised such a relation between tutor and
pupil as would justify me in acting on my own views, though
they should not happen to be consistent with yours.
Unless I believed that they do recognise such a relation, I
should feel bound either to acquiesce at once in the system
which you approve, or to resign my situation in any manner
that might best suit your convenience. But as it is I feel no
less bound to consult to the best of my judgment for the good
of those pupils that have been committed to me, and to act
on this judgment, such as it is, till you think proper to revoke
my authority over them.
When I speak of acting on my own judgment, I should
mention in vindication of myself that, in principle, it coincides
with that which Keble formed, when a tutor here, and which
he still retains as strongly as possible ; and that almost in
detail it has been suggested by the late Bishop of Oxford
[Lloyd], who thought [however] that the Christ Church system
was carried to an injurious length, and that some modification
of it might be found that would combine the advantages of both.
And though I see the absurdity of assuming that whatever
could suit Keble and Lloyd is suitable also to me, I would
' remind you that, while almost everyone who is put under me
requires a superintendence which I find myself unable to give
under your system, there are very few who require instruction
beyond what any educated person is able to afford.
Mr. Newman had already written to the Provost to the
same effect on June 8, and, according to his way, more
abruptly. My chief objection [he says] to the system you propose is,
that in my own case, as I know from experience (whatever
others may be able to effect), the mere lecturing required of
me would be incompatible with due attention to that more
useful private instruction, which has imparted to the office of
tutor the importance of a clerical occupation.
To the same purpose he wrote afterwards to Mr. James,
a late Fellow of the College, on December 8, 1831, a year and
a half later, on occasion of a report that he had resumed his
post as tutor :
Had the tutorship been originally offered me by the late
Provost on the terms interpreted by the present, I never

140 John Henry Newman otap. iv
should have accepted it ; or, if so, only as a trial. I have ever
considered the office pastoral, such that the tutor was entrusted
with a discretionary power over his pupils. It was on this
ground that, four years ago, I persuaded Robert Wilberforce
to undertake it ; I have before now, while the Provost was a
Fellow, expressed the same view to him. My decision, right
or wrong, was made not in haste or passion, but from long
principle ; and it is immutable, as far as any man dare use
such a term of his resolves.
» Mr. Newman's connexion with the college tutorship did
not altogether terminate till the summer of 1832. As has
been said, the Provost declined to give him more pupils ; but
Newman was not disposed to surrender those whom he still
had, both from the great interest he took in them, and their
prospective success in the schools, and also as holding that
the tutorship was a University office, of which the Vice-
Chancellor only could directly deprive him. By the Long
Vacation of 1832 his pupils had, all but a few, passed their
B.A. examination ; and the two or three who remained he
gave over into the hands of the Provost. At the end of the
year he went abroad with Hurrell Froude and his father.
Perhaps it is worth noticing, though it does not seem to
be set down in Mr. Newman's memoranda, that the main
practical argument which the Provost urged upon him, on
behalf of his continuing tutor on the old system of lecturing
was, ' You may not be doing so much good as you may wish
or think you would do, but the question is, whether you will
not do some good, some real substantial good.' Mr. Newman
used to laugh and say to his friends, 'You see the good
Provost actually takes for granted that there is no possible
way for me to do good in my generation, except by being
one of his lecturers ; with him it is that or nothing.' In the
year after his relinquishing the tutorship, on his return from
abroad, the Tract movement began. Humanly speaking, that
movement never would have been, had he not been deprived
of his tutorship ; or had Keble, not Hawkins, been Provost.
Here closes Mr. Newman's Memoir ; henceforward he is to
be represented by his letters.
END OF AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR

LETTEES AND
CORRESPONDENCE

The Autobiographical Memoir being now concluded, the letters
are resumed from the commencement of 1827.
Rev. J. H. Newman to his Mother.
Oriel College: February 1, 1827.
Doubtless you have expected to hear of or from me before
this ; but you know I am very busy. Shall I tell you my
adventures in town if I had any ? You know I was puzzled
where I should lodge myself. Mr. E. recommended some
hotel in Albemarle Street — he forgot the name. When I got
there I found near a dozen hotels on each side of the way, and
was obliged to choose one at a venture. They would not take
me in without knowing my name, and I (though anticipating
the absurdity which would follow) was obliged to give a card,
and was then admitted. I stayed with the W.'s till past ten,
and the ladies cajoled me into buying a trumpery piece of
music, in the sale of which they were interested, and which
they declared to be beautiful, heart-moving. I went to Cart-
wright, and underwent operations (for they were many) more
severe than I ever experienced. I am sure many surgical
operations would be less painful. . . . He told me they would
pain me for some time in consequence, and, sure enough, I
have been nearly in constant pain since, and my face is swollen
up. But vinegar has made my nerves so much stronger that
the toothache is not now the prostrating, overwhelming,
down-throwing, flattening pain it was to me. The pain, how
ever, of the operation was very considerable. ... In the
midst of my agony the wretch had the face to murmur out,
' A very ungrateful sensation this.'
I called on Bowden, as I passed Somerset House, and
found him prepared for my arrival by a notice in the ' Morning

i42 John Henry Newman 1827
Post,' among the ' fashionable arrivals ' (my card !). From
what I have learnt since I fancy I figured among the fashion
able departures. Fine subject for quizzing for my pupils !
The Bishop of Oxford died last night, and it is supposed
that Lloyd will be his successor, though Copleston, Pearson,
the Warden of Wadham, the Bishop of Sodor and Man, are
respectively spoken of.
P-S. — I have not forgotten your wishes about some simple
and plain commentary, yet I have not been able to satisfy
them. At this date — 1827 — the country was agitated by the
question of Roman Catholic Emancipation, the Bill for which
was passed in 1829. Mr. Newman's sister meets in society
a clergyman who wishes to hear her brother's views on the
question. To his Sister Harriett. March 19, 1827.
As to Mr. W.'s absurd question about my opinion on the
Catholic question, tell him that I am old enough to see that I
am not old enough to know anything about it. It seems to
me a question of history. I am not skilled in the political
and parliamentary history of Elizabeth, the Stuarts, and
Hanoverians. How can I decide it by means of mere argu
ment — theoretical argument, declamations about liberty, the
antecedent speculative probability of their doing no harm 1
In my mind he is no wise man who attempts, without a know
ledge of history, to talk about it. If it were a religious ques
tion I might think it necessary to form a judgment ; as it is
not, it would be a waste of time. What would be thought of
a man giving an opinion about the propriety of this or that
agrarian law in Rome who was unacquainted with Roman ^
history 1 At the same time I must express my belief that
nothing will satisfy the Roman Catholics. If this be granted, j
unquestionably they will ask more.
News came this morning of the Dean of Durham's death,
late head of Ch. Ch. Pusey has lost a brother.
There is, as has been already shown, an easy tone in Mr.
Newman's letters to his Mother which gives them a distinctive
ness that may interest the reader, though the writer would
have little thought of subjecting them to the eyes of strangers.

1827 Letters and Correspondence 143

J. H. N. to his Mother.1 March 30, 1827.
. . . Copleston has been very unwell. He is just returned
from Tunbridge Wells, where he had been for about a fortnight,
and thinks of returning again immediately. Whately is there
and Dr. Mayo the physician, a late Fellow of Oriel, in whom
the Provost has great confidence.
The new Bishop [Lloyd] presented himself in his wig in
church last Sunday. He is much disfigured by it, and not
known. People say he had it on hind part before. . . . Blanco
preached a very beautiful sermon at St. Peter's last Sunday.
What is the matter with Jemima, so mum is she ? But she
is industrious. Ah, I believe I owe her a letter, so the fault
is mine. Young Oakley was elected Fellow of Balliol the
other day.
Does the sea blossom ? Are green leaves budding on its
waters, and is the scent of spring in its waves 1 Do birds
begin to sing under its shadow, and to build their nests on its
branches 1 Ah ! mighty sea ! Thou art a tree whose spring
never yet came, for thou art an evergreen.
There is a pastoral ! With love to all, yours ever most
dutifully,
John H. Newman.
Tell Mary I was quite delighted with her lines ; they showed
great elegance, poetical feeling, and good religious feeling,
which is better still.
... I open my letter to answer your question from
Mrs. 0.
The yearly college expenses with us do not amount to 80?.
This includes board, lodging, servants, dues, tuition, coals,
washing, letters, and hair-cutting. I believe other colleges are
about the same. The great expenses of a college residence are
' in the private extravagance of the young man. If he will indulge
in expensive wines and desserts, if he will hunt, if he will
game, what can the college do 1 It forbids these excesses,
indeed, and tries to prevent them ; but where there is a will
to do wrong there is a way. The college expenses of a careless
man are indefinite. 1 Lately settled at Eastern Terrace, Brighton.

J44 John Henry Newman mi

J. H. N. to his Mother. May 7, 1827.
Tell Jemima Miss M. [Miss Mitford ?] is clever, but her
naturalness degenerates into affectation and her simpUcity into
prettiness. She is rather the ape of nature — a mimic— or* est
celare artem. But some of her pieces are very good, e.g. the
old bachelor. Tell her she has no business to say we are
getting old. Let her speak for herself. Tell her I am quite
vigorous ; particularly the last week, when I have hunted from
the college two men. . . .

To his Mother. June 10.
... I find that sooner or later I must submit to enter the
Schools, and I must prepare for it, so I intend this Vacation
once for all to read up some works which, learned as I am, are
yet strangers to me. At one time I thought I should have to
go into the Schools after the Vacation, but now that seems
improbable, and I certainly won't go without a six months'
notice. By-the-bye, I have not told you the name of the individual
who is to read with me [in the Long]. . . he will not occupy
more than an hour a day. At least, I have consented to give
no more, and he consents to be a hermit at Brighton and then
at Hampstead [where Mr. Newman had undertaken duty for
six weeks of the Vacation, occupying the vicarage during the
incumbent's absence]. By-the-bye, talking of hermits puts
me in mind of Keble's Hymns, which are just out. I have
merely looked into them [the word ' hermit ' occurs]. They
seem quite exquisite. ... To return to my pupil, I think you
have heard his name before ; it is Onslow. . . .
June 22. — Ah, the longest day is passed even before I send
this, Mute Mary ! Well, since writing the above, we have
heard from Pusey ; he passes through Oxford July 2, which
tempts me to stay till that day here. . . . My friend G.
[Golightly] comes on July 4. I like him much, as far as I
know him, and doubt not, whether you see him little or much,
you will like him too, though he is better to know than to see.
We are having rows as thick as blackberries). What a thing

1827 Letters and Correspondence 145
it is to be vigorous, J. [Jemima], and to be dignified, H.
[Harriett]. I am so dignified it is quite overpowering.
Yours ever most dutifully,
John H. Newman.
His Mother replies : June 26, 1827.
It gives me great pleasure to see you appear so strong at
the end of a troublesome term. I hope you will have effected
a ' radical reform ' by your vigorous measures, and that you
are properly seconded.
The following letter is without date, but is written from
Germany :
E. B. Pusey, Esq., to Rev. J. H. Newman.
August 26, 1827.
I received the enclosed prospectus yesterday with an appli
cation, either personally or through friends, to contribute the
accounts of the progress of God's kingdom which this country
would supply. My acquaintance being both confined and,
what I have, almost limited to one party of one religious de
nomination in this country, I should be utterly unable to give
a general view either of the general progress or retrogradation
in the whole or its parts. The great activity in almost every
class, the variety of the phenomena, the approach, I think, of
some crisis, infinitely increase the at any time great difficulty
of judging of the religious state of a country, where the develop
ment proceeds from so many different points, of conjecturing
the final issue, or ef appreciating the importance of any par
ticular set of facts as affecting the general result. A long
study, (fee, seems absolutely necessary either to conjecture
what the result of the composition must be, which now seems,
before many, nay perhaps before one, decennium is elapsed,
unavoidable.
H. W. Wilberforce to Rev. J. H. Newman.
July 5, 1827.
I cannot but feel most grateful to you for your kindness to
me, which has indeed, I can say without affectation, been to
me that of an elder brother.
Again, a month later :
I am quite jealous of Golightly, that he should be making
vol. 1. L

146 John Henry Newman 1827
ground in your acquaintance, while I am deprived of the ad
vantage which, however, I prize, I believe, as much as he can.
In September 1827 Mr. Newman visited Mr. Rickards at
Ulcombe, Mr. Robert Isaac Wilberforce being there at the
same time. Mrs. Rickards writes a report of her visitors to
Miss Newman. Ulcombe : September 12, 1827.
I trust we shall keep John till he must go to Oxford. We
have great designs upon him, and I shall not rest till we have
done our part towards accomplishing them— Samuel is even
more vehement than I am, and will talk to more purpose —
which are neither more nor less than to make him idle enough
to rest himself ; for we think his looks bespeak that he has
been reading too hard. If he imprqves in looks at Ulcombe,
how delightful it will be !
He was very tired all the evening, but we managed to talk
a good deal, and R. Wilberforce was as merry as he generally
is. ' This morning I was treated by all three gentlemen coming
into the drawing-room after breakfast, when a long discussion
began which lasted near two hours, after which they adjourned,
R. W. to read, the other two to talk and walk about the
garden, from whence they only just returned to be ready for
dinner at two o'clock. And now here is John come to keep
me company, or rather to be plagued by the children. I
wish you only could see him with both on his lap in the great
arm-chair, pulling off and then putting on his glasses. They
are quite overjoyed to see him. . . .
Thursday. — This is a very rainy day. " We have actually
fires in each sitting-room. The gentlemen are all together in
the larger room, employed upon the Epistle to the Romans,
which is one of the things they are bent upon studying most
diligently. I did not understand your warning respecting the
designs afloat against Samuel. I have been asking him if he
has discovered any. He says only that they seem determined
to pump him well, and find out all he knows, enlightening him
when he is deficient, &c. He says such examinations are
worth more than three times as many hours of study alone.
I hope the rest find the same to be the case. I cannot describe
to you the enjoyment I have in listening. There is no intel
lectual pleasure so great or any from which one ought to profit
so much as such conversation — but I shall talk of nothing else
if I suffer my pen to go on on this subject. . . .

1827 Letters and Correspondence 147
Last evening Mr. G.'s manuscript was read and com
mented on, but it was voted too prolix and dull to be con
tinued. I do not know what we shall have to-night. We
have read one of Keble's hymns all together and shall have
more of them I hope. — Your affectionate friend,
L. M. R.
Later on, J. C. N., in a letter to her sister, says of this
meeting of friends : ' They seem to have spent their whole time
in their readings and discussions. Their Ughtest reading, John
says, was Cudworth's sermons.'
J. H. N. to his Mother.
Ulcombe: September 24, 1827.
The R.'s press most pressingly your coming here with
Mary. . . . You must come before you return. I shall go from
hence to the Wilberforce's ; when, I do not know. Rickards
has given some most admirable characters of Froude, Blanco
White, S. Wilberforce, and others.1
To explain a passage in the following letter from Ulcombe —
Mrs. Rickards had an album in which she wished aU her
friends to write verses on flowers. The flower chosen by
Mr. Newman was the Snapdragon. The verses begun when
this letter was written were finished October 2. They may
be found p. 17 of ' Verses on Various Occasions.'
To his Sister Mart.
Ulcombe : September 29, 1827.
Though I have a good deal to say, I doubt whether I shall
say it, yet I hardly know why — perhaps I am lazy. Ulcombe
is as pretty as it was last year ; the weather, however, has not
been favourable, yet we have not neglected to take prodigious
walks. We have seen Mr. Gambier twice, and the second time
dined with him. He is a very interesting person. I applaud
your determination to pass an independent judgment on what
you read. It is very necessary to keep in mind the necessity
of making up one's mind for oneself ; but I am rather stupid
at this moment, or I would enter into a disquisition on the
1 Mr. Rickards gave characters from handwritings. It was an
especial favour reserved for intimate friends for him to do this in the
presence of others. 12

148 John Henry Newman 1827
subject. Tell Harriett that Mrs. Wilberforce has invited you
(some or all) to Highgate with me/- I think two might go, but
who I leave to yourselves.
. . . What if I have begun some Unes on a flower t I am
not obliged to do it. What if I have not ? Who can make
me 1 . . . We have had discussions without end on all sub
jects, and have been reading various things most assiduously,
but what the Schools will say I know not.
To his Mother.
Oriel College: October 18, 1827.
Our tutorial staff is very strong this term. Four tutors
(Froude coming in additional), and Pusey as Censor Theo-
logicus, that is, reviewer of the sermon notes. My Fathers are
arrived all safe — huge fellows they are, but very cheap — one
folio costs a shilling ! and all in this extravagantly moderate
way. . . .
St. Mary's is sadly out of order inside, as might be ex
pected, but it will be all set right by Christmas, and on the
whole the alterations will (I doubt not) be a vast improvement.
Trinity Chapel is under a course of restoration. Merton
Grove is at length finished, and Alban Hall is rising from its
ruins. R. Wilberforce will reside (I fancy) this term.
I am much satisfied that you went to High Wood, though
but for a day. I was much taken with Mr. Wilberforce. It
is seldom indeed we may hope to see such simplicity and un
affected humility, in one who has been so long moving in the
intrigues of public life and the circles of private flattery.
To his Mother. October 22, 1827.
I have no lectures this term ; my kind colleagues have set
me at liberty for the Schools' sake. But I have to prepare,
instead, the young candidates of distinction for their trial.
This will at once accustom me to examining and be of service
to them. I am, besides, reserved for general purposes. It is
most useful to have a person reserved in this way. A corps
de reserve for all contingencies, on the principle that the first
Lord of the Treasury has so little to do. . . .
I have been admitted a Congregation Examiner to-day. I
have taken the oaths. Your ever most dutifully,
J.H.N

1827 Letters and Correspondence 149
In allusion to anxieties which had lately been heavy upon
her, Mrs. Newman writes to her eldest daughter :
November 5.
I have been a good deal plagued in various ways, but yet
I hope the main things go on right. I have had various
communications with dear John Henry ; he is, as usual, my
guardian angel.
E. B. Pusey, Esq., to Rev. J. H. Newman.
Brighton: November 1827.
I have found a decided and gradual progress towards im
provement since I have been here. I found even the fatigue
of the journey a relief. Even the first day, when a deep fog
hung heavy on land and sea, was reviving in some measure,
and since it has been clear, the constant presence of the sea's
deep roar, the sublimity of gazing on an interminable expanse
of waters, with all the other feeUngs associated with this won
drous element . . . have removed for the most part depression
of spirits. . . . When my nerves were laid to rest I at any
time recovered them. I inhale sea air night and day. I
bathe every morning at seven in the sea, and allow three
hours in the day to the more immediate imbibing of sea air
and exercise ; and, what you wiU think more important, only
get through the emending and writing notes on two chapters
of Isaiah in the course of the day, my present object being to
regain health. I do not grudge the time which it costs, and
shall probably, even from this time, change the mode of life
which my health could once stand.
Since writing the above I have seen Sir M. Tierney [the
Brighton physician] ; his views are not very encouraging.
After a very short time he plainly said that my case was ' very
nearly what they called a general breakdown of the system.'
Such, I think, were his words. I did before much wish to
return to Oxford, to resume the office, &c. . . . but after this
statement, which is confirmed by the feeling of most painful
weakness and liability to faintness, I fear it would be mad
ness to attempt it.
At this time Mr. Newman's two younger sisters were
visiting Mrs. Rickards at Ulcombe, from whence Mary writes
to her brother ; fragments of her letters are given, partly for
the sake of the superscription on the packet in which they

'So John Henry Newman 1827
were found, and partly to show the charm of Mr. Rickards's
personal influence on young people. Ulcombe : November 27, 1827.
Is it not odd that Jemima and I should be here alone?
Yet I feel quite at home. It is enough to make one feel glad
only to look at Mr. Rickards, and Mrs. Rickards makes me
laugh so. . . . O John ! how absurd of me to tell you all
this, which you know. How I long to see you ! . . . I can
fancy your face — there, it is looking at me. . . .
Again, writing on her return home :
Brighton: December 4, 1827.
I must tell you about Mr. Rickard3. You know, as
Harriett would say, he cannot let anyone alone ; so he has
given me a great deal of good advice. He has recommended
me several books to read— Ray's 'Wisdom of God in the
Creation.' It is extremely interesting, but the style is so
heavy that till I got used to it I found much difficulty. Two
other books I am to read — ' The Port Royal Art of Thinking,'
and ' Watts on the Mind.' Mr. Rickards has also advised me
to do what you used to make Harriett and Jemima do — turn
' Telemachus ' into verse.
What a nice creature Mrs. Rickards is ! I always think
of the word, I believe, you applied to her, ' fascinating,' for I
think that is exactly what she is ; and it is so amusing to hear
Mr. Rickards and her talk to each other.
I am so impatient to see you. How long is it before you
come 1 Can it be three, nearly four weeks ? I think it seems
longer since I saw you than ever before. This letter is not to
go till to-morrow —it will wait for our having seen Pusey.
Dearest John, your most affectionate sister,
M. S. N.
Upon the above letter is inscribed these words : ' Scarcely
more than four weeks after, she suddenly died.'
J. H. N. to his Sister Harriett. December 2, 1827.
Dear Pusey lodges at 5 Eastern Terrace. My Mother
will send her card and he will call. He is very unweU ; his
nerves very much tried. He is not well in mind or body. All

1827 Letters and Correspondence 151
of you be very duU when he calls, for he can bear nothing
but dulness, such as looking out upon the sea monotonously.
I do not see how my Mother can be civil to him. He does
not go out to dinner, and as to breakfast, it would be so strange
to ask him.
Well, Copleston is a bishop and a dean. Shall we have a
new Head or not 1 Which wiU be best, Keble or Hawkins 1
E. B. Pusey, Esq., to Mrs. Newman.
December 1827 [Saturday evening].
Mr. E. Pusey begs to present his best thanks to Mrs.
Newman for her kindness in thinking of him, and for her
obliging present. He has not yet been able to try it, but is
sure that anything sent in so kind a manner must be palatable
as well as beneficial.
It may, perhaps, be interesting to Mrs. Newman to know
that there will be a vacancy in the Oriel Provostship. Mr.
Pusey does not believe that it is any longer a secret, but it
may be as well not mentioned beyond Mrs. Newman's im
mediate family. Should there be a difference of opinion as
to the successor, it is a satisfaction to agree with J. N. on
the subject.
The foUowing entry in the ' Chronological Notes,' under
date Nov. 26, 1827, marks the commencement of that illness
which, in looking back, is, • in the ' Apologia,' classed with
bereavement :
Taken iU in the schools while examining, was leeched on
the temples.
November 28. — R. Wilberforce took me off to Highwood.
Consulted Mr. Babington.
December 14. — Went from London to Brighton.
This is the first mention of the valued medical adviser on
whom Mr. Newman relied with unfailing trust till death
removed his friend from him. Some letters remain of Dr.
Babington's amongst Mr. Newman's papers.
The reader will remember that in the account of his
failure, when he stood for honours in 1820, there is an allusion
to this attack in 1827 as a repetition of the same symptoms,
only in a severer form, from which he then suffered.

!S-2 John Henry Newman-

1827

To his Mother.
Highwood Hill: December 11, 1827.
I have been at Wilberforce's several days ; finding myself
tired with my Oxford work, he kindly proposed it and I ac
cepted it. I find myself quite recruited, and return to Oxford
to-morrow or Thursday. When you will see me I hardly
know— the election of Provost may detain me ; I had some
idea of coming to you to-day, had I not sufficiently refreshed
myself by coming here. See how dutiful I am to tell you all
this, even at the risk of your thinking me unwell. It will be
a great shame if my very candour and fairness in telling you
I amtired make you think so.
Thank yourself, Mary and H. for your joint letter.
Golden Square: December 13.
It is my intention, God wiUing, to come down to you to
morrow for the vacation, though, doubtless (and I hope), I
shall have to return to Oxford for the election. I am very
much better, nay, almost well, but my kind medical adviser
here (a friend of W.'s), with whom I dine and lodge till to
morrow, is against my returning to business.
The reader has not now to be told that at the election of
Provost Mr. Newman voted for Mr. Hawkins. From the
following letter it may be gathered that Mr. Keble had keen
interests on the question, which, however, is a different thing
from desiring for himself such a total change of Ufe.
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. J. Keble.
Marine Square, Brighton: December 19, 1827.
Though I have not written to you on the important college
arrangement which is under our consideration at present, and
in which you are so nearly concerned, you must not suppose
my silence has arisen from any awkward feeling (which it has
not) or any unwillingness to state to you personally what you
must have some time heard indirectly. I have been silent
because I did not conceive you knew or understood me well
enough to be interested in hearing more than the fact, any
how conveyed, which way my opinion lay in the question of
the Provostship, between you and Hawkins. This may have
been a refinement of modesty, but it was not intended as such,
but was spontaneous.

1827 Letters and Correspondence 153
I write now because Pusey has told me that you would
like to receive a line from any of the Fellows, even though
you have already heard their feelings on the subject before us
all ; and I am led to mention my reason for not having written
before (which I otherwise should not have done), lest you
should think my conduct less kind to you than in intention it
has really been. I have been so conscious to myself of the
love and affectionate regard which I feel towards you, that
the circumstance of my not thinking you the fittest person
among us in a particular case and for a particular purpose
seemed to me an exception to my general sentiments too
trivial to need explanation or remark — to myself ; but I have
forgotten that to you things may appear different— that this
is the first time I have had an opportunity of expressing any
feeling towards you at all ; and that, consequently, it would
have been acting more kindly had I spoken to you rather than
about you. Forgive me if I have in any way hurt you or
appeared inconsiderate.
I have Uved more with Hawkins than with any other
FeUow, and have thus had opportunities for understanding
him more than others. His general views so agree with my
own, his practical notions, religious opinions and habits of
thinking, that I feel vividly and powerfuUy the advantages
the College would gain when governed by one who, pursuing
ends which I cordially approve, would bring to the work
powers of mind to which I have long looked up with great
admiration. Whereas I have had but few opportunities of
the pleasure and advantage of your society : and I rather
suspect, though I may be mistaken, that, did I know you
better, I should find you did not approve opinions, objects,
and measures to which my own turn of mind has led me to
assent. I allude, for instance, to the mode of governing a
college, the desirableness of certain reforms in the University
at large, their practicabiUty, the measures to be adopted with
reference to them, &c.
It is ungracious to go on, particularly in writing to you
above others ; for you could easily be made to bebeve anyone
aUve was more fit for the Provostship than yourself. I have
said enough, perhaps, to reUeve you of any uneasy feeling as
regards myself : the deep feelings I bear towards you, these I
shall keep to myself. — Yours ever affectionately.1
1 The above letter from Mr. Newman to Mr. Keble will help to clear
away the difficulties thai have arisen as to Mr. Newman's part in the

154 John Henry Newman 1827
Rev. John Keble to Rev. J. H. Newman.
December 28, 1827.
I have made up my mind that it is on the whole unad-
visable for me to allow my name to be mentioned on this
occasion, and have written to Hawkins and Froude, and intend
writing to Plumer to-night to say so. It was very kind in
you to write to me, but surely your opinion required no ex
planation or apology. However partial one might be to one
self, your knowing so much more of Hawkins is enough to
prevent anyone with a spark of common sense in his head
from being hurt at your preference of him.
The first entry in the ' Chronological Diary ' for the year
1828 is in these words :
January 5. — We lost my sister Mary.
In the ' Apologia ' there is the following allusion to this
event :
The truth is, I was beginning to prefer intellectual excel
lence to moral : I was drifting in the direction of liberalism.
I was rudely awakened from my dream at the end of 1827 by
two great blows — illness and bereavement.
It happened to the present writer to read— more than
fifty years after this bereavement — aletter from Mary Newman
to her Mother, so remarkable for sweet playfulness, and, if
the term may be used, for the quality of simplicity, in its
most bright picturesque form, that, on occasion of writing on
some family concern to Cardinal Newman, it was natural to
election, which are noticed in Dean Burgon's Twelve Good Men. The
following letter from Dr. Pusey is here given; it was written on the
same sheet of paper with that of Mr. Newman :— ' My dear Keble,— N.
having spared me a small space in his letter, which was written in con
sequence of seeing your kind answer to mine, I am very glad to be
able to express my sincere gratitude for that kindness. I knew that
whatever was done honestly would meet with your approbation ; but it
is a satisfaction to have that expressed in such a manner. I suppressed
much in my last letter that I would willingly have said, but dreaded
its, at the moment, appearing insincere ; but I now find that it would
probably give you less pain not to be the object of the choice of the
Fellows than it will, I expect, be to me to vo'.e otherwise than for
you. — Affectionately yours, E. B. Pusey.'

1828 Letters and Correspondence 155
speak of the impression it had made. Shortly after came the
following note from him, with an enclosure :
You spoke with so much interest lately of my dear sister
Mary that I send you what I have just received from Maria
Giberne. '
The letter brings the scene so vividly before tti3 reader
that its insertion will not be thought out of place here.
M. R. G. to H. E. Cardinal Newman.
. . . But I do not want to talk of myself. I want to tell
you of my entire sympathy with you in what you say and feel
about the anniversary of our dear Mary's death. This season
never comes round without my repassing in my heart of
hearts all the circumstances of those few days — my first visit
to your dear family. Who could ever behold that dear sweet
face for any length of time and forget it again 1 And again,
who could ever have been acquainted with the soul and heart
that lent their expression to that face and not love her 1
My sister Fanny and I arrived at your house on the 3rd
[of January], and sweet Mary, who had drawn figures under
my advice when she was staying with us at Wanstead, leant
over me at a table in the drawing-room, and in that sweet
voice said, ' I am so glad you are come ; I hope you will help
me in my drawing.' I forget about the dinner and evening
on that day, for I was doubtless under considerable awe of
you in those first days ; but the next day Mr. Woodgate and
Mr. Williams dined there, and dear Mary sat next you, and I
was on the other side ; and while eating a bit of turkey she
turned her face towards me, her hand on her heart, so pale,
and a dark ring round her eyes, and she said she felt ill, and
should she go away? I asked you, and she went : I longed
to accompany her, but dared not for fear of making a stir.
It was the last time 1 saw her alive. Soon after Jemima
went after her ; and then your Mother, looking so distressed ;
and she said, ' John, I never saw Mary so ill before ; I think
we must send for a doctor.' You answered as if to cheer her,
'Ah, yes, Mother, and don't forget the fee.' How little I
thought what the end would be ! Next morning Harriett
came to walk with us about one o'clock — after the doctor had
1 This lady, sister-in law of the Rev. Walter Mayer, has been de
scribed in Reminiscences of Oriel. She died at Autun, Dec. 2, 1885 in
the Convent of the Order of Visitation.

156 John Henry Newman 1828
<been, I think— but though she said Mary had had a very bad
night, she did not seem to apprehend danger. We went to
dine with a friend, and only returned to your house about
nine. I felt a shock in entering the house, seeing no one but
you — so pale and so calm, and yet so inwardly moved ; and
how, when I asked you to pray with us for her, you made a
great effort to quiet your voice, sitting against the table, your
eyes on the fire, and you answered, 'I must tell you the truth :
she is dead already.' Then you went to fetch vinegar, which
I did not need, for I felt turned to stone. Fanny cried— I
envied her her tears.
You told us a little about her, with gasping sobs in your
voice, and then you left us. My tears come now in writing
it, though they would not then. I never cry suddenly — I must
think about it first. Now, dearest Father, I hope while I
relieve my own heart by speaking of these sad scenes, I am
not selfishly overtaxing your feelings ; but I think you will
not mind it, for you like to go over old times as well as I do,
I think ; and I cannot tell all this to anyone but you. Do '
you recoUect that you and I are the only survivors of that
event 1
And then how can I ever forget all your kindnesses to me
because of my toothache [she had undergone a painful, un
successful operation at the dentist's] ? How your Mother sent
out for soft cakes soaked with wine — the only thing I could
manage to eat. You all seemed so unselfish in your grief, for
getting your own trouble to minister to my wants. I was
deeply touched, and learnt a lesson which, though I have not
practised as I ought, I have always striven to imitate : not to
" suffer myself to be so absorbed by my own feelings as that I
could not feel for others.
This scene, recalled after fifty years, is given as fulfilling
the promise or the prophecy made in the first freshness of
sorrow, which forms the closing verse of the poem entitled
' Consolations in Bereavement.'
From these home scenes of trial Mr. Newman, in returning
to Oxford, had to take share at once in a college election
which had issues important to himself, and with which the
fourth chapter of the Memoir is concerned.

1828 Letters and Correspondence 157

J. H. N. to his Mother. January 31, 1828.
I was hastening to write a few lines to you before break
fast in time for our new Provost (as he will be in two hours)
to take to town to save a day's post, when your letter came.
My journey fagged me much. I arrived here by half- past
six. The Bishop [Copleston] was in the Common-Room, and
I joined the party. He left yesterday morning. Yesterday
I took a long and deUghtful ride, but the stench of the
retiring waters in our quadrangle is odious, and the air in
Oxford is thick and damp. The inside oi St. Mary's is nearly
complete. The foUowing letter from his Mother dwells on the subject
foremost in her mind. February 18, 1828.
My dear, dear Son, — It was very kind of you to write
when you had such comforting news as your ' strikingly ;
amended health.' I pray earnestly that it may continue to
improve, and that you may be preserved from such accumula- >
ted and successive trials as it has pleased God you should
experience in your entrance into life. The chastening Hand
who brings these severe inflictions does mitigate them, and
often, in greater mercy, renders them blessings ; such has it
been to you, my dear, and through you to all of us. It is de
lightful to think that your dear departed sister owed so much
of her religious and right feelings to you ; and her knowledge
of her own insufficiency, and her submission and fitness to
obey her awfully sudden call. These reflections, which call
for our thankfulness, must soothe us for the bitter trials we
have been repeatedly called on to endure.
Dr. Hawkins, as Provost, resigned St. Mary's. The fol
lowing entries in the ' Chronological Record ' give the dates :
March 9. — Did duty at St. Mary's in the afternoon, and
preached. March 12. — The Provost (Hawkins) resigned the living of
St. Mary's. March 14. — I was instituted by the Bishop of Oxford to
St. Mary's.March 16. — Did duty at St. Mary's, preaching.

158 John Henry Newman 1828
March 20. — Inducted into St. Mary's by Buckley of
Merton. March 23. — I read in — i.e. read the Thirty-nine Articles.
March 27. — Disputed with Arnold for B.D. degree, Pro
vost presiding.
March 28. — Dined with Provost to meet Arnold.
The following letter to his sister Jemima is taken from
her collection of his letters. The reader of Mr. Newman's
parochial sermons will recognise in that entitled ' The Lapse
of Time,' passages which had their impulse in the thoughts
here expressed. Oriel College: March 9, 1828.
I hope you have not thought my silence unkind, dear
Jemima. I have all along been going to write to you, but
somehow or other, though I have not much to do, I find it
difficult to make time. I am going out of the Schools, and
Dornford (I fancy) will supply my place for the ensuing
examination. Dear Jemima, I know you love me much, though your dis
position does not lead you to say much about it, and I love
you too, and you (I trust) know it. (Carefully take down, if
you have not already, all you can recollect that dear Mary
said on every subject, both during the time of her short ill
ness and the days before ; we shall else forget it. Would it
not, too, be desirable to write down some memoranda generally
concerning her ? — her general character, and all the delightful
things we now recollect concerning her. Alas ! memory does
not remain vivid ; the more minute these circumstances the
better."' To talk of her thus in the third person, and in all
the common business and conversation of life, to allude to her
as now out of • the way and insensible to what we are doing
(as is indeed the case), is to me the most distressing circum
stance, perhaps, attending our loss.1 lit draws tears into my
eyes to think that all at once we can only converse about her,
as about some inanimate object, wood or stone. But she
' shall flourish from the tomb.' ^ And, in the meantime, it
being but a little time, I would try to talk to her in imagina
tion, and in hope of the future, by setting down all I can think
of about her. But I must not selfishly distress you. God
bless you, my dearest Jemima.
1 See Parochial Sermons, vol. vii. p. 4, ' The Lapse of Time.'

1828 Letters and Correspondence 159

J. C. N. to her Brother J. H. N.
March 17, 1828.
... I cannot bear to think that I should ever cease to
feel as much towards dear Mary as I have all my life, but I
think I am sure I shaU not. I dare say strangers think us
much at our ease, and in good spirits ; but I always wish to
say when I speak to anyone who did not know her, ' Ah, you
little think what she was in herself and to us all.' Dear John,
how you delighted me once when you said she was so singu
larly good ! I never heard you speak so much about her, but
I was sure you thought so ; and indeed we, John, know more
of her than you could know ; I especially, who have been
always with her. To his Mother. April 1, 1828.
Last week I did my exercises for my B.D. degree, merely
to keep Arnold company, since one man cannot dispute with
himself [and he could get no one], and its being in Latin and
in Collection week, I found it too hard work.
I take most vigorous exercise, which does me much good.
I have learned to leap (to a certain point), which is a larking
thing for a don. The exhilaration of going quickly through
the air is for my spirits very good. I have a sermon to pre
pare for Warton to-morrow.1 To his Sister Harriett. Oxford: April 21, 1828.
On my journey hither I comforted myself with writing the
following Unes. Do not show them to my Mother, if you think
they would distress her.
Consolations in Bereavement.
Death was full urgent with thee, sister dear,
And startling in his speed ;
Brief pain, then languor till thy end came near :
Such was the path decreed,
The hurried road
To lead thy soul from earth to thine own God's abode.
 . \
1 Rev. Walter Mayer's funeral sermon.

160 John Henry Newman 1828
Death wrought with thee, sweet maid, impatiently ;
Yet merciful the haste
That baffles sickness ; dearest, thou didst die ;
Thou wast not made to taste
Death's bitterness,
Decline's slow-wasting charm, or fever's fierce distress.
Death came unheralded ; — but it was well ;
For so thy Saviour bore
Kind witness thou wast meet at once to dwell
On His eternal shore ;
All warning spared,
For none He gives where hearts are for prompt change prepared.
Death wrought in mystery : both complaint and cure
To human skill unknown :
God put aside all means, to make ns sure
It was His deed alone ;
Lest we should lay
Reproach on our poor selves that thou wast caught away.
Death urged as scant of time : lest, sister dear,
We many a lingering day
Had sickened with alternate hope and fear :
The ague of delay j
Watching each spark
Of promise quenched in turn, till all our sky was dark.
Death came and went : that so thy image might
Our yearning hearts possess,
Associate with all pleasant thoughts, and bright
With youth and loveliness ;
Sorrow can claim.
Mary, nor lot nor part in thy soft soothing name.
Joy of sad hearts and light of downcast eyes I
Dearest, thou art enshrined
In all thy fragrance in our memories ;
For we must ever find
Bare thought of thee
Freshen our weary life, while weary life shall be.
I am conscious they need much correcting, which at times
it will be a solace to me to give, but such as they are you will
not dislike them. It goes to my heart to think that dear Mary
herself, in her enthusiastic love of me, would so like them
could she see them, because they are mine. May I be patient !
It is so difficult to realise what one believes, and to make these
trials, as they are intended, real blessings.

1828 LETTERS AND CORRESPONDENCE \6X
To his Sister Jemima.
Oriel College : May 10, 1828.
. . . Poor Pusey came here last Monday. He is much
thrown back, and his spirits very low. He proposes being
ordained on Trinity Sunday. I suppose his marriage will
take place shortly after. He, Pusey, is going to change his
name to Bouverie ; this, however, is quite a secret.
... In accordance with my steady wish to bring together
members of different colleges, I have founded a dinner club
of men about my own standing (my name does not appear, nor
is known as the founder). We meet once a fortnight. One
fundamental rule is to have very plain dinners. '
I am very regular in my riding [enjoined by his doctor],
though the weather has not on the whole been favourable. On
Thursday I rode over to Cuddesdon with W. and F. and dined
with Saunders. It is so great a gain to throw off Oxford for
a few hours, so completely as one does in dining out, that it
is almost sure to do me good. The country, too, is beautiful ;
the fresh leaves, the scents, the varied landscape. Yet I never
felt so intensely the transitory nature of this world as when
most delighted with these country scenes. And in riding out
to-day I have been impressed more powerfully than before I
had an idea was possible with the two Unes :
Chanting with a solemn voice
Minds us of our better clwice.
I could hardly believe the lines were not my own and Keble
had not taken them from me. I wish it were possible for
words to put down those indefinite, vague, and withal subtle
feelings which quite pierce the soul and make it sick. /Dear
Mary seems embodied in every tree and hid behind every hill.
What a veil and curtain this world of sense is ! beautiful, but \
still a veU.
Rev. E. Smedley to Rev. J. H. Newman. May 17, 1828.
It is some time since, through your kindness, I opened a
communication with Mr. Pusey, who gave me encouragement
to hope that, as the historical portion of the ' Encyclopaedia
1 The members were: 1, R. H. Froude ; 2, R. I. Wilberforce ; 3.J.H.
Newman; 4, J. Bramston; 5, Rickards; 6, Round.
VOL. I. M

1 62 John Henry Newman 1828
Metropolitana ' approached the birth of Mohammedanism, he
might be inclined to assist us in Oriental history. As I very
much wish to negotiate with him further, I take the liberty of
requesting information from you, who, I think, may be able to
furnish it.
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. E. Smedley. May 29, 1828.
Mr. Pusey is quite disposed to engage in the task you wish
to impose upon him ; but, as was the case when he was applied
to before, he feels considerable doubt whether his present
studies will allow him to pledge himself to undertake it. He
has for some time past been occupied in a translation of the
Old Testament, to which he feels he must give an undivided
attention for the whole of the next year.
For myself, my college engagements do not allow me to
keep pace with the ' Encyclopaedia/' I am now slowly turning
my attention to Gnosticism.
Will you allow me to express the concern I felt at hearing
there was some hesitation in the minds of the proprietors of
the 'Encyclopaedia^' concerning the right of the contributors to
publish their papers in a separate shape ? For myself, I have
no present intention of exerting the right, supposing it to be
one, as I certainly understood it was, when I sent Mr. Mawman
the article on ' Cicero and ApoUonius.' . . . This feeling is
entertained by every Oxford contributor whom I have heard
mention the subject.
Dr. Whately requests me to inform you that his friend,
Dr. Hampden, lately editor of the 'Christian Remembrancer,'1
is not unwilling to have his name added to the list of con
tributors to the ' Encyclopaedia,' if you have employment for
him, and he considers you will find him a great acquisition.
Rev. E. Smedley to Rev. J. H. Newman. June 1828.
The history of Mohammedanism will not be approached
yet awhile ; nevertheless, I much fear that, if Mr. Pusey's
attention is engrossed by so important a subject as a transla
tion of the Old Testament, we should have little chance of
obtaining his assistance in time for our notice of the Koran.
1 La its monthly form.

1828 Letters and Correspondence 163
In June 1828 is entered into Mr. Newman's ' Chronological
Notes ' the following passage :
June 1. — Pusey ordained. [He read prayers for me in the
evening at St. Mary's, and reminded me years afterwards that
I said to him, ' If you read from your chest in that way it
wffl kill you.' And, in fact, about 1832 he had read himself
dumb.] J. H. N. to his Sister Harriett. June 4, 1828.
Pusey took orders Sunday last, and is to be married next
week. His book has been out about ten days. It is sadly
deformed with Germanisms : he is wantonly obscure and
foreign — he invents words. It is a very valuable sketch, and
will do good, but wiU be sadly misunderstood, both from his
difficulty of expressing himself, the largeness, profundity and
novelty of his views, and the independence of his radicalism.
It is very difficult, even for his friends and the clearest heads,
to enter into his originaUty, full-formed [sic] accuracy, and
unsystematic impartiality. I cannot express what I mean :
he is like some definitely marked curve, meandering through
all sorts and collections of opinions boldly, yet as it seems
irregularly. Good-bye, my dear Harriett, both our minds are full of
one subject, though we do not speak of it. Not one half -hour
passes but dear Mary's face is before my eyes.
The following letter — the first that is found of his corre
spondence with Hurrell Froude — is notable also as showing
an intimacy with Mr. Henry Wilberforce, and a recognition,
veiled under a tone of disparagement, of the charm of his
bright and playful wit.
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. R. H. Froude.
June 22, 1828.
I should have sent you more of a letter, but that plague,
Henry Wilberforce, has been consuming the last half-hour
before ten by his nonsensical chat. He bids me ask you
whether you returned him a MS. on the Differential Calculus
by Walker of Wadham. Did you read Pusey's book on the
coach top as you intended J
M2

164 John Henry Newman 1828
In July Mr. Newman joined his Mother and sisters at
Brighton. Rev J. Blanco White to Rev. J. H. Newman.
Brighton: July 16, 1828.
There is a spare bed in our [himself and pupil] lodgings,
which we should be most happy if you would take. . . . The
fact is, the noise of other lodgers in this house was most
injurious to me, as it kept me awake for whole nights together.
The only remedy was to take the spare bedroom. . . .
Whately was here two days ; unfortunately I was too ill
to enjoy to the full the pleasure of his company. But it was
really amusing to see him playing at ducks and drakes with
D. [Blanco White's pupil], and beating him hollow. He
ate and drank and joked like Hercules in the ' Alcestis.' There
is no man with whom I have associated so many classical
passages. What do you think of the following description
of our friend going to an Oxford dinner ? — Nunc in reluc-
tantes (Magistros) Egit amor dapis atque pugnce. . . .
July 25, 1828, there is an entry in the 'Notes' :
Sent letter to the Bishop of London (Howley) accepting
Whitehall preachership. [N.B. This is quite consistent with
what is said in my ' Apologia.' At this time there were twelve
preachers from each University. I agreed to be one of these,
but when Blomfield soon after became Bishop of London
he turned all twenty-four out, and began a plan of one (or
two 1) from each University, and it was one of these ^preacher-
ships) which he sounded me about, and which I conditionally
accepted.]
Rev. R. I. Wilberforce to Rev. J. H. Newman.
July 28, 1828.
I have a serious complaint to make against you, viz. that
you have totally prevented me from preaching. According to
my old notions, I could have got on tolerably well, and though
I should have been dissatisfied with the execution, I should
have believed myself on the right road. Now, you have con
vinced me I am altogether off the road, and every step I take
I only get deeper in the mire. So you see you must preach
both times if we take Elliott's Chapel (Q.E.D.)

1828 Letters and Correspondence 165
Rev. John Keble to Rev. J. H. Newman. July 1828.
I have been thinking some time of claiming your promise
of coming to see us, but we have been rather in a whirl of
visitors, which as yet we have hardly got out of ; and my two
companions [his father and sister] are neither of them used to
seeing many friends together.
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. J. Keble.
11 Marine Square, Brighton: July 31, 1828.
I propose returning to Oxford by the end of next week,
August 9. If then it meets your convenience, it would give
me much pleasure to pay my Fairford visit in the course of the
week beginning August 10. . . . Dornford has kindly offered
me his Nuneham cottage, should I be able to prevail upon
my Mother to take up her abode there for a part of the
vacation, in which case I should probably post myself there
too. I have just heard of the appointment of John Sumner to
Chester, which has given me sincere pleasure. I suppose it
will be generally popular. ... I am employed in reading
with great interest Heber's Journal. ... I think it may do a
great deal of good. Most pious men who have gone out, have
hardly had that flexibility and elasticity of religious principle
which can accommodate itself to the world, and have worked
stiffly. Henry Martyn, in spite of the romantic interest
attending him, is (is he not ?) an instance.
Yours ever affectionately.
The name of Dr. Pusey and his work for the Church
have become such world-wide facts, that it may interest the
reader to see some criticisms (one notice has already been
given) of his first work before his name was widely known.
Rev. S. Rickards to Rev. J. H. Newman.
August 7, 1828.
You know R. Wilberforce is kind enough to come here
next month ; as you could not come again I feel that in him
I have the man upon whom, next after yourself, I should be
most delighted to leave over my flock. I have read your

1 66 John Henry Newman 1828
favourite Pusey's book [about Germany], and I am so nearly
disappointed in it that I can hardly permit myself to speak
to you about it ; and yet I can still less bring myself to be
silent on the subject. It appears to me the hasty work of a
man not formed or conditioned to move in haste ; struggling
partly under a vast accumulation of matter, partly under press
of time, and mainly under a more than common difficulty of
combating successfully with such untoward circumstances.
The style, surely, is often odious ; his spirit, more surely, very
delightful ; and I cannot think he has made out his case with
sufficient fulness and clearness, nor drawn the result towards
which he tends nearly enough to a point. If it succeeds in
gaining much attention I am clearly wrong. I am aware that
the reverse will be no proof that I am right.
Rev. R. H. Froude to Rev. J. H. Newman.
August 12, 1828,
I hear from Robert Wilberforce that you are returned
from Brighton, and mean to stay in Dornford's cottage at
Nuneham. He tells me that you are at present much better,
but fears that you will go again into the Schools. If you
really intend this, I envy, without approving, your resolution ;
but I sincerely hope you will not be called to exert it. . . .
I have a brother now at home [William Froude] who is
coming to Oriel next term, and will make a very good hand
at mathematics unless he is very idle.
After plans for his Mother's and sisters' stay at Nuneham,
Mr. Newman tells his sister Jemima of his first visit to Keble,
then Uving with his father. He writes after a rainy season :
Oriel College: August 19, 1828.
The glass was rising the whole of the last week, and now
stands almost at fair ; besides, there was a change of the moon
yesterday, and yesterday and to-day are certainly more
auspicious. . . . As we unfortunately dined out on the Friday,
I, after all, saw little of the Fairford party, so much so that
I was discontented with myself. They have -a very nice
garden - not large, but nice — and a tree-surrounded paddock,
most retired and quiet, with a walk round it. Mr. Keble said
it was all the world to Elizabeth (his daughter), who travelled
round it in a chair many miles in the course of the year.
It is quite an affecting and most happy world. He was born

1828 Letters and Correspondence 167
and has Uved in Fairford all his life. . . . Keble's verses
are written (as it were) on all their faces. My head ran so
upon them that I was every minute in danger of quoting them.
Mr. Keble as well as John shows much playfulness and even
humour in his conversation. But it was such duU weather
when I was there, it made us all stupid.
The letter then diverges to other persons and things, ending
with :
... What a gossiping letter this last half has been ! It
is quite a girl's letter. Ah 1 I feel ashamed.
Rev. J. Keble to Rev. J. H. Newman.
August 20, 1828.
The higher powers here were sorry to let you go without
their benediction ; so the sooner you come to receive it, aU
quite properly, the better.
On the question of the tutorship Mr. Robert Wilberforce
writes to Mr. Newman : September 3, 1828.
I wish to embody the ideas in which we agreed when at
Brighton, in relation to the appointment of some one period
when the freshmen of each year should come up. The advan
tages of it appeared, I think, to be :
1. The increased facility of dividing the men into proper
classes. At present perhaps one set of freshmen have
entered upon a course of historical reading, and made some
way in it — when a single one comes up, who is put in tem
porary lectures with men of quite different standing, that he
may wait till enough are come to form a second historical
class. 2. A further advantage would be that the men would not
so soon become indifferent to exposing themselves before one
another as they do at present. Now, when a freshman is put
into a lecture with senior men, and sees them neglect all
preparation, he learns to do the same. A lecture composed
entirely of freshmen is always most easy to manage.
3. Another advantage would be that the tutor would
be able to judge more accurately of the progress of his
pupil by comparing his advance with that of his contem
poraries.

168 John Henry Newman 1828
4. Another difficulty at present existing, is that felt in
giving advice to a pupil as to the quantity of subjects he
should undertake, the preparation he should make for the
Schools, &c. It is only, of course, by observing a number of
persons, seeing how long they went on attending [or not
attending — J. H. N.] to fresh subjects, and when they began to
concentrate their attention, that we can form any rule for
our guidance in giving such advice.
5. As regards the men themselves. It is a great advantage
to them to know whereabouts they are in their academical life.
Many respectable men spend a great deal of time in study
during the early part of their residence ; but, postponing
perhaps an accurate attention to scholarship, or the reconsidera-
' tion of what they have done, suddenly find themselves without
time for so doing. Were there a larger number who went on
together, they would be in a certain degree a check upon one
another. 6. Were more men brought together, a greater degree of
stimulus would be given to them. If a man finds himself
inferior "to one who came up before him, he does not think of
referring it to any deficiency in exertion.
The thing cannot be effected immediately, though I don't
see why it should not be done next year. The temporary
inconvenience of the men cannot weigh against their own
permanent good, which is the object proposed.
If anything of this kind is to be done, it would be advis
able, perhaps, to suggest it to the Provost [Hawkins], that,
if approved by him, it might be submitted to the absent
Fellows, who, as owners of rooms, are interested in it.
Rev. J. Blanco White to Rev. J. H. Newman.
September 11, 1828.
I desiied the Provost to acquaint you with the mental
squall which has for the twentieth time driven me out of my
intended course. I was quietly paddling across a little pool
of Greek and Latin, just to land my pupil in the Schools on
the lee side of the infamous scopuli,1 at the mouth of that
longed-for haven, when in an unguarded moment I was blown
off into the broad and tempestuous sea of Reviews, exposed
to the attacks of the ' genus irritabile,' both large monsters
and small fry, which take their pastime therein. Was it
» « Infames scopulos Acroceraunia,' Hor. Od. I. iii. 20.

1828 Letters and Correspondence 169
rashness, was it ignorance, that exposed me to this unexpected
trial 1 It was neither, my dear friend. Dr. Mayo came on
purpose from Tunbridge Wells to make me the proposal of
the editorship. He found me sick of Livy and Thucydides,
promised me an addition of health from a more enterprising
occupation, spoke of comforts for approaching old age, and
made me in a moment start up from my drowsiness as young
and as bold as if I had been five-and-twenty, and had just left
Oxford with a double first.
Reflection soon came to tell her sad tale ; but it was too
late : and here I am with an engagement upon me which I dare
say alarmed at one time the formidable Gifford [Editor of the
' Quarterly.' Murray tried to get Blanco White over to him,
giving up the prospect of the 'London Review.' — J. H. N.],
who had the sting of a wasp at the tip of each of his fingers.
There is but one way for such an <xo7rA.os creature as myself to
be saved from being crushed — my friends must stand round
me, especially my Oriel friends. Well, then, sharpen your
pen and give me an article on any subject you like, Divinity
excepted for the present, for of that I expect a flood. You
must not decline, my dear Newman. You must also do me
the kindness to engage Pusey to write something for me.
Will you inquire the direction of Mills of Magdalen for me 1
Do you think your brother would write for mel I want
materials for two numbers before I publish the first.
I intend to spend a month in Oxford during the next full
term. I will keep lodgings there till the fate of the Review
is ascertained. Mr. Newman seems to have answered Blanco White in a
friendly and encouraging tone, for within a fortnight he writes
in reply :
Rev. J. Blanco White to Rev. J. H. Newman.
September 23, 1828.
It gives me great pleasure to find that you consider the
intended Review almost as an Oriel cause. But you must
contribute to its success with your pen. I know how difficult
it is to persuade a mind like yours to write without prepara
tion ; but I should strongly advise you to venture upon the
strength of your household stuff- — on the reading and reflection
of many years. Write without much concern ; you are sure

170 John Henry Newman 1828
to write well. Take up any book you like ; imagnie yourself
in our Common-Room, myself in the corner, Dornford passing
the wine, &c, and tell us your mind on paper. Should you
prefer a subject connected with your daily occupations, tell us
how the leading classical writers should be read. You must
have marked a number of passages which come home to the
bosoms and business of men. Have you a taste for Memoirs 1
Would you like to write those of Dr. Parr ? I write this day
to Dornford for a military article. Neate has proposed two
very good subjects. . . .
A day or two later he acknowledges another letter from
Mr. Newman, in which it appears he had suggested two subjects :
one on poetry, which was written at once, and has been re
printed among the author's works under the title ' Poetry with
reference to Aristotle's "Poetics,"' and a second on music,
which seems to have remained an idea only. The Review,
for reasons given in a note to the republished article, ended
with its second number.1 Blanco White writes to a friend,
May 20, 1829, ' My compact with the evil spirit, the demon
of the book-market, is almost at an end. ... I hope very
soon to be entirely free from the nightmare of the " London
Review."' J. H. N. to ms Sister Harriett. August 20, 1828.
To-day I have brought together the letters I have received
since August 1826, just two years (348 letters). It is a pleasant
yet painful employment. As I was sorting them into years,
my eye caught a hand [Mary's] which so discomposed my
1 The following is extracted from 'Note on Essay 1,' in Essays
Critical and Historical, vol. i. p. 27 : —
' The time was favourable for a new Quarterly, so far as this, that the
long-established Quarterly was in the crisis of a change of editors. In
fact, its publisher entered into correspondence with Mr. White with a
view to an arrangement whioh would supersede the projected Review
. . . the new publication required an editor of more vigorous health
and enterprising mind, of more cheerful spirits and greater powers of
working, and with larger knowledge of the English public than Mr.
White possessed ; and writers less bo< ikish and academical than those,
able as they were, on whom its fate depended. Southey, by anticipac
tion, hit the blot. As a whole, the Review was dull.'

1828 Letters and Correspondence 171
head that I have been obliged to lock them all up again, and
turn my thoughts another way. I ought not to be talking of
it now, but who can refrain J

Rev. J. Keble to Rev. J. H. Newman.
October 9, 1828.
I hear Pusey's name mentioned as likely to succeed Nichol
[N.B. as Regius Professor of Hebrew] ; tell me how the matter
goes. The only fear I have is that he may not be quite old
enough ; and also I am a little apprehensive of his reading
himself to death. For I suppose, by the Rule of Three, Fellow
ship : Canonry : : Headache : Apoplexy. I hope you are aU
well and comfortable at the Nuneham cottage.
The Bishop op Llandafp to Rev. J. H. Newman.
[Note by J. H. N. — This letter is a good specimen, from the
' My dear sir ' at the beginning to the ' My dear sir ' at the
end, of his real kindness, yet ingrained donnishness.] October 28, 1828.
My dear sir, . . . What you say about the commencement
of Michaelmas term at Oriel quite startled me. The 18th was
the second Saturday in term, the established day of meeting.
It used to be a mistake that some of our junior Fellows made,
supposing St. Luke's day to be a day of audit business. Our
audit (I still cannot "help calling it so) is to finish before St.
Luke's day. Everything therefore is concluded on the morning
of the 17th, and why the young men should not come in on
the following day I do not know, except that the fifth of Dr.
Hill's reasons for drinking is also applicable to the case of
prolonging vacations.
I hope your health is quite restored, and I am inclined to
conclude that it is by your silence on the subject. Dornford
also is not the worse, I trust, for his Highland rambles. I was
glad to hear of him from a lady who met him en route.
It is well that Oriel has so good a treasurer as yourself.
Without meaning any reflection on former treasurers, I think
you will improve the system ; at least you will not be content
with copying precedent blindly, but will accommodate your
method to the changes which time is for ever bringing on,

172 John Henry Newman 1828
and study continual improvement, which is the way in all
things to prevent both degeneracy and revolution.
I beg to be kindly remembered to the Provost, and to all
your colleagues, and am, my dear sir, Ll.
Rev. Blanco White to Rev. J. H. Newman.
November 8, 1828.
I have read your MS. in all the hurry of pleasure. I will
read it again with aU the composure of a critic, if I can, for
you are a treacherous writer, you slip so softly through the
critic's fingers. Well, then, my dear friend, you must write for
me constantly ; you want an outlet for your mind and heart,
which are running over where there is no call for their riches.
Tell the world at large what you feel and think. Talk with the
people of England through my journal, and let me have the
benefit of their delight. I write in a great hurry, and yet I
cannot help inclining to poetry in my style, such is the effect
of your article. Adieu, my Oxford Plato.
J. H. N. to his Sister Harriett.
After describing a busy day : November 11, 1828.
. . . My ride of a morning is generally solitary; but I
almost prefer being alone. When the spirits are good, every
thing is delightful in the view of still nature which the country
gives. I have learned to like dying trees and black meadows
— swamps have their grace, and frogs their sweetness. A
solemn voice seems to chant from everything. I know whose
voice it is — her dear voice. Her form is almost nightly before
me, when I have put out the light and lain down. Is not this
a blessing ?
Dear Pusey is gazetted. I hope he will not overwork
himself. How desirable it seems to be to get out of the stir
and bustle of the world, and not to have the responsibility
and weariness of success ! Now, if I choose to wish a scheme,
and in my solitary rides I sometimes do, I should say, ' Oh,
for some small cure of a few hundreds a year, and no prefer
ment, as the world calls it.' But you know this is wishing
for idleness, and I do not think I shall have this obscurity,

1829 Letters and Correspondence 173
because I wish for it. Yet, see, I talk of the comfort of retire
ment — how long should I endure it were I given it. I do not
know myself.
Rev. Dr. Pusey to Rev. J. H. Newman.
January 10, 1829.1
Your opinion on my [Hebrew] Lectures [i.e. as relates to
beginners] is precisely what I had myself felt. It was always
my own theory that as little grammar as possible should be
taught at first, i.e. until the student is sufficiently familiar
with the language to take interest in the instances, &c, and
the general structure of a language so different from our own ;
until, in fact, he be in some degree acquainted from his own
experience with the problems which are to be solved. I am
very much obliged to you for all youi hints, and hope to profit
by them, especially as they confirm my own practical views,
though these had begun to give way before the interest which
I myself felt in the theories of grammar. I hope for more
criticisms from you soon.
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. S. Rickards.
Oriel College: February 6, 1829.
My dear Rickards, — I have been out of humour with you
for your abuse of Pusey2— and that's the truth. However, I
shall say nothing about it, only hoping you may gain wisdom
as you grow up, and it's no harm wishing this for any of us.
You have heard of our proceedings at Oriel, I presume, from
X., but I do not account him a very fair judge. Not, indeed,
that I know what he said, or even that he said anything ; but
it is natural he should say something, and it's almost certain
he would say wrong. He annoys me by his way of railing
against the Provost, and I shall tell him so some day. If he
has railed to you, don't believe him. We have gone through
the year famously ; packed off our lumber, parted with spoilt
goods, washed and darned where we could, and imported
several new articles of approved quality. Indeed, the College
is so altered that you would hardly know it again. The tan
gible improvements of system have been, first, the diminish
ing the Gentlemen Commoners from twenty to eight or nine ;
1 This date given, but with a doubt expressed as to exact correctness,
'' See Letter on p. 165.

174 John Henry Newman 1829
then the dismissal of the Incurables ; then the rejecting un
prepared candidates for admission — the number is awful,
some twice ; then the giving chance vacancies to well-recom
mended and picked men ; then the introduction of paper work
into the Collection examinations; then the refusing testi
monials to unworthy applicants; then the revival of a Chapel
sermon at the Sacrament ; then the announcement of a prize
for Greek composition. The most important and far-reaching
improvement has been commenced this term — a radical altera
tion (not apparent on the published list) of the lecture system.
The bad men are thrown into large classes, and thus time
saved for the better sort, who are put into very small lectures,
and principally with their own tutors, quite familiarly and
chattingly. And, besides, a regular system for the year has
been devised. But we do not wish this to be talked about.
We hope soon to give some Exhibitions or Scholarships. All
these alterations are, you observe, additional to that grand act
at the election, of throwing open two Fellowships. Pretty
well, we hope, for a year. Hawkins's spirits are not what they
used to be, and persons who have known him long say he is
ageing. I have sometimes been made quite sad at the sight of
him. But this, of course, entre nous. He has not (nor should
a Head) taken the initiative in these innovations, but has
always approved — sometimes kept abreast with us — and at
Collections has slain the bad men manfully. It is said in
College by the undergraduates that, ' Now, alas ! the Provost
was as bad as a Tutor.' Whereas, at Collections they used to
hope the Provost would retaliate on the Tutors the blows
they received from the latter.
J. H. N. to his Sister Jemima. February 8, 1829.
I began my Littlemore Evening Catechetical Lecture last
Sunday. I am now returned about an hour from it, and am
not fatigued. - I hope no one will interrupt while I write to
you, for everything is hushed around me. Why is a feeling
of calm melancholy pleasing ? Is it that the languor after
exertion gives rise to a pleasing bodily temperature, or is it
mental 1 I was much struck with this evening's first lesson.1
It seemed to apply to the Church. You know I have no
1 That Sunday was the Fifth Sunday after Epiphany. Therefore by
the Old Lectionary the evening first lesson was the 64th of Isaiah

1829 Letters and Correspondence 175
opinion about the Catholic Question, and now it is settled I
shall perhaps never have one ; but still, its passing is one of
the signs of the times, of the encroachment of Philosophism
and Indifferentism in the Church.
From this state of pensive calm melancholy there follows
the rebound, which is a characteristic of Mr. Newman's nature,
and which may be observed throughout his course.
To his Sister Harriett. February 17, 1829.
Peel resigned; Ch. Ch. gave him up. This was a great
thing, and among others I exerted myself to gain it. Un
luckily our meddling Provost just then returned from London,
where Oxford men, being chiefly Liberal lawyers, were for
Peel. He 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 resi
dent Fellows in Oxford ; but they agreed in one point, only
differing in their view on the Catholic Question, but all think
ing Mr. Peel unworthy to represent a religious, straightforward,
unpoUtical body, whose interest he had in some form or other
more or less 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 PeeUtes, 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, I 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

176 John Henry Newman 1829
of, the residents are always meant. Oxford, by seventy resi
dents, has rejected Mr. Peel, and, if it elects him, elects him
by non-resident lawyers. It is said we shall all be in great
disgrace, and that certain persons have ruined their chance of
promotion. WeU done. I rejoice to say the Oriel resident
Fellows have been unanimous anti-Peelites [Denison and
Neate were Probationers, not M. A.'s], and I have just heard
that the modest Keble has come forward with a paper of
questions against Mr. Peel, signed with his own fair name. I
have no fault whatever 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. The Bishop of Oxford [Lloyd] — whom I wish to love
and do love — wiU, I fear, be much hurt with what I and others
are doing ; he has already in his time promoted, or helped in
the promotion of, four Oriel Fellows [Pusey, Jelf, Churton,
Plumer]. To his Mother. February 26, 1829.
At three o'clock to-day Sir R. Inglis was head of the poll
by 70—190 Peel, to 260 Inglis. He ended [to-day] by being
40 ahead. I will tell you why the Provost is ' meddling ' — because
when Ch. Ch. had resigned Peel, he chose to turn the oppo
sition to him, without inquiring, into a cabal ; and suddenly
got up an opposite party without speaking to any of us [i.e.
the Oriel Common-Room] on the subject, and brought clamour
and faction in, when Ch. Ch. was quietly seeking for a member,.
and would most probably have chosen a man moderately
favourable to Catholic Emancipation. This I call awkward
' meddUng ' ; and if he fails he will have burned his fingers.
If he succeeds he will bring in by a poor majority a man
who has hitherto come in unanimously — this is a sorry
triumph. I am deeply grieved at something else. Blanco White
(I know his way so weU) wrote a letter to some Oxford friend
stating his change of views about CathoUc Emancipation.
Why not let him change with the mass of the nation 1 No,
it served the purpose of the Peelites to bring his name forward.
He is asked to publish — generously and devotedly he does it ;

1829 LETTERS AND CORRESPONDENCE 177
and thus he is made the victim of an electioneering purpose.
He has brought upon himself all sorts of attacks, odious per
sonal attacks.
It is too bad to inflict upon individuals favourable to
Catholic Emancipation the most difficult task of striking a
balance between their disgust of Mr. Peel and their friendly
disposition towards the Catholic question. Hence some
Emancipatists have taken one side, some another ; some have
remained neuter; some have taken a side and half repented —
aU have felt a difficulty. This, I say, all arose from the
indelicacy of those who thrust Mr. Peel on the University.
To his Mother. March 1, 1829.
We have achieved a glorious victory. It is the first public
event I have been concerned in, and I thank God from my
heart both for my cause and its success. We have proved
the independence of the Church and of Oxford. So rarely is
either of the two in opposition to Government, that not once
in fifty years can independent principle be shown. Yet, in
these times, when its existence has been generally doubted,
the moral power we shall gain by it cannot be overestimated.
We had the influence of Government in unrelenting activity
against us — the ' talent ' so called of the University, the town
lawyers, who care little for our credit, the distance off and the
slender means of our voters — yet we have beaten them by a
majority of 146 votes, 755 to 609. The ' rank and talent' of
London came down superciliously to remove any impediment
to the quiet passing of the great Duke's bill; confessing at
the same time that of course the University would lose credit
by turning about, whatever the Government might gain by it.
They would make use of their suffrage, as members of the
University, to degrade the University. No wonder that such
as I, who have not, and others who have, definite opinions in
favour of Catholic Emancipation, should feel we have a much
nearer and holier interest than the pacification of Ireland, and
should, with all our might, resist the attempt to put us under
the feet of the Duke and Mr. Brougham.
Their insolence has been intolerable; not that we have
done more than laugh at it. They have everywhere styled
themselves the 'talent' of the University. That they have
rank and station on their side I know ; and that we have the
vol. 1. N

178' John Henry Newman 1829
inferior colleges and the humbler style of men. But as to
talent, Whately, with perhaps Hawkins, is the only man of
talent among them ; as to the rest, any one of us in the Oriel
Common-Room wili fight a dozen of them apiece — and Keble
is a host; Balliol too gives us a tough set, and we have
all the practical talent, for they have shown they are mere
sucking pigs in their- canvass and their calculations. Several
days since, their London chairman wrote to Mr. Peel assuring
him of complete and certain success. They strutted about
(peacocks !) telling our men who passed through London that
they should beat by eight to one, and they wondered we should
bring the matter to a poll. We endured all this, scarcely
hoping for success, but determining, as good Churchmen and
true, to fight for the principle, not consenting to our own
degradation. I am sure I would have opposed Mr. Peel had
there been only just enough with me to take off the appear
ance of egotism and ostentation; and we seriously contem
plated about ten days since, when we seemed to have too
slight hopes of victory to put men to the expense of coming
up, we the resident seventy, simply and solemnly to vote
against Mr. Peel, though the majority against us might be
many hundreds. How much of the Church's credit depended
on us residents ! and how inexcusable we should have been, if
by drawing back we had deprived our country friends of the
opportunity of voting, and had thus in some sort betrayed
them. Well, the poor defenceless Church has borne the brunt of
it, and I see in it the strength and unity of Churchmen. An
hostile account in one of the papers says, 'High and Low
Church have joined, being set on rejecting Mr. Peel.'
I am glad to say I have seen no ill- humour anywhere.
We have been merry all through it.
To his Mother. March 13, 1829.
What a scribbler I am become ! But the fact is my mind
is so full of ideas in consequence of this important event, and
my views have so much enlarged and expanded, that in justice
to myself I ought to write a volume.
We live in a novel era — one in which there is an advance
towards universal education. Men have hitherto depended
on others, and especially on the clergy, for religious truth;

1829 Letters and Correspondence 179
now each man attempts to judge for himself. Now, without
meaning of course that Christianity is in itself opposed to free
inquiry, still I think it in fact at the present time opposed to
the particular form which that liberty of thought has now
assumed. Christianity is of faith, modesty, lowliness, sub
ordination; but the spirit at work against it is one of lati-
tudinarianism, indifferentism, and schism, a spirit which
tends to overthrow doctrine, as if the fruit of bigotry and
discipline — as if the instrument of priestcraft. All parties
seem to acknowledge that the stream of opinion is setting
against the Church. I do believe it will ultimately be
separated from the State, and at this prospect I look with
apprehension — (1) because all revolutions are awful things,
and the effect of this revolution is unknown ; (2) because the
upper classes wiU be left almost religionless ; (3) because there
will not be that security for sound doctrine without change
which is given by Act of Parliament ; (4) because the clergy
will be thrown on their congregations for voluntary contri
butions. It is no reply to say that the majesty of truth will triumph,
for man's nature is corrupt ; also, even should it triumph, still
this will only be ultimately, and the meanwhile may last for
centuries. Yet I do still think there is a promise of pre
servation to the Church ; and in its Sacraments, preceding
and attending religious education, there are such means of
Heavenly grace, that I do not doubt it will live on in the most
irreligious and atheistical times.
Its enemies at present are : (1) The uneducated or partially
educated mass in towns, whose organs are Wooler's, Carlisle's
publications, <fec. They are almost professedly deistical or
worse. (2) The Utilitarians, political economists, useful know
ledge people — their organs the 'Westminster Review,' the
' London University,' &c. (3) The Schismatics in and out of
the Church, whose organs are the ' Eclectic Review,' the
' Christian Guardian,' &c. (4) The Baptists, whose system is
consistent Calvinism — for, as far as I can see, Thomas Scott,
<tc, are inconsistent, and such inconsistent men would in
times of commotion split and go over to this side or that.
(5) The high circles in London. (6) I might add the political
indifferentists, but I do not know enough to speak, like men
who join Roman Catholics on one hand and Socinians on
the other. Now you must not understand me as speaking
harshly of individuals ; I am speaking of bodies and principles. n 2

180 John Henry Newman 1829
And now I come to another phenomenon : the talent of
the day is against the Church. The Church party (visibly at
least, for there may be latent talent, and great times give
birth to great men) is poor in mental endowments. It has
not activity, shrewdness, dexterity, eloquence, practical power.
On what, then, does it depend ? On prejudice and bigotry.
This is hardly an exaggeration ; yet I have good meaning
and one honourable to the Church. Listen to my theory.
As each individual has certain instincts of right and wrong
antecedently to reasoning, on which he acts — and rightly so
— which perverse reasoning may supplant, which then can
hardly be regained, but, if regained, will be regained from
a different source — from reasoning, not from nature— so, I
think, has the world of men collectively. God gave them
truths in His miraculous revelations, and other truths in the
unsophisticated infancy of nations, scarcely less necessary and
divine. These are transmitted as ' the wisdom of our an
cestors,' through men — many of whom cannot enter into them,
or receive them themselves — still on, on, from age to age, not the
less truths because many of the generations through which
they are transmitted are unable to prove them, but hold them,
either from pious and honest feeling (it may be), or from
bigotry or from prejudice. That they are truths it is most
difficult to prove, for great men alone can prove great ideas or
grasp them. Such a mind was Hooker's, such Butler's ; and,
as moral evil triumphs over good on a small field of action,
so in the argument of an hour or the compass of a volume
would men like Brougham, or, again, Wesley, show to far
greater advantage than Hooker or Butler. Moral truth is
gained by patient study, by calm reflection, silently as the
dew falls — unless miraculously given — and when gained it is
transmitted by faith and by ' prejudice.' Keble's book is full
of such truths, which any Cambridge man might refute with
the greatest ease. To his Sister Harriett. March 16, 1829.
I am continuing in fact my letter to my Mother. Well,
then, taking the state of parties in the country as it is, I look
upon the granting of the Catholic claims not so much in itself I
as in the principle and sentiments of which it is an indication.
It is carried by indifference, and by hostility to the Church.

1829 LETTERS AND CORRESPONDENCE l8l
I do not see how this can be denied. Not that it is not a
momentous measure in itself ; it is certainly an alteration in
our Constitution, and, though I am used to think the country
has not much to dread from Romanistic opinions (the danger
seeming to be on the side of infidelity), yet there is a general
impression, which Blanco White's book confirms, that intidelity,,
and Romanism are compatible, or rather connected with each-1
other. Moreover, it is agreed on all hands that the Emanci- ]
pation will endanger the Irish Protestant Church ; some even/
say it must ultimately fall.
All these things being considered, I am clearly in principle
an anti-Catholic ; and, if I do not oppose the Emancipation,
it is only because I do not think it expedient, perhaps possible, ,
so to do. I do not look for the settlement of difficulties by
the measure ; they are rather begun by it, and wiU be settled
with the downfall of the Established Church. If, then, I am'
for Emancipation, it is only that I may take my stand against"
the foes of the Church on better ground, instead of fighting at
a disadvantage. That Emancipation is necessary now I think pretty clear,
because the intelligence of the country will have it. Almost
all who have weight by their talent or station prefer, of the
alternatives left to us, concession, to an Irish war. But that
the anti-Catholic party, who have by far the majority of
number, should have been betrayed by its friends suddenly,
craftily, and that the Government should have been bullied
by Mr. O'Connell into concessions, is most deplorable. Per
haps there are circumstances in the background of which we
know nothing. I have thought, perhaps, the Duke wants to
have the energiesof the country free and ready for a Russian war.
I do not reckon Pusey or Denison among our opponents,
because they were strong for concession beforehand ; and
Pusey, I know, thought most highly of Mr. Peel's integrity
and generosity.
Rev. John Keble to Rev. J. H. Newman.
March 28, 1829.
In good earnest I do not repent, nor can I imagine any
thing, humaaly speaking, at all capable of making me repent,
of the line I took in the late election ; except, indeed, that
Sir Robert [Inglis] were to fight a duel, which, however, I can
hardly imagine.

182 John Henry Newman 1829
I do repent of some unkind thoughts and words which I
fear I was guilty of at first towards Mr. Peel, and it is my
expression of this feeling to one or two correspondents which,
I presume, has won for me the most undeserved honour of
being enrolled among the new converts. . . .
On moral grounds, therefore, I am disposed to respect and
admire him ; but on political grounds I am more and more
pleased that he was not elected. To say the truth, I never
wish to see a Minister of State or leader of a party repre
senting the University again. I had rather have a straight
forward country gentleman. J. H. N. to his Mother. March 29, 1829.
They wish me to go into the Schools again. I have re
fused it point-blank and unconditionally.
I must have tired you about the Catholic question. The
Duke, even though right in his policy itself, seems to be acting
quite unjustifiably in passing the measure against the loud and
decided voice of the nation. However admirable it may be in
a great captain, it is unworthy of an honest statesman. The
people have been betrayed by those in whom they confided.
The forced submission, too, of the Lords to the Commons is an
alarming precedent.
Mr. Newman has spoken in his Memoir of his relations
with Dr. Lloyd. The reader will recall the description given
of him in his lecture-room. The following letter shows how
warm his feelings were towards him personally.
To his Sister Harriett. June 4, 1829.
We were much alarmed about the Bishop of Oxford (Lloyd)
about ten days before his death. You may suppose Pusey is
in a good deal of distress. I do not doubt that vexation
and anxiety had much to do with his (Lloyd's) illness. He
had aU the odium of Mr. Peel upon him. His speech in the
House got him into trouble, though as far as the argument is
concerned he seemed to me to be quite right. He has been
assaulted in the papers continually, and in a brutal way,

1829 LETTERS AND CORRESPONDENCE 183
beside the coldness of private friends, and, as I know, the
anonymous attacks in the shape of letters addressed to him.
Pusey's appointment, moreover, was made matter for abusing
him, and perhaps Pusey's book.
His death shocked me much ; it must most men. Appa
rently in sound and robust health, with the certainty of the
noblest preferment before him, probably the Archbishopric
of York. No one could tell what his complaint was— he had
a violent cough, which they thought the whooping-cough, and
his lungs were found inflamed after death ; but he also had a
bilious fever for certain, and others speak of other complaints.
He took so little care of his health by exercise, that I do not
wonder at his constitution giving way when attacked suddenly
and violently.
I had the greatest esteem, respect, and love for him as
a most warm-hearted, frank, vigorous-minded and generous
man. His kindness for me I cannot soon forget. He brought
me forward, made me known, spoke well of me, and gave me
confidence in myself. I have before my mind various pictures
of what passed in his lecture-room ; how he used to fix his
eyes on me when he was pleased, and never put his Ch. Ch.
friends unduly forward. I wish he ever had been aware how
much I felt his kindness.
Oriel Fellows of mark of the third and fourth decade of
this century have been made known to the reader through
the portraiture of one of their number. It has startled the
Editor to find the following sketch of the artist himself in
the first promise and' blossom of his youth. The reader wiU
remember that Mr. Newman, in writing this letter, was address
ing a late FeUow of Oriel.
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. S. Rickards. April 28, 1829.
I do not expect to finish this by post-time ; but here goes.
You are a cunning fellow to write me a letter just before our
election. Well, I understand your meaning, so I tell you we
have elected two Oriel men, nomine Mozley and Christie.
The particulars of the election I will tell you when we meet,
should I recollect them at that time. In the meantime know,
in brief, that I never was at so perplexing and anxious an

184 John Henry Newman 1829
election, though all in which I have been concerned have been
important ones.
I am persuaded we have done what we ought to do.
Mozley, if he turns out according to his present promise, will
be one of the most surprising men we shall have numbered in
our lists {ut apud Orielensem Orielensis de Orielensi aliquid
jactem) ; it wUl be some time doubtless before he comes to
maturity. He is not quick or brilliant, but deep, meditative,
clear in thought, and imaginative. His i;#os is admirable,
and during his residence with us he has conducted himself
unblamably ; he is amiable and, withal, entertaining in par
lance, and, to sum up all, somewhat eccentric at present in
some of his notions. And now you will confess that I have
given you a full description. His standing was quite a
chance, and connected with some interesting circumstances
too minute for a letter.
The excitement of the election over, Mr. Newman returned
with freshened appetite to the course of reading to which he
had devoted himself.

To his Sister Harriett. June 25, 1829.
I am so hungry for Irenseus and Cyprian I long for the
vacation. On leaving Brighton, July 21, the family party settled for
the Long Vacation at Horspath, Mr. Newman riding in to
Oxford in the morning and returning to dinner. Both at
Horspath and Oxford there was music. ' Woodgate's piano'
was sent to Horspath. Quintets, in which Blanco White took
a part, are often mentioned. ' Henry Wilberforce ' had
lodgings near, and read with Mr. Newman. 'S. Wilberforce'
came over from Checkendon. It was an harmonious period,
that might well live in the memory of aU concerned in it, and
perhaps raise gloomy contrasts as time went on.
The first letter preserved from Newman to HurreU Froude
shows the interest of the two friends in the Tutorship, and
the harmony of their opinions in the conduct of their office :

1829 Letters and Correspondence 185
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. R. H. Froude.
August 15, 1829.
. . . He [N.B. a youth examined for entrance] is at
present a youth somewhat unformed in manner, rusticior
paulo ; but I am somehow not displeased with such men.
For, though they come up quizzes somewhat, they form sound
men in these bad days, and I liked the rjdos of the youth, though
there was something odd in his exterior. I have also entered
for you one of two brothers, by name  . They are frank
youths. They are to be gentlemen commoners, which I could
not help, and, to tell the truth, if we can get gentlemen com
moners to our taste, I do not know why they should be sent
elsewhere, where they will want the sound instruction and
pastoral care of Adam de Brome. They will not, I am sure,
do us discredit. They come with a very high character from
Eton. I wish I could speak of another youth as favourably,
who, I fear, will give us much trouble. I could not pluck
him ; but he is only just so much prepared as to neglect his
lectures if he has a mind.
Mozley ' just now made his appearance in my rooms, having
arrived for a few weeks' hermitage here. . . . Dornford
was, on the whole, I think, pleased with what he saw in
Ireland, but did not see much, and was disappointed in the
Irish character (its wit, I believe). I like what he says as far
as it goes. He met some very clever Irish lads (Roman
Catholics) who knew a great deal about their own tenets, and
argued well. He seems to think a reformation to Protes
tantism quite chimerical, and likes the idea of a gradual im
provement in the Roman Catholic system itself. This is
Arnold's system too, bigot ! And why it is not a good one I
do not know.
You prophesied ill of the weather, yet for enjoyment it
has been excellently well adapted ; except the last day or
two : I sleep at Horspath, ride in here to breakfast, and ride
back to dinner, and get wet through (yesterday, for instance)
now and then. I am doing nothing, i.e. recovering arrears.
I have been from four to six hours at it daily, and have not
done. While I am about it I shall go through all my papers
and letters, burn and arrange, and by the end of the vacation
be quite comfortable ; but as to the Fathers ne hilum quidem.
1 Thomas Mozley, elected Fellow of Oriel April 1829.

1 86 John Henry Newman 1829
I must, in the course of time, give up the tuition and be a
gentleman, or, rather, a Fellow. [N.B. — I meant (as I was
wont to hold) that a Fellow ought not to be a mere tutor, but
take a substantial place as a student, writer, &c]
Rev, E. B. Pusey, D.D., to Rev. J. H. Newman. 1829.
I have sent the first five chapters of my book, including
Inspiration of the Fathers, to the press. There are some
parts which I want you much to see, especially one in which,
a propos of Irenaeus, I have made some observations (I believe,
in your spirit) on the Inspiration of the Church ; and, as if
justifying Irenaeus, have said that there was nothing harsh in
supposing that those who wilfully, &c, separated from the
Church, excluded themselves from some of the benefits in
tended by God for us, since some can only, it appears, be thus
conveyed ; and I have said proof might be brought from the
partial manner in which Christianity has generally been
embraced by separatist bodies. What think you of this 1 I
shall send them in hopes that you will criticise freely that
others may not severely.
The ' Morning Star ' [his little child Lucy] longs to shine
upon you, although her rays are sometimes, and not unfre-
quently, watery.
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. R. H. Froude.
September 11, 1829.
Much as you boast of your situation on the water, and
justly, yet I doubt after all whether it is finer than the inland
Shotover. The weather indeed has been sad, but the lights
most exquisite. I never saw tints half so enchanting. Cer
tainly rain brings with it this compensation.
I wrote first to Robert Wilberforce, and since he on the
whole declines, I write to you to know whether you feel at
liberty to join me [in the care of my parish] ; at least can you
propose any one ? . . .
I mean ultimately to divide the duty of St. Mary's from
Littlemore, and wish the person I gain to take Littlemore at
once, having nothing to do with St. Mary's. This ensuing
audit I shall begin my stir about a chapel, which, when (if)
built, will be his. Till then I fear I must confess he will be

182w BETTERS AND CORRESPONDENCE 1 87
without public duty. As to the vacations, I do not suppose
there will be much difficulty in arranging them. I would
divide the residences with him. At least you can give your
counsel. [N.B. — The Provost was to the last opposed to dividing off
Littlemore as a separate cure from St. Mary's. Crawley alone,
who settled at Littlemore, was able at length, about 1843, to
persuade him. He went and had a talk with him, I prophesy
ing that he would not succeed. As the building a chapel
tended to the separation of the cure, as an almost necessary
ultimate result, I think I am right in saying that the Provost
always steadily threw cold water on the building. It was not
begun till 1835.]
I have been reading a good deal lately of the times of the
first James and Charles, the Parliamentary debates of the day,
&c, and am struck by the resemblance of those times and
these — all times may be like all times for what I know.
My home party at Horspath has been delighted with the
place in spite of the weather, and my Mother is much better.
I am dismayed at the decreasing limits of the vacation, though
this is most ungracious, considering it is at least an accident
of full term to bring the Tutors together. It is a shame to
rail at Oxford as so many of us do. We have all sorts of
comforts and advantages there, yet it is fashionable to abuse
it in the abstract.
I suppose Pusey's book will be out in the autumn [N.B.
Answer to Rose]. His view of inspiration I think you will be
much pleased with. It is one which has by fits and starts
occurred to me. He has put it into system, and I do believe
it is the old Orthodox doctrine. He holds the inspiration of
the Church and of all good men, for example Socrates ; and,
indeed, I never could find out why Hooker is not to be called
inspired.
Rev. R. H. Froude to Rev. J. H. Newman.
Keswick: September 27, 1829.
... I am very much gratified to find that you and Pusey
take a view of inspiration which exactly (as far as I under
stand you) agrees with mine. I have got it written in a crude
form, as it occurred to me when I first heard the subject
canvassed ; and shall have great satisfaction in talking it over
with you. I hope Pusey may turn out High Church after all.

188 John Henry Newman 1829
A propos of these last words, the following letter is given,
written within the year 1829, but with no fuller date :
Rev. E. B. Pusey to Rev. J. H. Newman.
I do not know how to thank you for all the trouble which
you have taken. I wish I could do justice to the subject. . . .
The notices, however, will be useful to me. In Beveridge I
have found something to my purpose, though he is higher
Church than I. . . .
H. W. Wilberforce, Esq., to Rev. J. H. Newman.
[Writing from his brother's.] Checkendon : September 28, 1829.
I have given Sam your kind invitation to visit you at
Horspath, and, as I expected, he values it most truly. To
morrow we intend to ride over. I hope we shall be there in
time for your dinner. I hope when we have got Sam safe we
may prevail on him to stay, instead of returning to the solitary
home he has here. In the meantime there is no danger of my
being idle, Sam being fully employed ; so that Aristotle and
Horace will profit rather than suffer by my day's delay.
On October 23, Mrs. Newman and her daughters moved to
Mr. Dornford's cottage at Nuneham. It was a dreary wintry
time. Before Christmas, snow lay thick on the ground and
frost made slippery paths. The change was great from Hors
path. The added chill of solitude told on the elder sister,
whose letters also indicate that she could not go along with
her brother in his growth of view, and possibly had some mis
trust of the new influence which was telling upon him.
From his Sister Harriett. November 14.
We go on very quietly in these parts. ... I hope you can
give us a decent lengthened call. I should like a quarter of
an hour's quiet talk with you.
. . . We have long since read your two sermons ; they are

1829 Letters and Correspondence 189
very High Church. I do not think I am near so High, and do
not quite understand them yet.
As secretary of the Church Missionary Society, to which
office he had been elected March 9 of this year 1829, Mr.
Newman's mind was much occupied with the system on which
it was conducted. Early in the following year there are
private entries on the subject, thus: 'Sketched letters about
Church Missionary Society,' &c. The following letter, to the
Rev. John Hill, Head of St. Edmund Hall, gives the first note
of this dissatisfaction.
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. John Hill.
December 1829.
I have just found that the sermons ' preached at St. Ebbe's
Church last Sunday, in aid of the funds of the Church Mis
sionary Society, have been supposed to be authorised by the
Oxford Association ; and, considering that the doctrine reported
to be contained in them is not at all in necessary connexion
with that professed by the Church Missionary Society, I am
anxious to consult with you [N.B. — He and I were the secre
taries] about the propriety of adopting, if possible, some
measure calculated to remove so erroneous an impression, and
of introducing the subject to the meeting on Monday.
I have written at once, since I am not certain it will be in
my power to call on you to-morrow, and I am unwilling that
you should not be informed of my feeling on the subject as
soon as possible.
Rev. John Hill, Vice-Principal op St. Edmund Hall,
to Rev. J. H. Newman.
December 12, 1829.
The collection on behalf of the Church Missionary Society
at St. Ebbe's last Sunday, and the appointment of the
pi'b ichers, originated in the minister of that parish ; nor has
tht Society, I conceive, anything to do with either, except to,
view thankfully the contributions thus freely offered to its
funds. 1 By Bulteel and Sibthorp.

190 John Henry Newman 1829'
It is true that one of the preachers employed some expres
sions in his sermon which the other considered to be not
altogether correct, who therefore felt it right to allude to the
subject in the afternoon. But while it is open to the friends
of each to converse with them on the subject according te
their own judgment, surely the committee or secretaries "of
the Society are not authorised to interfere, as those opinions
had no reference to the Society, nor were adduced as the
sentiments of the Society. As to myself, I would not, on any
account, allow myself to become a party to any measure which
might appear like a disclaimer against either of the individuals
in question. I should, on the contrary, deem such a proceed
ing totally inconsistent with Christian candour and love.
Both the men are devoted servants of Christ, and actuated in
an eminent degree by love of God and man — as their whole
conduct and spirit testify. Both are, as to the general
character of their preaching, faithfully announcing the Gospel
of Jesus Christ. With regard to the point of difference between
them, I conceive (so far as I can judge from the reports I have
received of their sermons, and from my previous knowledge of
their sentiments) that Mr. Bulteel is most correct, because
more clearly adhering to the spirit and language of Scripture ;
yet I entertain at the same tune a very high regard for the
piety and usefulness of Mr. Sibthorp ; nor can I believe that
the difference between them on the particular subject in
question is so great as some casual expressions may have led
some to suppose.
Mr. Newman's further action towards the Missionary
Society belongs to the foUowing year, 1830, but it was one of
the questions occupying his mind at this time, along with all
the business his bursarship brought upon him at the close of
the year.
In all pecuniary matters involving responsibility Mr.
Newman was rigidly exact —enforcing punctilious prompti
tude and accuracy on juniors working under him. That in
his College office (as treasurer) he gave satisfaction may be
gathered from the following playful recognition of his ser
vices.

1829 Letters and Correspondence 191
Rev. W. James to Rev. J. H. Newman.
December 3, 1829.
'Two hundred pounds and possibilities is good gifts,' to
use the phrase of a revered and learned Welshman of old —
Sir Hugh Evans. The opening of your letter led me to expect
something very different — more in accordance with the state
of the times ; so that when I came to 200?. actually put to my
account at Hoare's, I felt as if my most sanguine expectations
had been far outdone. And then came the 'possibilities.'
If you were to treat us so every year I shall vote that you be
made perpetual treasurer. Far from thinking you late in
writing — knowing something of your engagements — I did not
expect to hear before the end of term, and now you have so
amply satisfied whatever cravings I had as to possibilities, I
shall wait with the utmost patience.
With all these cares and duties on his hands, the last
words of the year show a sense of pressure.
J. H. N. to H. E. N.
Oriel College: December 31, 1829.
I have nothing to say except that, if I had but one-tenth
part to do of what I really ought in various ways, I should
have quite enough.
The Christmas vacation was mainly spent at Nuneham
with his Mother and sisters, Mr. Newman walking from and
to Oxford day after day.
The passages in brackets occurring in the following letter
are, as the reader has already been told, comments or explana
tions introduced by the writer of the letter in the course of
copying at an after date. The transcripts were made in 1860,
and the passages in brackets would be added in the course of
transcription.
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. R. H. Froude.
Oriel College: January 9, 1830.
I have taken it into my head to write you a letter, which,
if it be merely a well-wisher for a new decennium, will have its

192 John Henry Newman 1830
object ; but I shaU attempt to impart to you my thoughts and
remarks on various subjects ; and, first, I am glad to see that
the Bishop of London [Blomfield], in sermons just published,
maintains the propriety and expedience of the Athanasian
Creed — this is important — and so does Bishop Mant, in a
twaddling (so to say) publication. Now, though there are
parts of the Creed I would willingly see omitted, if it could
be done silently, and could not defend if attacked, yet, as to
cut it out would be to lose the damnatory clauses, and to
curtail it even would be to flatter the vain conceit of the age,
I am heartily pleased at this firmness of the Bishop's, and
notice to you that you may conceive worthier thoughts of
him. [I can explicitly state what I meant in this passage. One
of my first declared departures from Whately's teaching, who,
among other views, leant to Sabellianism, was in a sermon I
preached in College Chapel on Easter Day, 1827. Hawkins,
Whately, and Blanco White aU asked to read it afterwards,
and none liked it. I have it still, with their pencil comments
upon it. It took the view of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity
which I afterwards (in 1831-1832) found to be the Ante-
Nicene view, especially on the point of the ' subordination
of the Son,' as Bull (whom at that time I had not read)
brings it out in one of his chapters. This view, I considered,
was taken in the Nicene Creed, and I thought there was a
marked contrast between it and the statements of the
Athanasian Creed on the sacred doctrine. Of course, to this
day I hold, and must ever hold, there is a difference of state
ment, though it is a difference of statement only, not of sense
or substance. What I meant when I wrote the above was
that the Athanasian Creed was written in a less scriptural
style than the Nicene. For instance, one of my objections
was this : that the Athanasian Creed says that ' the Son is
equal to the Father.' Now this either means ' equal ' in His
Personality or ' equal ' in His Divinity to the Father ; but in
neither alternative is the expression correct ; for in His
Divinity He is not equal to the Father, but the same as the
Father ; and in His Personality He is not equal, but subor
dinate to the Father.]
I am pleased, moreover, to see that the ' British Critic,'
which is under his influence, not only contained an article
on the Union of Church and State (as you know, supposed to
be written by him) and defending it on the right, not the

183u ±^min.ixs AND CORRESPONDENCE I93
Warburtonian, grounds, but he has had besides two articles
lauding Laud, which is very different from the ' Spirit of the
Age,' and not at all in the spirit of the poor ' Remembrancer,' ¦
which, in its last number, has offered to give up the Cross in
Baptism. I have doubt whether we can consider our King as a pro
prietor of land on the old Tory theory. The rightful heir was
lost in the Revolution ; then the nation took [usurped] the
property [proprietorship] of the island [time has sanctioned
their violence] and gave it to William, and then to George, on
certain conditions . . . that of being chief magistrate. Has
not the Constitution since that time been essentially a re
public 1 Is it not our duty to submit to being accounted
such ? though we ought to make a stand against farther
innovation ?
Ogilvie wished me to lend him Arnold's Sermons. I am
glad to tell you he returned the book with an expression of
much satisfaction and agreeable surprise. Some sermons,
of course, he objected to ; but ' the impression was decidedly
favourable.' [N.B. — This is an allusion, I think, to a donnish
phrase, used by and to the Provost, in the Collections Tower,
of the undergraduates, in their presence.] I have read some
more of them ; one cannot but agree with Ogilvie in opinion.
If I possibly can I shall vote for the new Examination
Statute. I cannot but fear, if it be rejected, men will be
appointed [i.e. as examiners] who are likely to make great
innovations, losing- sight completely of those old principles
which, in drawing up this, the Provost has kept in view.
Cardwell, Mills, Burton, Short, Hampden, <&c. — would they
not exclude Aristotle, and bring in modern subjects 1 I should
like to make Modern History, or Hebrew, &c. <fec, necessary
for the M.A. degree ; and, strange to say, any Master of the
Schools might require something of the sort (so I am told)
without new statute, merely by [the University's] omitting to
suspend the Dispensation for Determination. [N.B. — Among
my papers are the answers in 1830-31, which I gave to a
Committee, appointed by Heads of Houses, which had proposed
questions to the Tutors.]
I have thought vows [e.g. of Celibacy] are evidences of
1 The reader of to-day must be reminded that, of the periodicals
here mentioned, the British Critic did not come into the hands of the
party connected with the Movement till 183S, and the Christian
Remembrancer — at the date of this letter a Monthly— not till 1844.
VOL. I. O

194 John Henry Newman isso
want of faith [N.B. trust]. Why should we look to the
morrow 1 It will be given us to do what is pur duty as the
day comes ; to bind duty by forestalment is to lay up manna
for seven days ; it will corrupt us. In a very different way,
still quite a parallel, as exhibiting a want of faith [i.e. trust]
vid. Origen's conduct instead of a vow.
With my sister's help I have been adjusting Keble's poems
to Bennett's chants, and find some of them suit admirably.
It is the only kind of music which brings out their sweetness
without overpowering it.
Qy. What is meant by the right of private judgment 1
The duty I understand : but no one can help another's thinking
in private : vid. dialogue between Rex Pentheus and Bacchus
in Horace. ' [N.B. — I suppose ' the right of private judgment'
means 'the right of holding, expressing, maintaining, advo
cating, proselytising to our private judgment and decisions.']
The following letter illustrates what is said in the
'Apologia ' (p. 45) — ' Also I used irony in conversation when
matter-of-fact men would not see what I meant.'

Rev. R. I. Wilberforce to Rev. J. H. Newman.
January 13, 1830.
Cunningham [of Harrow] is to be at Oxford to-night, and
I wanted to inform you that he has got a strange notion of
your dialogue with him, and has been propagating the same.
He says you asserted there was no use, or next to none, in
preaching under any circumstances ; that you took a lower
view of it than any person he had met with, &c. In case you
meet him I think you should be careful not to let drop any
thing that can be taken hold of.
Rev. J. H. Newman to J. W. Bowden, Esq.
Oriel College: January 16, 1830.
I regret to say I am kept here till Term begins — my
principal Vacation engagements being a most odious Bursar-
ship, which, besides teasing me by an inconceivable number of
little businesses in Term-time, has hitherto tied me especially
to this place in Vacation as the only leisure time for its greater
1 Epist. L 16. 73.

1830 Letters and Correspondence 195
duties. It is very well to have such business, when it is one's
main business ; but as a business by the way it is insupport
able. It has, I believe, been more than anything else the
cause of my continued indisposition ; and now deprives me of
a pleasure which I would put second to no other that could be
mentioned. We are to have a three months' winter, I suppose. It has
been my practice to walk of a day to Nuneham to dinner, and
then back in the morning to breakfast. I have been more at
home since July than I ever have since I came to Oxford.
Shotover is, in our minds, quite a classical place ; especially
as Milton once lived near it, before he was contaminated by
evil times and the waywardness of a proud heart ; and King
Charles and his Bishops seemed to rise before us along the old
road which leads from Oxford to Cuddesdon. We have been
paying a good deal of attention to the history of those times,
and I am confirmed as a dull staid Tory unfit for these smart
times. Which way is the world marching ? and how we shall be
left behind when the movement is ordered by the word of
command ! The Times now begins to vote the King's office
an abuse and a job. But this is a wise talk about nothing at
all, if the future is but a shadow to us, as it is.
The Mr. Wilson to whom the following relates was subse
quently President of Trinity. To his Mother. January 26, 1830.
Mr. Wilson's [of Trinity] accident was of a frightful de
scription. On Monday he was cleaning his gun, when it went
oft' and shot him through the left wrist. He was obliged to
have it immediately amputated. Indeed, they told him unless
the operation took place he could not live five hours, so shat
tered were the bones. What made it still more distressing
was that, after it was over, a second amputation was found
necessary higher up.
Again :
I called on Wilson on Saturday. He was very composed
and cheerful, up and moving about as usual. He bears his
02

196 John Henry Newman isso
misfortune with a serenity of mind which to me is' perfectly
incomprehensible. I feel quite ashamed of myself ; for I
seemed much more distressed at it than he was.
Mr. Newman was now passing a pamphlet on the Church
Missionary Society, of which he was secretary, through the
press. To his Sister J. C. N.
Oriel College: January 29.
The printers are so tedious I shall not have the letter out
till Monday. I am printing 500 copies, and if it takes (which
I do not expect, but take the chance of), I shall send it cam
paigning all over the country. I shall make Woodgate, per
haps our friend Mr. Rickards, distribute it in Kent, and a
Mr. Bramston ¦ (you may have heard me mention) will, I hope,
distribute it in Essex. I shall send it to Davison at Worcester,
and Benson in town, and to the Bishops of London, Lincoln
and Llandaff — perhaps Exeter. Perhaps the Bishop of Ferns !
Ha ha ! — are you not laughing ? I am. There is a fine
fricassee of fowl before the eggs are laid. By-the-bye, Mr. B,
told me that the Bishop of London has informed him that his
only objection to joining the Society is the existence of public
meetings. Well, but what am I doing in Oxford ? Why, I
have sent it (i.e. shall) to Bishop, Archdeacon, Dean, two
canons, and all parochial ministers in Oxford ; to Vice-Chan-
cellor, Proctors, ten Heads of Houses, and about thirty-five
M. A.'s — in all sixty- three persons. Now, if it be a silly thing,
why, I am exposing myself and doing what is unsafe ; but one
must run risks to do good, and fortune favours the bold ; so I
must hug myself if no one else will hug me.
In the ' Chronological Notes ' is the entry : ' February 1.—
Sent round my printed letter about the Church Missionary
Society.' Mr. Newman's friends wrote their thoughts on it.
Mr. Bramston (once described by Mr. Newman as 'a mild
Evangelical ') says :
1 Afterwards Dean of Winchester.

1830 Letters and Correspondence 197
Rev. John Bramston to Rev. J. H. Newman.
February 18, 1830
Worthless as my testimony may be, I cannot help being
convinced that you are right. It is important to put on record
(even if it goes no further) a Churchman's apology for a Society
which is considered by all unthinking and careless persons as
decidedly sectarian. Tell me whether you have any favourable
results to communicate at Oxford . . . and whether you are
likely to have any public meetings this year.
In this part of the country it is joined by those clergymen
only who keep aloof from mixed society, and who, from that
circumstance, are viewed with a degree of ill-will by worldly
people. I should like, however, to put your suggestions before
some friends of mine if you have any to spare.
A friend of a different school, mindful of the late defeat
of Mr. Peel, for the reason embodied in the letter, affects a
cynical turn in his sympathy.
Rev. H. A. Woodgate (Fellow of St. John's) to
Rev. J. H. Newman.
February 22, 1830.
... I have sent one of your letters [on the Church Mis
sionary Society] to the Bishop of Rochester, to Archdeacon
Pott, and have put another in the way of reaching Mr. Norris
of Hackney, who, I find, is a Churchman in a better sense of
the word, and not like Lord Eldon, whom he disapproves of
entirely, considered as a friend of the Church. I have with
held the author's name as you requested me, but told them
there was no cause for alarm, as he was one who, however he
might once have betrayed symptoms of sectarianism, or be
called Evangelical, was now as staunch a Churchman as
Addison's landlord, who, when he could not find time to go to
church, headed mobs to pull down meeting-houses ; that you
drank Church and King every day in a bumper after dinner
[N.B. — All this is a cut at my joining the opposition against
Sir R. Peel in 1829, the writer being in Sir R. Peel's com
mittee], voted for Sir R. Inglis, stood neutral on petitions, and
sang 'God save the King,' and 'A health to Old England, the
King and the Church,' every night after supper.

19? John Henry Newman is30
I perfectly agree with you on theory [i.e. the Letter], bub
when I remember how many societies of this nature owe their
origin or increase to sectarian bodies, who are only called into
existence by the indifference or neglect of Churchmen, I should
almost fear a decline of their prosperity if taken entirely out
of the former and placed in the hands of the latter exclusively.
Although visibly improving, still the Church, or at least that
portion of it — those on whom the care of these things would
then devolve, seems often to paralyse by the frigidity of its
touch any institution that comes in its way. However, if
it is a positive duty, we must not hesitate, &c.
In the ' Chronological Notes ' is this entry :
March 8. — Turned out of the Secretaryship of the Church
Missionary Society because of my pamphlet.1
Circumstances gave this incident a marked place in Mr.
Newman's memory. A letter on the subject, written at this
date, by a friend of Mr. Newman's, may interest the reader.
Thomas Mozley to his eldest Sister.
March 14, 1830.
. . . Newman, as I forgot to tell you in my last, has
been completely discomfited in the matter of the Missionary
Society. His proposal to put an end to public meetings was
carried in the committee, which consists, I believe, only of
clergymen in offices, and such laymen as they, the subscribers
at large, choose to appoint. But last Monday, when there
was a general Meeting to elect officers, when they generally
re-elect the old ones and just fill up vacancies, he was ousted
by an im nense majo ity, Balteel and his satellites and half
Edmund Hall being in attendance. He has, to be sure, given
the Low Church pait f great provocation, beyond his proceed
ings in the cc m nittee, by writing and sending to all the resident
clergy of Oxford (University) a pamphlet setting forth on
what principles a good Churchman might join a Society which '
admitted Dissenters, and by what management the Society
might be exclusively attached to the Church, working under
episcopal jurisdiction : thus, on the one hand, subjecting to
1 A statement of the 'ac^s of the case, written by Mr. Newman, will
be found in vol. ii. of The Via Media of the Anglican Church.

1830 LETTERS AND CORRESPONDENCE I99
proper discipline and rule a good deal of misguided power and
zeal ; and, on the other, presenting to the Church of England,
which has all along been very deficient on this very point, an
engine made ready to her hands. And this to be effected
merely by taking advantage of the opening offered to them by
the Society itself, making all clergymen who choose to sub
scribe members of the committee, although, of course, a great
secession of the Low Church party was to be expected. Very
few indeed approve of this plan, or think it practicable ; but
Newman is not a man to be deterred by temporary failures.
He is, indeed, better calculated than any man I know, by his
talents, his learning, by his patience and perseverance, his
conciliatory manners, and the friends he can employ in the
cause — of whom I hope to be one — to release the Church of
England from her present oppressed and curtailed condition.
The foUowing letter from Mr. Rickards may be given as
containing a scheme of reform in Church temporalities put
forward at this date. The Preachership of the Temple had
been proposed to Mr. Rickards.

Rev. S. Rickards to Rev. J. H. Newman.
Ulcombe : May 26, 1830.
Your letter relating to the Temple I considered well.
Upon close and particular inquiry I ascertained that we could
not live in or near London without income ; and that if I did
take it, it must be with the earnest hope of speedy preferment
- — such a hope you will not wonder I did not choose to enter
tain ; I thought it neither a safe nor a worthy guest in a
preacher's house ; so I told Benson [Master of the Temple]
the reason, and passed the matter by. I did this with sorrow,
and after deliberation ; because I found the congregation was
remarkably well disposed towards me, and many even ex
pressed a strong wish that I should be settled among them.
Yesterday, at our visitation, the Archdeacon told us mourn
fully that measures are about to be taken to provide for the
better maintenance of the clergy who have only one small
living, by making them the only persons eligible to Prebends
in tbe different cathedrals. If the information is correct, you
and I may stand a chance of a great Uving ; and the marvel
lous sight will be seen of greedy men running after little ones.

2co John Henry Newman 1830
It will be a pleasant scene enough to watch a man actually
manoeuvred into a good benefice, and very angry about it
without daring to say so.
I think Benson knows something about Mr. Rose, and
feels an interest in looking to see whether he will get out of
his scrape [with Pusey ? — J. H. N.] or flounder about in it. I
guess that he has a higher value for Rose's talents than I
have ; but I know hardly anything about the matter, except
that I wish somebody would be so good as to convince me
that he is a very first-rate man, because I find it mighty in
convenient to stir among Cambridge men and not to think
him so. But let him be what he may in this respect, from all
that is said it seems he will be a bishop before long, and so, I
hope, he is all I am told he is.
To this letter is appended the following note :
Here Rickards wrote hastily. I am a bad hand at criti
cising men, but the admiration and love I had for Rose were
inspired, I think, by his elevation of mind, his unflagging zeal,
his keen appreciation of what was noble and saintly, his
insight into character, and his vigorous eloquence. — J. H. N.
J. H. N. to H. E. N.
June 9, 1830.
Yesterday I withdrew my name from the Bible Society in
a note to Macbride, who took it very kindly. I said that the
objections that caused me to retire from it were felt by me as
such when I first subscribed to it, but that then I viewed them
as indirect, not necessary, consequences, and that the more
men who felt them subscribed, the greater prospect there was
of their being obviated ; but now, on the contrary, I viewed
them as practically direct, and there being no principle recog
nised by the Society on which Churchmen could fall back and
take their stand, no accession of members of the Church could
tend to remove them.
Rev. E. B. Pusey, D.D., to Rev. J. H. Newman.
June 14, 1830.
I have just seen Burton, who wishes to explain himself
that he did not intend to ask you whether he should appoint
you, but whether you would undertake the office [I suppose of

1830 Letters and Correspondence 201
Select Preacher] should the Board appoint you. Burton
wishes to see you also about another office — the second class
of Select Preacher. [N.B. — I think this was a plan, never
carried out, of University sermons through the year (the plan
was rejected by Convocation, June 25, 1830), in which the
Vicar of St. Mary's naturally would take part. — J. H. N.]
You will be glad to hear that since I saw you we have had a
little son born.
J. H. N. to his Mother. June 18, 1830.
It is at length settled that the Provost gives us no more
pupils — us three (R. Wilberforce, Froude, and me) — and we
die gradually with our existing pupils. This to me personally
is a delightful arrangement ; it will naturally lessen my
labours, and at length reduce them within bearable limits,
without at once depriving me of resources which I could not
but reckon upon while they lasted. But for the College I
think it a miserable determination. [Adding, a day or two
after :] Now that I shall have more time I am full of pro
jects what I shaU do. The Fathers arise again full before me.
This vacation I should not wOnder if I took up the study of
the Modern French Mathematics.
Riding from Oxford to Brighton, on a visit to his Mother,
he writes on his way thither : Guildford: June 30, 1830.
I arrived here at nine this morning. I am philosophising,
but I have not yet brought out my speculations enough to say
on what subject. Is not that the meaning of musing — namely,
thinking about something or other, we cannot tell what ?
Hence the word music, which suggests feelings without ideas,
and to amuse, which means to please without addressing the
reasoning powers. Now should this, as being unsealed, faU
into the hands, or rather eyes, of cab or coach man, what will
he think about it 1 WeU, that is the ,-very thing — I told you
I am musing.
If I do not come punctually to-morrow morning, consider
my horse is tired.
On his return journey he again writes to his Mother from
Guildford :

202 John Henry Newman 1880
Guildford: July 15, 1830.
I am just returned from Horsham Church. I wish
churches were open in every place that a traveller stopped at.
I conjecture they were some centuries ago. Though we have
gained more, we certainly have lost something by old Luther.
To his sister Harriett he gives his final experience of
travel : July 19, 1830.
My journey was prosperous. On the whole I lost five
miles by error of the ways. There are no direction posts, the
milestones are defaced, the labourers in the fields are deaf,
and the few intelligent persons one meets have a strange way
of correcting their senses by their reasoning faculty. By
going ' straight on,' they mean going the ' right way.' I had
two instances Of this. In one case the left-hand road was the
right one, but the man said ' go straight on.' I believe they
habitually consider the road they know best the ' right road.'
In the following letter Mr. Newman talks of himself in a
vein of melancholy not usual with him :
Oriel College: July 20, 1830.
My dear Rickards, — ... I was amused by your specu
lations about myself, while I could not but be grateful for the
interest you take in my proceedings. Sometimes I am in a
humour to talk about myself easily, and if that were the case
now, you should have the benefit or mischance of it ; but I
am not in a communicable mood. I will but say it is now
many years that a conviction has been growing upon me (say
since I was elected here) that men did not stay at Oxford as
they ought, and that it was my duty to have no plans ulterior
to a college residence. To be sure, as I passed through a
hundred miles of country just now in my way to and from
Brighton, the fascination of a country life nearly overset me,
and always does. It will indeed be a grievous temptation
should a living ever be offered me, when now even a curacy
has inexpressible charms. And I will not so far commit my
self as to say it must be wrong to take one under aU circum
stances. Is it not vastly absurd my talking in this way, when
I have no more chance of such preferment than of a Uving in
the moon 1 Well, but this is the only great temptation I fear,
for as to other fascinations which might be more dangerous still,

1830 Letters and Correspondence 203
I am pretty well out of the way of them ; and at present I
feel as if I would rather tear out my heart than lose it, though
when once fairly caught, my views doubtless would change.
Now you must not complain of this egotistical letter, for I
have nothing else to fill my paper with. One thing I have
earnestly desired for years, and I trust in sincerity— that I
may never be rich ; and I will add (though here I am more
sincere at some times than at others) that I never may rise in
the Church. The most useful men have not been the most
highly exalted. Hooker and Hammond were simple presbyters.
Nor have the most favoured been highest. St. Peter was
neither the beloved disciple, nor did he labour more abun
dantly than they all, yet he was the President (at least for a
time) of the Apostolic .College. Men Uve after their death
— they live not only in their writings or their chronicled
history, but still more in that aypafos p.vrjp.ri exhibited in a
school of pupils who trace their moral parentage to them. As
moral truth is discovered, not by reasoning, but by habitua
tion, so it is recommended not by books, but by oral instruc
tion. Socrates wrote nothing. Authorship is the second best
way. How grand all this is, and how conducive to indolence
and self-indulgence ! I shaU turn philosopher, rail at the
world at large, and be content with a few friends who know
me. Perhaps you went up with the University address to the
King.
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. R. H. Froude.
July 28, 1830.
I was not at aU unwilUng for the College's sake that your
brother should take his honours with us, and then be trans
planted elsewhere.
We are speculating here on the issue of your undertaking
to convey your horse down into Devonshire. We hope you are
safe arrived, but no tidings have reached Oxford. The fine
weather at length come is a time for speculation, you know.
I have had many bright thoughts, and intended to communi
cate some, but they are departed — that is the worst of specu
lations. We hold them like Hsemon, iv vypais dyxaAats.1
Perhaps I had better begin with facts.
1 The words, though found in a fragment of Euripides (Fr. 836), do
not occur in the Antigone. They may be a reminiscence of
is 8' iypbv
i.ynwv It' tjuppuv Tapdevov irpoffirTiaffeTcu. — Soph. Antig. 1236.

204 John Henry Newman isso
I knocked my horse up by over-despatch on my way down
to Brighton — i.e. I took too long stages at first,. The conse
quence was she came down the last morning, her knees quite
uninjured, but my nose cut pretty deep with the silver of my
glass. It seemed to promise a scar, but will be nothing. I
shaU leave off glasses in riding. So I finished by walking
ti.»3nty-one miles in a broiling sun on a dusty road. By-the-
bye, how neatly I have implied my tumble above as a matter
of course ! In my journey back I was more wary, and brought
her home quite fresh.
When I was at home, I wrote out all that correspondence
which I mean to be a document to my heirs ; and I made a
bold inroad into Trigonometry, and have this morning got
through about a quarter of Hamilton's Conies. [N.B. — I was
beginning a new course of mathematics by analytics and
differentials ; I had been more accustomed to geometrical
proof, fluxions, Newton, <fec] I suspect I shaU have little
time for it now, what with Wood, Christie, parish, and other
matters. The Senior Proctor [Dornford] got great credit for his dis
play at the presentation of the address. The King gave him
an opportunity for an off-hand speech which is thought happy.
' Mr. Proctor,' he said, ' I hope you keep up discipline in your
University ' ; to which Dornford replied, ' Yes, sir, for we in
culcate the most loyal principles.' [This is the answer that
Whately is so savage with.]
Robert WUberforce comes in a fortnight's time. Mozley
[T.] evanuit altogether. I am sure we must not say a word
to make him beUeve we wish him to stay. It will spoil him ;
we must be airrapkei^, and above such weakness. I think of
setting up for a great man ; it is the only way to be thought
so. I have ever been too candid, and have in my time got
into aU sorts of scrapes. [N.B. (added at a later date) — How
strange I should say so then, when the very words about my
officious candour and my scrapes of af e years are continually
in my thoughts now ! ] I shall learn wisdom rapidly now.
Besides, men must have their run, if they are worth anything.
M. is now roaming : if he is ever to come round, it is not by
telling him to do so.
The French are an awful people How the world is set
upon calling evil good, good evil ! This Revolution [ending
in abdication of Charles X.] seems to me the triumph of
irreligion. What an absurdity it is in men saying, ' The times

1830 Letters and Correspondence 205
will not admit of an establishment,' as if the 'timesi' were
anything else than the people. It is the people who will not
admit of it. Yet coxcombs wag their heads and think they
have got at the root of the matter when they assure one that
the times, the spirit of the times, makes it chimerical to attempt
continuing the Catholic Church in France. The effect of this
miserable French affair will be great in England.
On the prospect of an election to the Poetry Professorship,
R. H. Froude writes : August 1, 1830.
. . . From several conversations with Keble, I am sure he
would, on the whole, like to be Poetry Professor, if he could
become so without canvassing, and if the College would send
out his cards. He retains a great affection for the classics,
and wishes that he had some business to spend time on them.
He also thinks that a connexion of high r)0os with poetical
feeling might be useful, and has a great fancy for illustrating
the theory out of Virgil, Lucretius, &c.
The following letter tells its own tale of one member of the
home circle of a nature and a temper so difficult as to be a life
long trial to all concerned. To his Mother. August 27, 1830.
My head, hands, and heart are all knocked up with the
long composition I have sent Charles. I have sent him
twenty-four closely-written foolscap pages all about nothing.
He revived the controversy we had five years ago. I have
sent him what is equal to nine sermons.
F.'s departure has had its sufficient share in knocking me
up, and much more will it, I fear, discompose you and my
sisters. Still, it is our great relief that God is not extreme to
mark what is done amiss, that He looks at the motives, and
accepts and blesses in spite of incidental errors. What, in
deed, else would become of any of us ? Frank so completely
put himself into His hands that we can have no fear for him,
• whatever becomes of his projects.
My hand is so tired and my head so dull, you may excuse
my leaving off.

2o6 John Henry Newman 1830
The following letter to his sister gives an insight into Mr.
Newman's manner of literary work ; with certain rules, to
which probably he always adhered. It was a natural wish on
her part to help him in the mechanical part of his literary
labours, but he shows that no such work was with him
mechanical in the sense of the mind not sharing in it, and
taking an active part. To his Sister J. C. N. September 1830.
. . . First, with many thanks, it is impossible for you to
assist me in the transcription of the folio pages. The rough
copy is a riddle, besides that things strike me as I go on, so
that I like to have the opportunity of reviewing myself. C.'s
letter to me you might have written out, but here I found it
an advantage to do so myself ; it put me in so much clearer
possession of his position and mine in contrast, than any
reading could do : and I only regretted that I had not done
so before answering him. My letter would have been, not in
substance different, but more scientific. Be guided by me, if
ever you get into controversy, whether in private or in (faugh!)
the public prints, write out first the letter you are to answer.
I shall always do it in future. Experience brings wisdom.
A letter to Froude at this date concludes :
. . . As for poor  I am going to write him a letter,
but I am desponding. All my plans fail. When did I ever
succeed in any exertion for others ? I do not say this in com
plaint, but really doubting whether I ought to meddle.
Added later :
[N.B. — It is remarkable to me to find myself making the
very complaints then, thirty years ago, which are ever rising
in my mind now. My sermon on Jeremiah, in Plain Sermons,'
was written in 1829, 1830, or 1831.]
The following letter, in answer to an application for help
in a projected Ecclesiastical History, again shows Mr. New
man's advocacy of thoroughness in all literary work.
1 See Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. viii. : ' Jeremiah a Lesson for
the Disappointed.'

1830 L.ETTKKS AND CORRESPONDENCE 207
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. Dr. Jenkyns.
I hardly know what answer to make to your inquiry with
out knowing more of particulars. For instance, what I feel
most clear about is this : I never would. ujidejctake..jfco_write
lightly on any subject which admits of being treated thoroughly.
T thirik it, is the fault of thedav. Now this probably will be
a great objection to my engaging in a professedly popular
work. Not that it is necessary to compose a long treatise, but
more time (I feel) ought to be given to the subject than is
consistent with the dispatch of booksellers, who must sacrifice
everything to regularity of publication and trimness of ap-.
pearance. (An Ecclesiastical History, for example, whether
long or short, ought to be derived from the original sources,
and not be compiled from the standard authorities. [My )
' Arians ' was the result of this application. — J. H. N.] -^
At the end of the Long Vacation of 1830 Mrs. Newman
and her daughters left Brighton and settled at Rose Hill,
Iffley. This house — 'Eaton's Cottage,' two cottages turned
into one picturesque dwelling — was before long exchanged for
Rose Bank, Iffley, where Mrs. Newman remained till her
death in 1836. Some entries in the 'Chronological Notes'
show the interest Mr. Newman felt in preparing Rose Hill,
his Mother's cottage home. Other notices of the time have
also their interest ; sometimes telling much in little.
August 6. — Walked with Pusey and his wife to see the
cottage at Rose Hill.
August 26. — Frank went for good [to Persia]. God guide
us in His way !
September 13.— News came of poor Bennett's death by
coach overturn. [The University's and my organist. A man
of genius.] Walked with H. Wilberforce to Rose Hill to go
over Eaton's Cottage.
September 30. — Walk with Froude to Rose Hill to inspect ,
the furniture.
October 22. — My Mother and sisters came to Rose Hill,
arriving about 4 p.m.
November 7. — Preached for Church Missionary Society
St. Mary's collection, 16?. lis. 6d.
November 9. — Introduced my sisters to the people at
Littlemore.

208 John henry ivewman umi
November 12. — Dined with Provost to meet Mr. Wilber-
force. November 30. — St. Andrews ; boys chanting for first time.
December 10. — Class paper came out. H. Wilberforce first
and second.
The opening of 1831 found Mr. Newman 'weak and deaf
from overwork, also subject to want of sleep, with now and
then sleepless nights ; but ready for his pupils when Term
began ; for it wiU be remembered he did not give up those
already his when the change in the tutorship came. The one
absorbing public interest -of 1831 was the Reform Bill. The
following letter gives Mr. Newman's thoughts on the Church
aspect of the question.
Rev. J. H. Newman to J. W. Bowden, Esq.
March 13, 1831.
I fully agree with you about the seriousness of the prospect
we have before us, yet do not see what is to be done. The
nation (i.e. numerically the Trkrjdoi) is for revolution. . . .
They certainly have the physical power, and it is the sophism
of the day to put religious considerations out of sight, and,
forgetting there is any power above man's, to think that what
man can do he may do with impunity.
I fear that petitions against Reform would but show the
weakness of the Conservative party by the small number which
could be got together. At all events, I believe the University
has never come forward on questions purely political, or at least
before others. Besides, the Church has for a long time lost
its influence as a body — Exoriatur ! Nor do I think it is in
a humour to exert it on this occasion, if it had any. It is
partly cowed and partly offended. Two years back the State
deserted it. I do not see when, in consequence of that
treachery, the State has got itself into difficulties, that the
Church is bound to expose itself in its service.
Not that the Church should be unforgiving ; but, if others
think with me, what great interest has it that things should
remain as they are ? I much fear society is rotten, to say a
strong thing. Doubtless there are many specimens of excellence
in the higher walks of Ufe, but I am tempted to put it to you
whether the persons you meet generally are — I do not say

18o± l^tniERS AND CORRESPONDENCE 211
consistently religious ; we never can expect that in this woi^,
• — but believers in Christianity in any true sense of the word.
No, they are Liberals, and in saying this I conceive I am say-\
ing almost as bad of them as can be said of anyone. What \
will be the case if things remain as they are 1 Shall we not I
have men placed in the higher stations of the Church who are'
anything but real Churchmen ? The Whigs have before now
designed Parr for a Bishop ; we shall have such as him. I
would rather have the Church severed from its temporalities,
and scattered to the four winds, than such a desecration of
holy things. I dread above all things the pollution of such
men as Lord Brougham, affecting to lay a friendly hand upon
it. . . . _
You may not thank me for this long meditation ; and to
tell the truth I cannot, even in this long account of my
thoughts, express them fully.
Do you know that my brother Frank has gone out of the
country as a missionary ? He left Oxford last August, and
was to arrive at Bagdad by the middle of January.
You ask me what I am doing. Why, I am going to be an
author, but anonymously 1 I am thinking of writing two
works on theological subjects, for a library which is coming out
under the Bishop of London's sanction. And I am retiring
from the tuition.
Rev. E. B. Pusey, D.D., to Rev. J. H. Newman.
Hastings: March 17, 1831.
I am truly glad that you have undertaken the work on the
Articles, as I think it is very much wanted, and there seems
scarcely a commencement of what you will do satisfactorily,
an illustration of the historical sense and the language em
ployed in them. With regard to the Councils, though, as
generally treated, they are the driest portion of Ecclesiastical
History, I should think an account of them might be made
both interesting and improving, by exhibiting them in reference
to, and as characteristic of, the ages in which they occurred.
You may also be of much service, I hope, in stemming hetero
doxy, one of whose strongest holds is, perhaps, the so-called
history of doctrines. I do not think there will be much to be
gained for your object from German writers. Some of the
Fathers, or rather parts of the Fathers, you must, of course,
read ; but this will all aid towards your great object. I should
vol. 1. P

208 John Henry Newman 1831
iiink this little essay would be of great use to yourself,
towards nerving you for that design. Oh, for a conclusion of
the Catalogue and the time when my hands wiU be free ! But
all in God's good time.
I may regard myself now as quite well, although my chest
is still not strong.
The foUowing letter to Mr. Rose, written some months
before their personal acquaintance began, relates to the Eccle
siastical History on which Mr. Newman had lately written to
Dr. Jenkyns.
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. Hugh James Rose.
March 28, 1831.
I have allowed myself to delay my answer to your obliging
letter from a sense of the importance of the undertaking to
which you invite me. I am apprehensive that a work on the
Councils wdl require a more extensive research into Ecclesi
astical History than I can hope to complete in the time to be
assigned me for writing it. Otherwise I am weU disposed
towards it.
You do not mention the number of Councils you intend
should be included in the History. May I trouble you to give
me a description of the kind of work you desire, and what
books you especially refer to in your letter as the sources of
information, and what time you can grant me 1
I fear I should not be able to give my mind fuUy to the
subject till the autumn, though I wish to commeuce operations
sooner. If I undertook it, it would be on the understanding
that it was to be but introductory to the subject which Mr.
Jenkyns mentioned to you — the Articles.
I had considered a work on the Articles might be useful
on the following plan : First, a defence of Articles ; then the
history of our own. Then an explanation of them founded
on the historical view. Then a dissertation on the sources of
proof — for example, revelation or nature, the Bible or the
Church, the Old or New Testament, &c. Then some account
of the terms used in Theology as a science — i.e. Trinity,
Person, merits of Christ, Grace, Regeneration, &c. And,
lastly, some general view of Christian doctrines to be proved
from Scripture, and referred to their proper places in the
Articles. It seems to me much better thus to collect the sub-

1831 Letters and Correspondence 211
jects of the Articles under heads than to explain and prove
each separately, with a view both to clearness of statement
and fulness in the proof from Scripture.
Will you consider it out of place in one so little known as
myself to add, that, though I am most desirous you should be
put into full possession of my views, and at all times wish
to profit by the suggestions of others, and am not aware I
differ in any material point from our standard writers, yet,
intending to take on myself the entire responsibility of every
thing I write, I should be unwilling to allow any alteration
without the concurrence of my own judgment 1 And if the
changes required were great, I should cheerfully acquiesce in
my MS. being declined, rather than consent to suppress or
modify any part of it which I deemed of importance.
In saying this, perhaps, I am raising actual difficulties in
my wish to avoid possible prospective ones ; yet, in a matter
of this kind, I deem it best to use as much openness as pos
sible, begging your indulgence of it, and being entirely dis
posed to welcome in turn any frank statement of your own
sentiments which you may find it necessary to communicate
to me. After the academical success of his brilliant pupil — II. W.
Wilberforce — the father and Mr. Newman exchange letters.

William Wilberforce, Esq., to Rev. J. H. Newman.
Kensington Gore: April 21, 1831.
... I scarcely need assure you that your testimony in my
dear Henry's favour is not a little gratifying to me. And I
can truly assure you that the pleasure it gives me is much
enhanced by the high respect for the principles, the judgment,
and the means of information of the individual by whom that
favourable opinion was expressed. I believe I had been led
to underrate the probabilities of Henry's succeeding in his
competition for the fellowship, and therefore I was less disap
pointed. I know not your opinion as to the profession to which
he should devote himself. You probably have heard that he
has entered into one of the Inns of Court, though declaring
that it is contrary to his inclination. I leave the decision
entirely to himself. Allow me, before I conclude, to express
my hopes, that, whenever we may have the opportunity of
cultivating each other's personal acquaintance and friendship,
F2

212 John Henry Newman 1831
you win allow us to embrace it. That it may please God to
grant you a course of usefulness and comfort is the cordial
wish of yours very sincerely, William Wilberforce.
The ' Chronological Notes ' show that there were still
pupils to occupy time and heart. Entries occur up to the
end of the year. Thus :
April 30. — H. WUberforce went for good.
May 6. — Introduced Rogers to my Mother.
May 18. — Classical list out, Wood and Wilson (his pupils)
firsts. June 4. — Mathematical class list out, Perkins first class [a
pupil of mine, now dead. I don't recollect that I knew him
intimately], Wilson second.
June 11. — Second day of Collections ; finished my men —
and so ends my Tutor's work.
In the Long Vacation Mr. Newman paid a long-remem
bered visit to Dartington, the home of Hurrell Froude.

To his Mother.
Dartington : July 7, 1831.
I despatched a hasty letter yesterday from Torquay which
must have disappointed you from its emptiness, but I wished
you to know my progress. As we lost sight of the Needles
twilight came on and we saw nothing of the coast. The
night was beautiful, and on my expressing an aversion to the
cabin, Froude and I agreed to sleep on deck. [Froude in
consequence caught a cold which turned to the epidemic
influenza, and was the beginning of his long fatal ulness. —
J. H. N.] I have for a long while almost vowed never to
sleep in those gregarious cabins. I robbed my berth of a
blanket, in which I enveloped my blessed person, and putting
over it my cloak, stretched myself on a bench. At one o'clock,
passing Portland Lights, the swell was considerable, as it
always is there.
When I awoke, a Uttle before four, we were passing the
Devonshire coast, about fifteen miles off it. By six we were
entering Torbay, and by seven we landed at Torquay. We
had debated whether to go to Plymouth, or to land at Dart-

1831 LETTERS AND CORRESPONDENCE 213
mouth, or at Torquay — our decision would have been furthered
on our finding the steamer's flag was a tricolour ; but was
ultimately made by a desire for breakfast, &c.
Limestone and sandstone rocks of Torbay are very brilliant
in their colours, and sharp in their forms ; strange to say, I
believe I never saw real rocks before in my life. This con
sciousness keeps me very silent, for I feel I am admiring what
everyone knows, and it is foolish to observe upon.
You see a house said to have belonged to Sir Walter
Raleigh ; what possessed him to prefer the court at Green
wich to a spot like this ? Really the abstract vague desire of
distinction does seem to me the most morbid unnatural feeling
going. I can understand a man tempted by a definite tan
gible prize, or a dependent man setting out to seek his fortune ;
but not that gluttonous indefinite craving for honours and
reputation. Now I know I am writing great nonsense ! but since I
should say it in words if I were with you, I will write it
down. I know I am writing in a very dull way, but can only say
that the extreme deliciousness of the air and the fragrance of
everything" makes me languid, indisposed to speak or write,
and pensive. My journey did not fatigue me to speak of, and
I have no headache, deafness, or whizzing in my ears ; but
really I think I should dissolve into essence of roses, or be
attenuated into an echo, if I lived here. Certainly I am not
more original in my remarks and disposed to start a conver
sation than an echo, as the people here as yet find, though
they may not yet have discovered my relationship to an
essence. What strikes me most is the strange richness of every
thing. The rocks blush into every variety of colour, the trees
and fields are emeralds, and the cottages are rubies. A beetle
I picked up at Torquay was as green and gold as the stone it
lay upon, and a squirrel which ran up a tree here just now
was not the pale reddish-brown to which I am accustomed,
but a bright brown-red. Nay, my very hands and fingers
look rosy, like Homer's Aurora, and I have been gazing on
them with astonishment. AU this wonder I know is simple,
and therefore, of course, do not you repeat it. The exuber
ance of the grass and the foliage is oppressive, as if one had
not room to breathe, though this is a fancy — the depth of the
valleys and the steepness of the slopes increase the illusion — ¦

214 John Henry Newman mi
and the Duke of WeUington would be in a fidget to get some
commanding point to see the country from. The scents are
extremely fine, so very delicate yet so powerful, and the colours
of the flowers as if they were all shot with white. The sweet
peas especially have the complexion of a beautiful face. They
trail up the wall mixed with myrtles as creepers. As to the
sunset, the Dartmoor heights look purple, and the sky close
upon them a clear orange. When I turn back and think of
Southampton Water and the Isle of Wight, they seem by
contrast to be drawn in Indian ink or pencil. Now I cannot
make out that this is fancy ; for why should I fancy 1 I am
not especially in a poetic mood. I have heard of the brilli
ancy of Cintra, and stUl more of the East, and I suppose that
this region would pale beside them ; yet I am content to
marvel at what I see, and think of VirgU's description of the
purple meads of Elysium. Let me enjoy what I feel, even
though I may unconsciously exaggerate.
To his Sister Harriett.
Dartington : July 15, 1831.
The other day the following lines came into my head.
They are not worth much, but I transcribe them.
There stray'd awhile amid the woods of Dart
One who could love them, but who durst not love ;
A vow had bound him, ne'er to give his heart
To streamlet bright, or soft secluded grove.
Twas a hard, humbling task, onwards to move
His easy captured eye from each fair spot,
With unattached and lonely step to rove
O'er happy meads, which soon its print forgot :
Yet kept he safe his pledge, prizing his pilgrim lot.
The weather has been beautiful here. The whole house
has had the influenza, and been unable to go out of doors,
and in consequence I have as yet seen nothing, and been
nowhere. I. was not sure I should not catch it myself. I
have had a sermon [namely, in my first volume of ' Parochial
Sermons ' on the Pool of Bethesda : ' Scripture, a Record of
Human Sorrow '] to write for to-morrow, which I do believe to
be as bad a one as I have ever written, for I was not in the
humour, but I do not tell people so ; it may do good in spite
of me.

1831 Letters and Correspondence ^15
To his Mother.
Dartington : July 20, 1831.
In twelve days I have written you five letters. I am
amused, then, there should be a complaint of my silence.
I mean to leave this place on Friday by an afternoon
coach, and you may expect me at Rose Hill about five or six
on Saturday. I send you a philosophical poem • on the origin
of poetry, tendered by me the other day for a lady's album.
Possibly for a like distinction the following lines may have
been penned, composed, as they must have been, amid a
gathering of young people, to whom fair weather would be
all important for showing off their beautiful country. The
reader will remember that St. Swithin's Day falls on July 15,
the date of this letter. Dartington: July 15, 1831.
Gently, wet saint, descend, nor sluice
Our summer's broad sunshine ;
Or hasten autumn's riper juice,
And let thy rain be wine.
Rev. R. H. Froude to Rev. J. H. Newman.
Dartington : Jidy 29, 1831.
People down here regret your departure ; so I hope that
the benefit you have derived from your excursion may some
time or other bring you down again.
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. R. H. Froude.
Oriel College : August 10, 1831.
I am just come in to Oxford for a while, and find a letter
from Mozley, in which he sends you the following message :
' I have heard of Bulteel's proceedings through the newspapers.
If Froude remembers his proposal, and you think St. Ebbe's a
fit sphere for me, I should, be much obliged to you if you would
take any steps that may not be inconvenient to you to procure
the curacy for us, making what use you Uke of my name.'
I don't know whether you have heard Bulteel is about to
leave Oxford ; he has communicated it to his parishioners from
the pulpit. 1 Verses, p. 55, ' Seeds in the Air.'

216 John Henry Newman mi
Keble, who was here yesterday, wishes you to have a
country parish ; he did not give his reasons. I have nothing
to say except that my work [N.B. ' The Arians '] opens a grand
and most interesting field to me ; but how I shall ever be able
to make one assertion, much less to write one page, I cannot
tell. Any one, pure categorical, would need an age of reading
and research. I shaU confine myself to hypotheticals ; your
' if ' is a great philosopher, as well as peacemaker.
The preceding letter seems to imply that the idea had been
for R. H. Froude and T. Mozley to take a parish in conjunction.

Rev. R. H. Froude to Rev. J. H. Newman.
August 16, 1831.
Since you may wish to have a definite categorical answer
to Mozley's question, I will say No. . . . Whatever you may
think, I have a serious wish, and, if I could presume to say so,
intention of working at the Ecclesiastical History of the Middle
Ages. Willie [his brother] continues very steady, getting up
at half -past five, and working without wasting time till two or
three. ... I think I am myself improved in composition, and
attribute it to imitation of Plato.

Rev. John Keble to Rev. J. H. Newman.
August 24, 1831.
I wish you would come and stay a day or two with us.
You would find us all uninftuenzed now, and the master of the
house [his father] so gay as to read prayers at Fairford Church
on Sunday. Moreover, I want some of your criticism, for
somehow I can't get it out of my head that you are a real
honest man.
We don't hear a very good account of Pusey, and are much
inclined to suppose that he does not take care of himself. Do
you know of anybody who would be fit and likely to take the
place of second Master at Rugby, with emolument of 500?. or
600?. a year, in case Arnold should not succeed in an arrange
ment which I believe he has in view 1

1831 Letters and Correspondence 217
Bonamy Price, Esq. (Master at Rugby), to
Rev. J. H. Newman.
August 1831.
The resignation of Mr. Moore having created a vacancy
among our Masters, it has been suggested to us that Mr.
Blencowe — a Fellow of your college — would be a very fit per
son to become his successor, and might not be unwilling to
accept the situation. I have, therefore, taken the liberty of
begging your opinion of him in reference to an engagement of
this sort ; judging that, from your personal acquaintance with
him, there was no person to whom I could more properly
apply than to yourself. His well-known character in the
University leaves no room for doubt on the score of attain
ment, but your own experience in tuition must have convinced
you, that there are many other requisites for the successful
carrying on of the work of education. I do not know that
anything in particular is needed for Rugby more than for any
other school, except that Dr. Arnold has a sort of idiosyncrasy
for a man who is aya.601 irau^etv. At least we all feel from
experience that cheerfulness of temper and a ready turn for
amusing oneself are amongst the most valuable qualifications
for a schoolmaster. I hope you will excuse the liberty I thus
take of asking for what I know you may feel much reluctance
to give ; but I trust I may plead my apology on the ground of
the importance of the matter, and the necessity imposed on
Dr. Arnold of procuring as certain information as he can. I
hope you continue to receive favourable accounts of your
brother. I have had a letter from him, written in very good
spirits, and, I am glad to add, showing evidence that general
and classical literature has lost no interest with him.
J. H. N. to his Mother.
September 18, 1831.
Dr. Whately is made Archbishop of Dublin.
Rev. John Keble to Rev. J. H. NEWMAN-
September 1831
I am quite astonished at what you tell me about Whately,
and can only say I hope he and the Irish Church may be the

218 John Henry Newman mi
better for it this day six months. It will be a step in that
direction if they have made no truckling bargain with him to
sacrifice the temporalities to a reformed Parliament, if such
be their good pleasure. If you see him, pray assure him of
my very sincere and constant good wishes on so trying an

The following letter shows how fixed Mr. Newman's mind
was on Oxford as his lifelong home.
, To Miss M. R. Giberne.
Oriel College : September 22, 1831.
I was very much vexed that I should have been away when
you paid my sisters a visit here last July. I will not aDow you
have seen Oxford yet. It was a most informal proceeding to
be lionised, as you were, by one who was under no monastic
vow to love it and be true to it for life.
Rev. John Keble to Rev. J. H. Newman.
September 22, 1831.
We shall be happy to see you next week, and perhaps I
may have the pleasure of introducing you to a friend of mine
— an Oriel incumbent — Penrose, of Coleby, worth your knowing
if you never met him.
Rev. John Keble to Rev. J. H. Newman.
September 30, 1831.
Mr. LUy [Scout], or rather, my dear Newman, for when I
am about it I may as well speak to a friend as not, the purport
of this note is to inquire about two pair of shoes which HiU
says have never made their appearance in our house since I
last came from Oxford ; so we suppose they are pursuing their
studies in the room I then occupied, viz. ground floor on the
right, Jenkyns!s staircase. If so, please to have them sent me
<fec. . . . otherwise I shall be very unfit to accept the many
invitations which, no doubt, I shall receive from high per
sonages in London next week.
I must now thank you very heartily for your patient

1831 Letters and Correspondence 219
endurance of all the prose and verse which was inflicted on you
last Monday and Tuesday, and what is more, I don't care how
soon I have an opportunity of the same kind again. Penrose
went off this morning to rub off a Utile of the Tory dust which
he might have contracted during his stay here, by a visit to
WUliam Short, of Chippenham. Then he goes to my brother's,
then to Rugby, so that he will stand a fair chance of getting
home in a tolerably neutral state.
During the summer and autumn of 1831 are entrances in
the ' Chronological Notes ' which tell, in short, events of private
or public interest.
1831. August 2. — Rogers [Lord Blachford] came and read
with me, stationing himself at Iffley.
August 20. — Took tea with Rogers to meet Gladstone.
September 1. — Made Rural Dean.
September 18. — Heard that Whately was appointed Arch
bishop of Dublin, as Rogers and I were walking over Magdalen
Bridge into Oxford.
October 4. — Whately and Hind left for Ireland.
October 10. — Went over by coach to Cotton, at Denchworth,
walking from the Lamb.
October 12. — Walked back to Oxford, through clay fields,
streams, and miry roads, about fifteen miles. [It was in this
walk that I devised the mode of writing sermons which is my
published mode. One, however, of that mode, is the one
which I wrote at Dartington in the foregoing July — some of
my old style are among the published ones.] '
October 14. — My rule was to lecture at Littlemore every
Friday. October 21. — Resumed my task at the Councils [' The
Arians '], though with many interruptions, for a while.
October 24. — On my return from my walk found present
from my pupils, consisting of the Fathers.
The following letter is certainly remarkable as showing
how unconscious Mr. Newman was of the gulf that was separat
ing him from Dr. Whately and his school.
1 Being asked what was his former style, he spoke of Simeon's style,
divisions 1, 2, 3, into different heads.

220 John Henry Newman mi
To his Sister H. E. N. (at Stowlanglopt). October 16, 1831.
For some time Whately's promotion teased me much, and
in a selfish way. As far as he himself is concerned, one must
always feel sorrow about it, for I think he will not now have
a day of peace till his life's end, any more than the Abbot
Boniface after quitting the Abbey of Dumdrennon ; and he
thinks all this too. But my first annoyance was as to my
own prospects, for I foresaw he would ask me some time or
ether to join him at Dublin, and not only did I feel it would
seem selfish and ungrateful and cowardly not to do so, but I
feared it might turn out to be my duty on direct grounds, and
had even thought (that is, for some time) that a post in Ireland
was the one thing which seemed to have claims enough to
draw me from Oxford : — perhaps you have heard me say so.
However, by this time I think my mind is quite made up
that it is my duty to remain where I am, so remain I shall.
(Is it not good to answer before I am asked ?) My reasons
for remaining are these : first, I am actually engaged to Mr.
Rose for a succession of works [historical, of the Councils,
J. H. N.] the composition of which is quite incompatible with
the duties of a post about an Archbishop ; next, this engage
ment will be in itself a channel of exclusive usefulness, which
I should be abandoning just as I had begun it'; thirdly, the
study of theology is very much neglected at Oxford, and I
may be doing peculiar service to the place (by ' peculiar ' I
mean what others will not do) by cultivating it ; fourthly, if
"times are troublous, Oxford will want hot-headed men, and
such I mean to be, and I am in my place ; fifthly, I have some
doubts whether my health would stand an Irish engagement.
Many minor reasons might be added to the above. I dread
Whately proposing something [He never did; he knew me
better than I knew myself — J. H. N.], but expect nothing im
mediate, though at first I did.
You may assure Rickards from me, that I am a reformer
as much as he can be. I should like (as far as I can under
stand the matter) to substitute the First Prayer Book of King
Edward for the present one ; but such reforms are not popular,
that is the worst of it ; so that practically I do become an
anti-reformer in the modern sense of the word. I am thankful
the Bishops have lately played so bold a part, but I fear they

1831 Letters and Correspondence 22 r
will still give way, a large number of them being frightened
' at the sound themselves have made.'
The Provost has again negatived my proposition of doing
something for Littlemore. . . .
To his Mothee. October 24, 1831.
I have to-day received a very valuable present of books
from many of my new friends and pupUs, consisting of thirty-
six volumes of the Fathers; among these are the works of
Austin, Athanasius, Cyril Alexandrinus, Epiphanius, Gregory
Nyssen, Origen, Basil, Ambrose, and Irenaeus. They are so
fine in their outsides as to put my former ones to shame, and
the editions are the best. Altogether, I am now set up in the
patristical line, should I be blessed with health and abiUty to
make use of them.
Rev. S. Rickards to Rev. J. H. Newman.
Stowlangloft : October 25, 1831
Harriett teUs me a Uttle about your employments, and
when I can get rid of the regret I feel that the College has
lost you,1 I am weU pleased to know they are what they are.
I very earnestly hope they wUl put you into Whately's place
[Headship of Alban HaU] ; that ought to be vacant by this time ;
I am glad you are so sanguine about Oxford, it helps me to
keep up my spirits about it, when else they would be apt to
faA. Most people there fall so short of one's expectations,
just when they have got to the point when they might begin
to realise them.
This is an odd neighbourhood into which we are got here,
and thronged with a set of rather rich, moderately learned,
and immoderately liberal clergy. The spirit of the Bishop of
Norwich has got into them so thoroughly, that if they had not
shown themselves so earnest for the late BUI, one might have
thought that they reckoned a decisive opinion the chief crime.
Of course, here and there we have a hot man on one extreme
side pitched against a stUl hotter on the other side. But the
effect of these seems to be only to make the mass more certain
than ever, that they are the wise happy men. There was a stir
' By Mr. Newman retiring from the tutorship.

222 John Henry Newman mi
made a few weeks ago, which I helped to make, to bring the
clergy to meet together once a month within a given district.
It may still come to something, but it is at present at a standstUl;
and two of the oldest and more influential clergy, who professed
to Uke the thing in most respects, still gave it as their opinion
that it was unnecessary, because all things that could be dis
cussed had been discussed already in books, and the books
might be bought as they were wanted. As far as I have been .
able to observe, hitherto, the people are either of the lowest
order of Dissenters, and this to a vast extent, or else they are
Churchmen without a jot of Christian knowledge. I wish you
could come and see us, that I might talk to you of many things
whereof I cannot write. I can say but little to you untU you
do, for I feel scarcely to know anything about you. Accept
our love, and let it fetch you speedily.
Mrs. Newman to J. H. N,
[On the first alarm of the cholera in England.]
Rose Hill: November 12, 1831.
. . . Should it [the cholera] increase, I wish you could
have that cottage at Littlemore for head-quarters for nurses
to be on the spot, without mixing with uncontaminated families,
and for a dep6t of medicines, &c. And I should think it a
privUege, wlule health permits, for you to consider me head
nurse. I have the whole in my head, should it be ordained
that our vicinity is to suffer under the visitation. Pray take
care of your own health. Your usefulness is before you, I
trust for the comfort of many, for many years.
Towards the close of 1831 the Notes have frequent mention
of the cholera.
November 5. — News of the cholera in Sunderland.
November 6. — Prayers against the cholera in CoUege
Chapel. November 15. — Had papers about the cholera for my
parishioners. November 17. — We sent out Keble's cards. Candidate for
Poetiy Professorship.
December 8. — Keble elected Poetry Professor.
December 9. — No sleep at night. Preached University
sermon in the afternoon. My first as Select Preacher.

1832 letters and correspondence 223
December 17. — Went round the parish with cholera com
mittee. December 19. — Resumed opusculum after many weeks' in
terruption. [I was working too hard at ' The Arians.' It
was due the next summer, and I had only begun to read for
it, or scarcely so, the summer past.]
December 26. — T. Mozley disappointing me, wrote and
preached lecture for morning service.1
The correspondence of the year 1832 opens with what Mr.
Newman caUs a sad letter from Mr. Hurrell Froude, as giving
an unfavourable report of his own health. In the course of
it he enters a protest on his friend's method of working on the
opusculum then in progress, and then continues :
Rev. R. H. Froude to Rev. J. H. Newman.
. . If you go on fiddUng with your introduction you
wUl most certainly get into a scrape at last.
I have for the last five days been reading Marsh's Michaelis,
which I took up by accident, and have been much interested
by it. I see that old Wilberforce [Robert] owes to it much of
the profundity which I have before now been floored and
overawed by. It has put many things into my head that I
never thought of before.
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. R. H. Froude.
January 13, 1832.
Your letter was most welcome, sad as it was ; I caU it
certainly from beginning to end a sad letter, and yet somehow
sad letters, in their place and in God's order, are as acceptable
as merry ones.
What I write for now is to know why you wUl not trust
your brother [N.B. WUliam Froude] to come up by himself.
Let him go into your rooms, and do stop in Devonshire a good
1 ' It is justice to the delinquent to give his recollections on the
occasion. ' He [Newman] never complained of an unexpected addition
to his work, or any interruption. I had undertaken a saint's day
sermon. An hour before the time I presented myself a defaulter. I
could not do it. Newman threw aside the work he was busily and
eagerly engaged on and wrote a sermon, which, when delivered, might
indicate days of careful preparation.' — Reminiscences chiefly of Oriel and
the Oxford Movement, vol. i. p. 207.

224 John Henry Newman ma
while ; in which tune you not only may get well, but may
convince all about you that you are well — an object not to be
neglected. . . . Your advice about my work ['The Arians 'lis not only
sage, but good ; yet not quite applicable, though I shall bear \
it in mind. Recollect, my good sir, that every thought I think
is thought, and every word I write is writing, and that thought ;
tells, and that words take room, and that, though I make the !
introduction the whole book, yet a book it is ; and, though ]
this wUl not steer clear of the egg blunder, to have an intro- /
duction leading to nothing, yet it is not losing time. Already I
have made forty-one pages out of eighteen.
Rickards has had in his parish a true instance of Asiatic
cholera, as large as life. I believe he is but a few miles from
the place where the Sunderland coal barges unload. The
poor man died in three or four hours. No other case has
occurred, but there is much English cholera about. He was
dirty, out of health, in bad circumstances, a suspected ' man,
and in a very dejected state of mind.

Rev. John Keble to Rev. J. H. Newman.
January 16, 1832.
I am very sorry we are not to see you, but don't much
wonder at it, considering the twenty-six tomes of the Concilia
[alluding to ' The Arians '].
As it happens, I could have come up now, for I have
written and transcribed enough of something meant for Latin
[N.B. — I suppose his first Poetry Lecture], but I think I am
more in the spirit of the law by waiting till the 31st.
I am very sorry to hear of Froude [N.B. — This was the
first symptom of his Ulness]. I don't think he takes care of
himself.
Rev. William Palmer of Worcester ' to Rev.
J. H. Newman.
January 22, 1832.
I would not willingly run the risk of displeasing you, yet I
cannot refrain from attempting to express, however faintly,
1 [Author of Origines Liturgicce. — J. H. N.]

1832 LETTERS AND CORRESPONDENCE 225
the pleasure which your discourse this day afforded me.
[N.B. — This is Sermon IV. of my University sermons.1]
How entirely and completely did I go along with all you
said so wisely and so truly ! How thankful did I feel to
Divine- Mercy for raising up preachers of righteousness ! In
times of sorrow and depression, when evU seems to prevail
over aU the earth, there is an inexpressible consolation to the
broken spirit to see and know that there are still some faithful
found. February 20 there is mention of a distressing letter from
Froude, and the foUowing letter from Archdeacon Froude
shows how serious he felt his son's case to be.
Ven. Archdeacon Froude to Rev. J. H. Newman.
February 22.
If the doctor advises it, I have offered to be Hurrell's com
panion to the Mediterranean or any other part of the world
that may be supposed most favourable in such a case as his.
I own my faith in the advantages to be gained by going abroad
is not very great, unless they can be procured under the most
favourable circumstances. At any rate, I think your suggestion
for his giving up the office of treasurer shall be followed.
We hear of severe weather in town and the northern part
of the kingdom ; here we have had a fortnight of the most
delightful time I ever remember at this season.
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. R. H. Froude.
April (Lent) 1832.
As I grew idle and did not know what to say, I gave up
my subject (for the University pulpit), and determined to
preach a practical discourse fit for Lent. Therefore I have
written a sermon2 against Sir James Macintosh, Knight. I
still have some need of your imprimatur, and send you ' Ser
mon Notes,' to which I shall expect an answer by return of
post should you discern anything heretical, &c.
/ ' The title of Sermon IV. is ' The Usurpation of Reason.' The text,
Matt. xi. 19 : 'Wisdom is justified of her children.'
* See Sermon VI., University Sermons. Title : ' On Justice, as a
Principle of Divine Governance.' Text, Jer. viii. 11 : ¦ They have healed
the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying Peace, peace,
when there is no peace.'
VOL. I. Q

226 John Henry Newman i»3z
Sir J. M. asserts that imperative per se as is the voice of
conscience, yet the test of its correctness is its tending to the
general good. In other words, he supposes benevolence un
limited and absolute to be the attribute of the Divine govern
ance, and the end the general good ; and that it is impossible
(' a contradiction in terms ') for anyone who holds (as all must
hold as soon as it is stated) the general good to be the most
desirable conceivable end of the world's course, to love and
revere, i.e. to have religious feelings towards a Deity of mixed
and imperfect benevolence. Accordingly that the feeling of
justice in the mind is but a divinely appointed expedient for
promoting the general good ; and so again of purity.
I first speak of the cheerful hopeful view of human nature
which prevails at all times (especially since the glorious 1688 !).
Such was Paley's, Addison's, Blair's, and now Maltby's, and
the Liberals'. It is nominally like the Christian's cheerfulness,
but superficial, <fec. . . .
Before quoting Sir James, I come to the arguments which
I wish your critical judgment on. Justice is amiable as
well as Benevolence (here I go somewhat beyond Butler;
part 1, ch. 3, is it 1 Therefore be sharp). That we do not
commonly love and revere Justice arises from our being sinners
and fearing it. The saints in heaven glorify God, because
'just and true are his ways,' &c. — vide Revelation.
Rev. R. H. Froude to Rev. J. H. Newman.
Fairford: April 6, 1832.
On the whole I like both the subject and the toVoi, especi
ally that on which you teU me to be sharp. Perhaps the love
of order is too minute ; but I wUl make two or three remarks
on the arrangement, &c. ?
Might not something be said on the sUliness of attempting
to reduce all our moral instincts to one generally, &c. i
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. R. H. Froude.
April 12, 1832.
. . ¦ As to your ' Annotationes in Neandri HomUiam,' to be
sure I have treated them with what is now caUed ' true respect,'
for I have spoken highly of them and done everything but
use them. I did not have them tiU Saturday morning ; so,
having your authority for what I wanted — i.e. the soundness
of the main position and the tottoi — I became indolent.

1832 Letters and Correspondence 227
The foUowing letter to a former pupU is of so private a
character that it certainly could not have been inserted here
but that the receiver has already put it into print in the
Addenda to his ' Reminiscences of Oriel College.' It is
therefore given as a specimen of Mr. Newman's letters of
counsel to young men under his influence. The sentences
which introduce the letter may be given from the ' Remini
scences.' The new idea of Cardinal Newman as a mere dialectician
and orator is so utterly repugnant to all my thoughts and
feelings about him, that I am tempted to add a letter which I
have early referred to. When ... I returned all Newman's
letters, I lamented that I had not seen this for many years,
and concluded I must have lost it. I was deceived by the
most important matter of the letter not appearing on the first
page. Newman had a better recollection of its contents, and,
finding it among the rest, returned it. The letter was written
just fifty years ago [at the date 1882], while Hampden was
delivering his Bampton lectures, and Newman himself was
deep in his ' Arians.'
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. Thos. Mozley.
Oriel College: May 13, 1832.
My dear Mozley, — J. Marriott has taken Buckland in this
neighbourhood, on his going into orders in the autumn, but
the curacy being vacant in June, the place will be several
months without pastor. Stevens" has told me this, and on
my hinting to him the possibility of its suiting you for this
interval, wished me to write to you ; so I do. The place you
know from our Wadley excursions. You distinguished your
self by racing up the lime groves with WUberforce, and rested
under the fragrant firs. The population about 600 (?). The
distance twelve miles from Oxford. There is a cottage which
is used as a parsonage for the curate. I hear you are thinking
of duty, else I should not have mentioned it, considering your
late Ulness. It has been very unfortunate that you were
obliged to give up your engagement with Round, but all is for
the best. I am truly rejoiced to find your desire for parochial
employment has not diminished, and your opinion of your
own health not such as to deter you. For myself, since I
heard your symptoms, I have not been alarmed, but some
02

228 John Henry Newman mi
persons have been very anxious about you. I trust you are
to be preserved for many good services in the best of causes.
I am sure you have that in you which will come to good, if
you cherish and improve it. You may think I am saying a
strange thing, perhaps an impertinent and misplaced, and
perhaps founded on a misconception, yet let me say it, and
blame me if it be harsh — namely, that had it pleased God to
have visited you with an illness as serious as the Colchester
people thought it, it would almost have seemed a rebuke for
past waste of time. I believe that God often cuts off those
He loves, and who really are His, as a judgment, not inter
fering with their ultimate safety, but as passing them by as
if unworthy of being made instruments of His purposes. It
is an idea which was strong upon the mind of my brother,
during his Ulnesses of the last year, while he did not doubt
that his future interests were essentially secure. I doubt not
at all that you have all along your Ulness had thoughts about
it, far better than I can suggest ; and I reflect with thankful
ness that the very cause of it was an endeavour on your part
to be actively employed ; to the notion of which you still
cUng ; yet I cannot but sorrowfuUy confess to myself (how
much so ever I wish to hide the past from my own mind) that
you have lost much time in the last four or five years. I say
I wish to hide it from myself, because, in simple truth, in it I
perceive a humiliation to myself. I have expected a good deal
from you, and have said I expected it. Hitherto I have been
disappointed, and it is a mortification to me. I do expect
it still, but in the meanwhile time is lost, as well as hope
delayed. Now you must not think it unkind in me noticing
this now, of aU times of the year. I notice it, not as if you
needed the remark most now, rather less, but because you have
more time to think about it now. It is one especial use of
times of Ulness to reflect about ourselves. Should you, how
ever, reaUy acquit yourself in your own mind, thinking that
the course you have pursued, of letting your mind take its
own way, was the best for yourself, I am quite satisfied, and
will beUeve you, yet shaU not blame myself for leading you to
the question, since no one can be too suspicious about himself.
Doubtless you have a charge on you for which you must give
account. You have various gifts, and you have good principles.
For the credit of those principles, for the sake of the Church,
and for the sake of your friends, who expect it of you, see that
they bring forth fruit. I have often had — nay have — continu-

1832 Letters and Correspondence 229
aUy anxious thoughts about you, but it is unpleasant to obtrude
them, and now I have hesitated much before I got myself to
say what I have said, lest I should only be making a fuss ;
yet believe me to speak with very much affection towards
you. Two men who know you best, G. and C, appear to
me to consider you not at all improved in your particular
weak points. I differ from them. Perhaps I am exaggerating
their opinion, and men speak generally and largely when they
would readUy, on consideration, make exceptions, &c. But
if this be in any measure true, think what it impUes 1 What
are we placed here for, except to overcome the euVepio-TaTos
d/iaprta,1 whatever it be in our own case ?
I have no great news for you from this place. Poor Dorn
ford is laid up with a low fever. Wood has left us, and in a
week or two commences the law in L6ndon. The few days
he was hi Oxford, after the decision of our election, were sad
indeed : they made Froude and me quite uncomfortable, not
as not fully participating in the act of the College (of which
doubtless he has given you an account), but from the notion
of W.'s going. Under any circumstances it is a painful thing
on both sides when a man leaves residence and parts from his
friends ; but I am not to lose him, as we are to be very regular
correspondents. Wilson is in residence this term, good fellow
as he is. What a pleasant thing it would be to have more
fellowships than eighteen — that is, if we could always have
such good men to put into them !
Ever yours very affectionately,
J. H. Newman.
In the June of 1832 Mr. Newman became personally
acquainted with the Rev. Hugh James Rose, rector of Had-
leigh, whose name is connected with the start of the Movement.
Mr. Rose was then on a visit to Mr. Palmer, of Worcester.
Tne entries in the ' Chronological Notes ' imply that he was
at once welcomed into the band of friends invited to meet
him. June 2. — Mr. Rose in Oxford. Met him at Palmer's at
dinner. June 3.— Called, with Pusey, on Mr. Rose. This was the
termination of their quarrel about German writers.
1 Heb. xii. 1.

230 John Henry Newman ma
June 4. — Froude and I dined at Palmer's to meet Mr.
Rose. June 6. — Dined with Ogilvie to meet Rose.
The impression made on Mr. Rose by his reception at
Oxford is shown in the following passage in a letter to his
late host.

Rev. W. Palmer to Rev. J. H. Newman.
. . . He (Rose) says : I assure you that I have not spent
so delightful a week for many years ; and that I derived the
very highest gratification which such times as these admit,
from seeing such a body of learned, powerful and high-minded
men as I had the good fortune, through your kindness, to
meet at Oxford. Convey my best thanks to Mr. Ogilvie for
his attention to me ; and my kind regards to Mr. Newman,
assuring him that his MS; [I suppose the ' Arians '] has just )
' come into my hands safe, and that I am taking it into the
country. All through June Mr. Newman had been engaged upon
his ' Arians,' or, to give its original title, ' First Volume of
Councils.' Mr. Froude had warned his friend not to go ' fiddling on '
with his preface. Mr. Newman's solicitude over this first
(-'work showed itself throughout. He grudged no pains ; wrote
and re- wrote ; read passages to his home circle ; sought the
criticism of his friends. Mr. Henry Wilberforce made free
to tell him that the style was not, to his judgment, equal to
that of his sermons ; finally, he notes in his diary, ' the last
days of my working upon the " Arians " I was tired wonder
fully, continually on the point of fainting away, quite worn
out.' Absorbed as these passages show Mr. Newman to have
been in his literary work, the correspondence of this time
proves his mind to have been very much occupied with the
questions involved in his accepting the office of Dean of his
College.

1832 Letters and Correspondence 231

Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. H. Jenkyns. June 28, 1832.
My dear Jenkyns, — The more I think about it, the more
it seems to me to be the business of the College to consider
whether they will make me Dean, rather than mine whether
I will accept their offer. So I have come to the conclusion to
take the office, if it comes to me ; and leave the responsibility
of first moving in the matter to them. At the same time, as
a member of the College, and bound moreover in duty to it,
I am desirous of clearing and expediting the business by any
explanations it may be in my power to give.
Ever yours,
J. H. Newman.
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. H. Jenkyns.
June 30, 1832.
My dear Jenkyns, — I write, instead of coming to you, in
order to be explicit. It certainly strikes one that the College,
being electors, have the direct responsibility of electing.
Had I anything to communicate either about myself or
the Provost, I ought to do so ; but I have nothing. For the
Provost, I maintain I can know no more than yourself what
wUl happen on his part ; and for myself, I am not conscious
of cherishing any specific plan or novel principle about College
discipline, &c, which I am desirous of bringing into operation,
or I would say so frankly. Did I know of any unsurmount-
able obstacle to my discharging the duties of the office effi
ciently, for my own sake, I would decline it. But an experi
ment it certainly is— an experiment, which I do not say I will
do my utmost (if it is made) to bring to a successful issue, for
of course I am already bound to that, but which would lead
me, on taking the office, to anticipate the chance, whether from
your wish or my own, of my not holding it another year. I
can say no more than this ; and all this, only in evidence, so
to say ; for you all are the judges, not I.
Why should I, being satisfied with what I am, go out of
my way to bring responsibility on myself ? At the same time
I can say with sincerity that to be elected Dean is a mark of
confidence which I have done nothing to deserve.
Excuse this long talk, which is more than I thought it
would be. Now to your questions.

232 Iohn Henry Newman 1832
1. I do not recollect the words of the Statute, but without
waiting for precise terms, I fully think that the Dean is
bound to assist and act under the Provost in maintaining the
discipline and good order of the College.
2. I fully allow that the discretion of the Dean is limited,
i.e. its particular acts stopped by the veto of the Provost.
But here I will make some remarks ; though, since they
do not interfere with the above, they may seem irrelevant.
(1) I conceive the Dean at liberty to maintain things as
he finds them, when he wishes : i.e. without dreaming of in
terfering with the Provost's discretion, I hold the Dean to
have the' right of acting himself by existing rules; e.g. sup
posing (to take an absurd case) it were proposed that the
gentlemen commoners should sleep out of College, the Dean
need not be a party to such arrangement.
(2) I think the Dean has the right of determining whether
or not he is acting up to his duty as prescribed by statute and
custom ; e.g. supposing my feelings go strongly against ad
ministering the Sacrament to an individual, and the Provost
wishes me, and I refuse— here his veto cannot come in; he
can only say ' you are not acting up to your office ' ; a point
to be decided by my judgment, not his.
(3) Is not the Dean the chaplain of the College, i.e. the
sole officiator in the ordinary service of the Church 1 i.e. I
exclude the Communion Service.
I throw out these observations as they occur to me — but
at present they seem correct. Ever yours,
J. H. Newman.
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. H. Jenkyns.
July 4, 1832.
My dear Jenkyns, — I agree entirely in your view, ab
stractedly considered, that the Dean has no independent
authority, and is but a Vice-Provost. But abstract views are
little to the purpose, as you observe — you have yourseU given
it as your opinion that the Dean, as any other officer, must
have a discretionary power in fact ; and whether this arises
from the Provost's granting it or not, and therefore is or is
not subject to his limiting, is not a practical question. I
grant it is so originated, so limited ; but the difficulty is, how
shall we know that all parties to the proposed arrangement

1832 Letters and Correspondence 233
agree to the previous question and allow the Dean's actual
discretionary power 1 Now, of course, it would be the height
of disrespect and indelicacy to ask the Provost whether he
has altered his (practical) views on this subject, and I for my
part hardly think it necessary, were it ever so proper ; for
men change their line of conduct without knowing it them
selves, and I think it probable the Provost would. But if
other persons have a suspicion, which I have not, that the
Provost will not practically allow the principle which you
allow ; let them not think of making me Dean, for no good
could come of the arrangement. On my part I avow without
reserve, if it be necessary to speak strongly, that it would be,
in my opinion, underhand in me to attempt any change which
I believed the Provost to consider important, without giving
him the opportunity of interposing, i.e. without acquainting
him with it. Even as Tutor, an office which, though in his
gift, may appear to some to be held not strictly of him, but of
the University — I never made changes in fact (though the
above were my abstract views) without fuU written explana
tion to those who were senior to me in the tuition, and their
sanction upon it. Much less should I do so in a place which,
though not in the Provost's gift, is in the abstract that of a
mere assistant to him in certain specified functions.
At the same time, I never will pledge myself to mention
to the Provost all I do on my own discretion ; there being a
multitude of little things which one who has the superin
tendence of others does at the moment and forgets at once —
and the discriminating between great matters and Utile must,
I conceive, rest with his own judgment. However, let me
come to the practical point of the Sacrament ; for if the
question is to turn on this, we are both of us losing time.
I have at present no formed opinion about administering
it to the mass of undergraduates ; but if I .have to make up
my mind (which I cannot do all at once on an important
subject), I think it very likely I shall make it a point of con
science to act upon it. Then the question wUl be whether the
Provost will make it a point of conscience, on the other hand,
to bid me administer it when I object. If so, dropping
abstract views, it is frank to say, I should not consider myself
bound to obey him in a matter so solemn. I wiU further say,
that, at this very time (I may change my opinion next week)
I am disinclined towards the present rule of (practically)*
obliging the undergraduates to communicate.

234 John Henry Newman 1832
I wiU say no more in answer to your letter, before I can
see whether this brings things to an issue ; merely adding that
to ask the Provost whether he would aUow me this discretion
about the Sacrament, seems to me wrong ; it is like imposing
conditions on him, and I think he should be supreme ; his
discretionary power being limited solely by the practicabUity
of governing well by means of it. Yours,
J. H. Newman.
In July of this year Mr. Newman visited Cambridge, going
from thence to Mr. Rickards. To his Mother he gives his
first impressions of Cambridge. Cambridge : July 16, 1832.
Having come to this place with no anticipations, I am
quite taken by surprise and overcome with delight. This,
doubtless, you will think premature in me, inasmuch as I have
seen yet scarcely anything, and have been writing letters of
business to Mr. Rose, and Rivingtons. (Rut really, when I saw
at the distance of four m iles, on an extended plain, wider than
the Oxford, amid thicker and greener groves, the Alma Mater
Cantabrigiensis lying before me, I thought I should not be
able to contain myself, and, in spite of my regret at her present
defects and past history, and all that is wrong about her, I
seemed about to cry ' Floreat ceternum.' ) Surely there is a
genius loci here, as in my own dear home ; and the nearer I
came to it the more I felt its power. I do really think the
place finer than Oxford, though I suppose it isn't, for everyone
says so. I like the narrow streets ; they have a character, and
they make the University buildings look larger by contrast.
I cannot believe that King's College is not far grander than
anything with us ; the stone, too, is richer, and the foliage
more thick and encompassing. I found my way from the
town to Trinity College like old (Edipus, without guide, by
instinct ; how, I know not. I never studied the plan of
Cambridge. Mr. Rose is away ; he is very ill, which accounts for his
sUence. Should you see Froude, tell him he is married.
P.S. — Let me know about the cholera. I trust we shaU
'"have no cases, but it would distress me deeply should a case
occur while I am away.

1833 Letters and C&rrespondencr 235

Rev. Wm. Palmer of Worcester to Rev. J. H. Newman.
July 18, 1832.
I was anxious to see you before I left Oxford, but called
at your rooms more than once in vain. I often think of you,
and not without some anxiety, when I reflect that the cholera
is now in Oxford ; and though it is true that few persons in
the better classes of society have taken it yet, it is impossible
to avoid feeling some uneasiness when it is likely to come into
the vicinity, perhaps the presence, of a valued friend. Let me
hear, my dear friend, of your health, and may God have you
under His protection.
I congratulate you very sincerely on getting rid of MS.
Few sensations in life are more agreeable. It is like taking a
j load off the conscience. I cannot tell with what interest and I
' satisfaction I look forward to a perusal of the results. [N.B.
— My work on the Arians.]
Mr. Newman returned to Oxford on the 24th of July, and
reports ' Cholera in St. Clement's.' That it was not confined
to the poorer classes is well known. The following letters
show the general impression of alarm.
H. W. Wilberforce, Esq., to Rev. J. H. Newman.
July 27, 1832.
... I did not know whether I might not say that I should
be coming to see you at Oxford. I had hoped that my Mother
would consent, but the deaths in the upper classes this week
in London have too much alarmed her. Mrs. R. Smith was
a cousin of my Father's. She was weU on Sunday morning,
seized at noon whUe on her way to church, and, in spite of
the most prompt attendance of the most eminent practitioners,
dead by midnight.
Lord Carrington writes to my Father that the London
gentry are flying in every direction.
In the 'Chronological Notes' is written:
There had been no case of cholera in St. Mary's and
Littlemore. The cases, I think, were all in the parishes
which were upon the clay.

236 John Henry Newman 1832

Frederic Rogers, Esq., to Rev. J. H. Newman.
Blackheath: July 23, 1832.
... I have to thank you again for your present at parting.
I have not yet discovered (though I think I have gone through
most of it two or three times) where the liberty lies which
you asserted yourself to have taken with me : but I do see
enough of the private nature to feel extremely complimented
at being allowed to see them, and being trusted with a
copy. [Rogers, having passed his examination, seemed now to
have done with Oxford ; so I gave him the little book as if in
parting.] I have seen Wood and WUson lately. Wood rather knocked
up by conveyancing. But he is by this time in Yorkshire,
'where he will remain till November. He wants a little lecturing
from you ; he goes to bed late. . . .
Rev. J. H. Newman to F. Rogers, Esq.
Oriel College : July 25, 1832.
I soon heard the speed of your operations at Rivington's,
but from Mr. Rose I have only just heard. Through a
variety of circumstances I have been in suspense till yester
day about the fate of my MS. Turrill, indeed, deUvered it
at once, but a note to Mr. Rose, which I had not in time for
you, was sent wrong by Rivington. Thus over-care is often
defeated by itself. Directly you went, I felt unwell, and the
next night had to send for Mr. W. Nothing ought to have
alarmed me, but I had been near fainting more than once,
and altogether (fear being more imaginative at night-time —
did you never find this 1 it partly accounts for the fear of
ghosts), I must confess I played the fool. Continuing, how
ever, indisposed, I was obliged to leave my work, and went to
Cambridge in hopes of finding Mr. Rose, but he had left from
illness, and I went on to Rickards, and fetched back my sister,
finding your letter on my return yesterday. I am glad you
have commenced your wanderings, and the violonceUo, though
they do not proceed contemporaneously. You have no chance
of seeing me : I am so uncertain. After you went, we had a
fatal case of cholera at Littlemore. It was not in my parish,
but it made us very busy, being so very near. Between a fort-

1832 Letters and Correspondence 237
night and three weeks having past without a second case, we
consider we are as safe as any other part of the neighbour
hood : though I have heard, on my return, that the obstinate
blockheads have actually first, not burnt, but buried, and now
again actually dug up, the bed furniture of the poor patient
which they were ordered to destroy. Is not this the very
spirit of Whiggery : opposition for its own sake, striving against
the truth, because it happens to be commanded us ; as if wis
dom were less wise because it is powerful ? and can we wonder
at the brutishness of the Israelites in the desert, with such
specimens before our eyes 1 As to the cholera, it is not yet
formidable here, I am thankful to say, or I should not have
gone away. (I have wandered — I meant to say, that perhaps
it might come on and keep me here, and prevent my ramblings.)
We have had altogether about forty cases — confined, I believe,
to St. Ebbe's, St. Aldate's, the Jail, kc, though we cannot, of
course, boast, were it but for the bad luck of it. For myself, in
these things it is well to be a fatalist ; I am practically so.
Whether imagination would get the better, did I actually see
a case, I cannot, tell, but at present I am unable to realise the
danger. Surely one's time is come, or it is not ; the event is
out of our power. David's meaning is evident to me in a way
I never understood it before. When he speaks of falling into
hands higher than human, he means to say that the pestilence
is beyond the physicians ; but famine is not beyond the chief
butlers and bakers of Israel. The difficulty is to unite resigna
tion with activity. Here we are only called to be resigned,
which is comparatively easy. Then, again, when one argues
about oneself, there is on one's own mind the strong impression
(I know it is not a good argument, but fear is but an impression,
and this works by a counter-imagination) that one is destined
for some work, which is yet undone in my case. Surely my
time is not yet come. So much for the cholera.
I can hardly tell you what I would say about the verses I
put into your hands. It was their private nature which con
stituted the liberty, for why should I tell you of things which
do not pertain to you 1 It is, literaUy, being impertinent.
Nor am I satisfied with your reference to the Buckland oc
currence,1 for there is every difference between a stranger and
1 The.' verses ' were an early collection of poems kept, though printed ,
so strictly private, and for so limited a number of readers, that it was
an effort to give it to intimate friends beyond this inner circle. Several
of the poems, however, now find a place in the book of Verses. The

238 John Henry Newman 1832
a friend. However, I see by your letter that you suffer me,
and that is enough. Do not think this absurd. We may feel
things to be done in kindness, which yet our judgment con
demns as out of propriety ; and what I feared was, you might
have an instinctive feeling that I had done what I ought
not, though my own judgment, having become puzzled, might
not have seen it. And even as it is, I sometimes feel quite
ashamed of myself for having given you the book, and have
all manner of absurd spectres dancing before me, the nephews
of mauvaise honte (I cannot make out who their father is),
which is more painful than guilt.
I propose going away next week to Brighton and Tunbridge
Wells. I had a plan of going through part of Wales with
Palmer of Worcester, in the autumn. It would be curious if
we met. Davies is dead, and there will be two vacancies
next year. They say Marriott of Balliol is to be a formidable
competitor to you and W. How I should rejoice if you and W.
succeed ! It is far from impossible. I suppose Wood stands
at Merton ! It would complete one's happiness did he get in
there. Wilson tells me that wretch H. W., instead of settUng
to some serious work, has been falling in and out of love in
Yorkshire. Cura ut valeant oculi tui.
P.S. Calcott's is the best introductory book on thorough
bass that I know. Shield is a goose.
Rev. Blanco White to Rev. J. H. Newman.
Redesdale : August 24, 1832.
... I hope when we go to Dublin in November I shaU
be able to finish a first volume containing the history of perse-
' Buckland occurrence ' may possibly apply to the following extempore
stanzas, written for a lady who was to him a stranger, who had com
mitted her Album to a mutual acquaintance (the present Editor) with
an urgent petition that Mr. Newman should be persuaded to contribute
some lines to her book. This petition was preferred as a joke, but a
certain pair of kittens which had great prominence given lo them by
his host (the Rev. Thomas Mozley), who lavished on them much wit and
humour, suggested these lines, written in pencil :
Two kittens gain our pleased caress No airs deform the modest Fair,
And share our rival praise ; No gibe the silent Wit.
One has the rarer cleverness,
One Beauty's winning ways. So is it minds of noblest mould
Still choose a peaceful life ;
Thoughtless of self, a friendly pair, Their friends the flag of war unfold
In musing mood they sit ; And trim the party strife.

is3u letters and correspondence 239
cution tUl the end of the ninth century. The second volume, if
I Uve to write it, wiU be the history of the Inquisition properly
so caUed. I Jong to see your book [the ' Arians '].
In spite of violent prejudice, the Archbishop [Whately]
cannot but gain ground in the esteem of all good men that
come near him. But oh, my dear Newman, what furious
bigots are to be found here in the Protestant party ! I have
heard a sermon, beautifully written and delivered, that shocked
me more than any speech of Mr. Hume, considering where it
was delivered. Satire, sarcasm, everything objectionable, from
the pulpit, and the congregation in an open titter. I expected
' hear hear ' at every moment ; and yet the preacher is high
Evangelical. . . . What wUl the Morton Pinckney people say when they
see the new Rector [Thomas Mozley] ? Will they not suspect
that he has run away from Lecture and gone there for fun
to personate his tutor 1 He is, however, an excellent young
man, and I trust the parishioners wUl soon find out his growing
good qualities. Rev. Isaac Williams to Rev. J. H. Newman.
August 25, 1832.
... I will let you know about my coming back another
time ; but, my dear Newman, you have yet to learn how to be
a vicar, or you would see the impropriety of saying to a curate
• I am obliged to you for staying ' ; for it is my business to be
here always. I am reading a littie Chrysostom, which I find
a great comfort and delight.
Rev. E. B. Pusey, D.D., to Rev. J. H. Newman. 1832.
The sermon which I preached for you at Grove met with
the fate which it would have been more entitled to had
you preached it ; it extracted 70?., and was ' ordered to be
printed.' Now to myself the sermon appears infinitely less calculated
to be printed than even the former one ; because it is more in
the form of a sermon than the other ; and there is no one
subject discussed in it, as I was obliged to make it very
popular. How far might this incidental protest against the sad
neglect of our heathen countrymen in our great towns or our

'240 John Henry Newman 1832
vUlages, or the greater pubUcity given to the success with
which the exertions here have, in this case, been blessed, be
likely to produce other simUar ?
To solve this I send you my sermon ; but I must insist that
you wUl not even look at it if you are hurried stUl with your
work, or need repose.
Should you advise this to be printed (which I think you
wUl not), what should you do with regard to the other 1
Be sure you wUl be acting most kindly to me by consulting
your own comfort. I was truly glad to hear from Mrs. New
man that you were much better.
Rev. R. L. Cotton to Rev. J. H. Newman.
September 8, 1832.
The consecration day was, indeed, a day much to be re
membered. Pusey's sermon was very beautiful, and is in the
press. ... I did not hear that he was injured by preaching,
and have seen both his brothers since, and inquired after him.
What progress has there been in the cholera ?
Rev. R. H. Froude to Rev. J. H. Newman.
September 9, 1832.
I have had my ups and downs since I saw you. [N.B.
viz. July 31, when he left Oxford for home. It was when the
cholera was imminent, and we parted as if, perhaps, we might
not see each other again. With reference to the memory of
that parting, when I shook hands with him, and looked into
his face with great affection, I afterwards wrote the stanza
And when thine eye surveys
With fond adoring g-ize,
And yearning heart, thy friend,
Love to its grave doth tend.
and the latter in close proximity to the former : ravra Sk
iravra OtZv ev yovvaxri /cetrai.] I wUl not go into details, for
all is at last as weU as possible ; but you were right in saying
it would be a slow job [N.B. this refers to his sister, I think] ;
perhaps much pain is yet to come, but all must go right.
You will be glad to hear that I have made up my mind to
([" spend the winter in the Mediterranean, and my father is going
¦¦ with me the end of November ; and we shall see SicUy and the
south of Italy. We are both very anxious that you should
come with us. I think it would set you up.

1832 LETTERS AND CORRESPONDENCE 24I
Rev. Dr, Hawkins to Rev. J. H. Newman.
Rochester : September 1 2.
I was grieved to hear some time ago from Pope that you
had not been well. I hope you do not allow Messrs. Rose and
Lyell to work you hard. Writing is a most deceitful employ
ment ; hurting you the more, the more you are interested by
it ; and you are always disposed to exert yourself too much.
We have had good accounts of the Whatelys and B. White.
We have excellent accounts of Pusey, who is going to print
his sermon at the consecration of a church.
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. R. H. Froude.
September 13, 1832.
As to your proposal for me to accompany you, it is very
tempting. It quite unsettled me, and I have had a disturbed
night with the thought of it. Indeed, it makes me quite sad
to think what an evidence it has given me of the little real
stability of mind I have yet attained. I cannot make out
why I was so little, or rather not at all, excited by the coming
of the cholera, and so much by this silly prospect which you
have put before me. It is very inconsistent, except, perhaps,
that the present novelty has come upon me suddenly. But
enough of philosophising.
I am much tempted by your proposal, for several reasons,
yet there is so much of impediment in the way of my accepting
it. I cannot divest myself of the feeling that I may be in
truding upon your father ; but, supposing this away, I see much
in favour of the scheme. Probably I never shall have such
an opportunity again. I mean that of going with a man I
know so well as yourself. And going with a person older than
myself, as your father, is to me a great temptation. I am
indolently distrustful of my own judgment in Uttle matters,
and like to be under orders. [N.B. — My leaving them, in the
event, at Rome, and going through Sicily by myself is a
curious comment upon this.]
Then what a name the Mediterranean is ! And the time
of the year, for I think summer would be too hot for me ; and
the opportunity of getting there without touching Gallic earth
(for I suppose you go by water), which is an abomination.
And if I ever am to travel, is not this the time when I am
most at liberty for it 1 My engagements being slighter now
vol. 1. R

242 John Henry Newman „ m?
than they have been these many years, and than they are
likely to be hereafter. And I feel the need of it ;(I am sus
picious of becoming narrow-minded, and at least I wish to
experience the feeling and the trial of expansiveness of views,
if it were but to be able to say I had, and to know how to
meet it in the case of others. ) And then I think I may fairly
say my health requires it. / Not that I ever expect to be
regularly well as long as I live. It is a thing I do not think
of ; but still I may be set up enough for years of work, for
which, at present, I may be unequal. J
But you must tell me (1) as to time. I could not allow
myself to be absent from England beyond Easter (say the
beginning of April). Would it not be possible for me to part
company with you ? (2) As to expense, which, I apprehend, will
be a serious subject. ... (3) As to my health. It is quite
enough that you should be an invalid ; but it would be an
ungracious irapepyov for me to fall sick also. Now I cannot
answer for my health. If all of a sudden I fell ill ?
{ My book [the ' Arians '] has long been out of hand. I
suspect that Rose thinks it scarcely safe, and Rivington thinks
it dull. However, I am quite satisfied with Rose ; he is in
ecstasies with parts of it, and, I sincerely believe, delays it
under the wish to make it as good as possible. He seems to
like the first chapter least, which is now in LyeU's hands.
Rose is a very energetic, well-principled fellow. I have seen
a good deal of him ; whether he is firm remains to be seen. I
will believe no one till he has committed himself. /
Do send Mr. Rose one or two more architectural articles
before you go.

Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. R. H. Froude.
October 4, 1832.
Perhaps I had better write instead of waiting till we meet,
for you may have made up your mind by that time. [N.B. — In
his letter of September 27 Froude gave me private reasons
for desiring after aU to remain in England.] Now, then, let
me entreat you that nothing but the force of plain duty keep
you from going abroad. You require it. The complaint with
which you are threatened is extremely slow in its advances
(and therefore insidious) when persons get to your age. I have
now a case at Oxford which has been coming on for four
full years ; and it began in a slight imperceptible cold.

1832 LETTERS AND CORRESPONDENCE 243
As to myself, I had rather postpone going, without liking
to give up the prospect you have opened ; so do not let me
come in any way into your deliberations, as I suppose you
will not. Did I consult my wishes I should stop at home. I
grudge the time, the expense, the trouble, the being put out
of one's way, &c. But it may be a duty to consult for one's
health, to enlarge one's ideas, to break one's studies, and to
have the name of a travelled man ; this last being a pleasure
also — virepoyijs >»p.1
I have been entirely idle the last month. The violin has
been my only care, and, though 1 have not practised or pro
gressed much, yet I see that I could easUy play better than I
ever did, and with regular attention might do what I pleased.
But of all trades under the sun the worst is that of music in a
blow-up ; for Euripides's complaint still holds good, and the lyre
is only heard in feasts. Yet ' music hath charms,' and it were
better to ask the Date obolum after a tune than to beg without
pretence. As the reader knows, the original plan for spending the
winter in the Mediterranean was adhered to, and the party
sailed from Falmouth early in December.
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. R. H. Froude.
October 1832.
I am more and more convinced one ought to do everything
one can to avert a civil commotion ; and now incline to the
hope that the Whig spirit will keep in and the Church be set
adrift. If this were the case we should be so very independent
of things temporal ; for we only, as individuals, should suffer.
But a revolution involves the sufferings of others, and, con
sequently, our obligation to defend them, which is a tie. I
should do all I can to support the Whigs so far forth as they
are Conservative.
I am afraid of making too much of little things and
resting in them. Let us make broad comprehensions. I hope
you Uke this doctrine ; certainly it does not do to split on
trifles. One must use the oucovo/ua. I agree with you about •
preaching [i.e. extempore preaching]. I have had from time
to time divers thoughts about turning evangelical so far, only
I am afraid. If Oxford was any place but Oxford, I certainly _
would have a weekly lecture — cttiSei^cus x<*P"'>
1 Arist. Rhet. ii. 12.
B 2

244 John Henry Newman ma
Rev. John Keble to Rev. J. H. Newman.
November 1832.
I send this lecture [his fourth] with a request that either
you or Froude or Ogilvie will run your eye over it, and say
what is wrong. I meant to have delivered it last week, but
I thought Mr. Vice-Chancellor would rather not, as he was
expecting their Royal Highnesses. There are three matters
in the lecture to be discussed : — (a) The song of Ragnar Lod-
brog, where it is to be found most authentical 1 (b) What book
gives the best specimens of the ' Welsh Triads' 1 (c) That
little Lapland song of which I have tried to translate a stanza
(' I saw the moon rise clear ') ; is it in any sense genuine 1 I
had it from Rickards ages ago, and shall write to him.
By the time these matters are settled another ten days
will be over ; and, settled or not, I propose coming up on
Monday the 12th, and predicating the 13th. I send the third
lecture in case you should think it worth looking over too.
I long to know how Froude is. The sooner he comes now
[to Fairford] the better, or you either. My dear N., I am
sadly afraid you will be giving us the slip as the time of your
voyage draws near, and my brother wants to see you, and I
want you to see him.
You will see that I have reserved much of what we talked
of for another lecture. I was sure the yawns else would have
been direful.
Rev. C. P. Golightly to Rev. J. H. Newman.
November 7, 1832.
I sit down to inform you, though very reluctantly, that I
have given up Deddington. Blencowe's rejection of my offer
is fatal to the whole scheme. I can think of no other person.
Consider how difficult it is in these days to meet with any
young man, of real zeal, who is not Calvinistic, or has not some
objections to some of the services of the Church. In short,
how few young men are there of real zeal who care a rush for
authority.
Rev. E. B. Pusey, D.D., to Rev. J. H. Newman.
November 8, 1832.
Our dear little one, who by your ministry was made a
member of Christ's Church, has been removed from all struggle

1832 Letters and Correspondence 245
and sin before it knew them. Her departure was sudden ;
but we have great room to thank God for His mercies in
everything relating to it. She promised fair to be a meek and
quiet spirit here, but she is gone (which, since it is so, must
be far better) ' her Father's household to adorn.' We would
see you gladly any day after this week, but cannot meet mixed
society on Tuesday.
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. E. B. Pusey, D.D.
November 10, 1832.
I trust the change of place and the retirement of the
country have been a blessing to you and Mrs. Pusey, as I
am sure they have. It only requires to be alone for receiving
the comfort which almost necessarily attends any dispensa
tion from Above. Of course, only parents can tell the sorrow
of the loss of a child. But all persons can see the nature of
the comfort contained in it — the comfort of knowing that you
have given an immortal spirit to Heaven, and of being released
from all responsibility of teaching her right from wrong, and
from the uncertainties of her final destiny. You have done
what her age allowed. She has been dedicated to God, and
He has received the offering. For me, I have had a great
privilege in being the means of her dedication. It is the only
service which we are given to perform with a rejoicing con
science and a secure mind. [N.B. — I mean that the belief in
the opus operatum saves one from the feeling that one's own
sin has weighed on it.] And, on recollection, it becomes
doubly precious, and a festival work, when, as in the case of
your dear Utile one, we see the certainty of its having been
accepted. Frederic Rogers, Esq., to Rev. J. H. Newman.
November 12, 1832.
I am delighted to find that at last I stand a chance of
seeing you. I shall most certainly be at Hatchett's at one
o'clock. Can you then come down here with me and spend
a day or two with us 1 I am sure you must be an idle man
now. The f oUowing note and poem are appended by Mr. Newman
to the foregoing letter :

246 John Henry Newman 1832
I went down with Rogers to Blackheath, Nov. 14, for the
first time. I dined there and returned to London. It was my
first time of seeing his (F. R.'s) family. Father, mother,
sisters, and I think some brothers. In consequence I wrote
the lines which stand first in the 'Lyra ApostoUca,'
' Where'er I roam.' One of the sisters died on September 22,
1837. HOME.
Where'er I roam in this fair English land,
The vision of a temple meets my eyes :
Modest without : within all-glorious rise
Its love-enclustered columns and expand
Their slender arms. Like olive plants they stand,
Each answering each in home's soft sympathies.
Sisters and brothers. At the altar sighs
Parental fondness, and with anxious hand
Tenders its offering of young vows and prayers,
The same and not the same. Go where I will
The vision beams I ten thousand shrines all one.
Dear fertile soil 1 what foreign culture bears
Such fruit 1 And I through distant climes may run
My weary round, yet miss thy likeness still.
Oxford, Nov. 16, 1832.
The author of ' Reminiscences of Oriel ' says : ' It never
was possible to be even a quarter of an hour in his [Newman's]
company without a man feeling himself incited to take an
onward step, sufficient to tax his energies or his faith.' The
following letters on taking leave of his friend and pupU, who
had just taken a high degree, perhaps Ulustrate this demand
upon the energies of men in proportion as he valued and esti
mated them. November 19, 1832.
I have been thinking you may be at present exposed to
danger from the state of your' eyes ; thus — Are you not natu
rally idle ? and are you not now reduced to a state of idleness ?
Beware of getting into a way of muddling away your time ;
shuffling through the day doing nothing, &c. I know that
when you get to the Bar you must work ; yet there are degrees
of exertion, and it is possible to be absent with your books
before you. I throw out this merely because it strikes me, as
a raw material which you may convert as far as possible into
something real and practicable.

1832 Letters and Correspondence 247
To the same friend he had written previously :
You have an active mind and are not lonely without books,
and I almost think that idleness, or rather vacancy, is the best
time for thought.
Again to the same, who seems to have replied on the
question of muddling : Nwember 22, 1832.
When I spoke of muddUng, it was merely that I thought
your eyes at present kept you from doing anything, and that
you were Uterally idling. I did not mean that you must be
reading or thinking. You may hunt in Hampshire three days
in the week, and I shall never call it muddling ; that is, it will
not incapacitate you from working im, its season. But to be
doing absolutely nothing is injurious.
Ven. Archdeacon Froude to Rev. J. H. Newman.
November 24, 1832.
I heard yesterday from Falmouth that a steamer now fitting
up at Woolwich is likely to take out the Mediterranean mails
on December 7, and that we are to go out in her.
... If my correspondent is correctly informed, the ship is
the same that took the Bishop of Exeter and myself to Scilly
last year. She is, I think, the largest packet in the service,
and was at that time fitted up in the most comfortable way
imaginable, and her captain was a worthy obliging person.
She is 800 tons and is called the ' Hermes.'
F. Rogers, Esq., to Rev. J. H. Newman.
November 26, 1832.
. . . The letters which we can get for you for Italy, I fear,
we cannot manage till after you have left England. Do you
think them worth forwarding 1
Among the tasks which Mr. Newman proposed to Mr.
Rogers, as an idle man, was the writing of verses. His last
letter despatched just before sailing touches upon this.
Rev. J. H. Newman to F. Rogers, Esq.
Oriel College : December 1, 1832.
As to my notion about verses, do not be so surprised — I
had a reason. If you do not already write them, I can only

248 John Henry Newman 1832
say the sooner you do the better, for while your eyes are bad,
it would be an amusement. But the truth is that we have
in contemplation to set up a verse department in Rosers
Magazine for all right purposes ; and I am (not beating up,
but) looking for recruits. Do not mention this, but we have
hopes of making an effective quasi-political engine, without
every contribution being of that character. Do not stirring
times bring out poets 1 Do they not give opportunity for
the rhetoric of poetry, and the persuasion 1 And may we not
at least produce shadows of high things if not the high things
themselves ?
On Sunday, December 2, 1832, as Select Preacher, Mr.
Newman preached the sermon on Saul.1 On Monday, Decem
ber 3, he set out by the Southampton coach for Whitchurch,
writing on the same day. To his Mother.
Whitchurch: December 3, 1832.
It is soon to make you pay postage. . . . Here I am at
Whitchurch from one till eleven ! I had hoped to be alone,
and I should have despatched several copies of verses ; but a
person claiming to be H.'s brother has made his appearance,
and, as going to Exeter as well as myself, claims to share my
room and society. So I am practising for the first time the
duty of a traveller, which is sorely against the grain, and
have been talkative and agreeable without end ; . . . now that
I have set up for a man of the world it is my vocation. I
have been so hurried I have had no time to think, but at
times it seems to be miserable going away for so long. Yet
I doubt not, in after life, I shall look back on this day as a
bright day and full of interest, as the commencement of one
of the few recreations which I can hope, nay, or desire to
have in this world, for the only cessation from labour to which
I may look without blame. I really do not wish (I think) that
it [this present cessation] should be anything else than a pre
paration and strengthening time for future toil ; rather I
should rejoice to think that I was in this way steeling myself
in soul and body for it.
In the afternoon service yesterday, the second Psalm [for
singing] was Ps. 121, Merrick's version. Now I cannot think
1 ' Wilfulness the sin of Saul,' University Sermons.

1832 LETTERS AND CORRESPONDENCE 249
the organist chose it on purpose, yet chosen on purpose it
must have been by some one or other. So it seems like an
omen or a promise. — Yours ever dutifully.
P.S. — Some time since Mrs. Copley sent me her History of
the Bible. . . . Get Williams to see or write to her, with a
message from me, and the gift of a book in turn. . . . Some
book on tlie Church or like ' Thomas a Kempis,' or Taylor's
'Holy Living,' or against schism, so that it is not offensive.
And I have wished some time to give James [the man-servant]
Beveridge's ' Private Thoughts,' or some such book. Williams
will help you here ; and I have promised my laundress a book
of the same kind. And I wish to give a gown to Bobbin's
mother, but have not told him. H. W. [Henry Wilberforce],
perhaps, wUl try to worm some of my sermons out of you, to
carry out of Oxford — do not let him.
To his Mother.
Falmouth, December 5, 1832.
I arrived here between seven and eight o'clock this morning
as expeditiously as I could hope. My companions are not yet
arrived, as far as I can make out ; but I have not long done
breakfast, and did not get up tUl one o'clock. I got to Exeter
at 1 p.m. yesterday, and set off by the Falmouth mail at seven
in the evening.
A night journey through Devonshire and Cornwall is very
striking for its mysteriousness ; and it was a beautiful night,
clear, frosty, and bright with a full moon. Mere richness of
vegetation is lost by night, but bold features remain. As I
came along, I had the whole train of pictures so vividly upon
my mind, that I could have written a most interesting account
of it in the most approved picturesque style of modern
compoiition, but it is all gone from me by this time, like a
dream. The night was enlivened by what Herodotus calls a night
engagement with a man, called by courtesy a gentleman, on
the box. The first act ended by his calling me a d  fool.
The second by his insisting on two most hearty shakes of the
hand, with the protest that he certainly did think me very
injudicious and UI -timed. I had opened by telling him he was
talking great nonsense to a sUly goose of a maid-servant stuck
atop of the coach ; so I had no reason to complain of his
choosing to give me the retort uncourteous. . . He assured

250 John Henry 'Newman 1832
me he reverenced my cloth. ... It is so odd, he thought
I had attacked him under personal feeling. I am quite
ashamed of this scrawl, yet since I have a few minutes to
spare I do not like to be otherwise employed than in
writing. I have already experienced several of those lesser incon
veniences which become great as soon as they are dwelt upon,
but shrink to their proper size when the mind is occupied by
any more important object, whether of this world or the next.
First, Fisk had not repaired the rent in the side of my cloak.
Next, the buckle of my new carpet-bag broke before I set out,
and the key broke in opening it at Exeter. I was obliged
to improvisate a padlock, which again has got wrong in my
journey here, and now a man is at it again. Thirdly, my
portmanteau has been cut, but not badly. Fourthly, Harriett's
purse has torn itself. Such is the present state of my expe
dition. Our vessel is the ' Hermes ' ; it is the largest vessel in the
Malta service. It has been seen miserably perplexed with
the gales off the Downs, and is now expected hourly. Do
not tell anyone any part of the nonsense I have been scrawling.
P.S. The Froudes are just come.
Before entering upon the series of letters from abroad,
extending from December 11, 1832, to July 1833, the Editor
thinks it well to transcribe the following caution from the
writer of them, without any further interference with the
letters as they stand. Writing July 26, 1885, he says :
' Further — so widely has the world been thrown open since
fifty years ago, that I may be very wrong in my descriptions
and statements of facts of aU kinds. — J. H. N.'
To ms Mother.
On board the 'Hermes' : December 11, 1832.
I wish you to receive the first letter I write home from
foreign parts.
To-day has been the most pleasurable day — as far as
externals go — I have ever had that I can recollect ; and now,
in the evening, I am sleepy and tired with the excitement.
We are now off Cape Finisterre. Lights were just now visible
from farmhouses on shore, which is, maybe, fifteen miles off.
This morning early we saw the high mountains of Spain—

1832 ON BOARD THE 'HERMES' 2$l
the first foreign land I ever saw, having finished most pro
sperously our passage across the formidable Bay of Biscay.
The land first discovered was Cape Ortegal and its neighbour
hood, magnificent in its outline ; and, as we neared it, marked
out with three lines of mountains ; in some places very pre
cipitous. At first we were about fifty miles off them, then
twenty-five perhaps. ^At the same time the day cleared, and
the sea, which even hitherto had been very fine, now became
of a rich indigo colour ; and, the wind freshening, was tipped
with white edges, which, breaking into foam, turned into
momentary rainbows. The sea-gulls, quite at home, were
sailing about ; and the vessel rocked to and fro with a motion
which, unpleasant as it might have been, had the wind been
from the south west, was delightful as being from shore.)
I cannot describe the exquisite colour of the sea, which,
though not striking as- being strange or novel, is unlike any
thing I have ever seen ; so subdued, so destitute of all display,
so sober — I should call it, so gentlemanlike in colour ; and
then so deep and solemn, and, if a colour can be so called,
so strong ; and then the contrast between the white and the
indigo, and the change in the wake of the vessel into all
colours — transparent green, white, white-green, &o. I As even
ing came on, we had every appearance of being in a warmer
latitude. |The sea brightened to a glowing purple, inclined to
lilac ; the sun set in a car of gold, and was succeeded by a
sky, first pale orange, then gradually heightening to a dusky
red ; while Venus came out as the evening star with its
peculiar intense brightness. Now it is bright starlight.)
We passed Corunna in the afternoon, but too far off to see
more than the mountains above it. We shall not make Malta
by Christmas Day. I think it very probable I shall not be
home by Easter. . . . As to my work [the 'Arians.' — J. H. N.]
I ought to give several months of correction to it, which I
might give in the Long Vacation.
I have not been Ule in the matter of verse-making. I
have written a copy a day since I have been on board, besides
others at Falmouth and Whitchurch.
The Captain is a very pleasant man. There are three
midshipmen, and one above them, who may or may not be
called lieutenant ; for steam vessels are anomalies (they are
all of the navy, as is the case with all packets now) There
are, besides, a purser and a doctor. They are, all of them,
young men from twenty to twenty- five ; have seen a great

252 John Henry Newman 1832
deal of all parts of the world, have much interesting informa
tion, and are very gentlemanlike. It amuses one to scrutinise
them. One so clever, the others hardly so. They have
(most of them) made very few inductions, and are not in the
habit of investigating causes— the very reverse of philoso
phers. They have good spirits and are very good-humoured.
. . . Do not I write weU, considering the sea is rocking up
and down, up and down ? I am surprised at the ease with
which I walk the deck — that is, at my having got my sea legs ;
and altogether how easily I do many things which seem
difficult ; and am disposed to think that hitherto [in past
years] I have been working under a great pressure, and,
should it please God ever to reverse it, I shall be like steam
expanding itself. I shall end with one or two matters of
business if I can recollect them. Should a letter come to me
from the Bishop of London, offering me a Whitehall preacher
ship, get Christie [J. F.], to whom I have spoken, to write
him word (I use the expressions I wish him to use) that, since
I was honoured with an interview, ' circumstances have arisen
which have decided me in declining ,that flattering mark of
his notice, should it be offered me, which, he said, was pos
sible.' . . .
Excuse me if I have made blunders in this letter ; it is too
long to read over. To his Sister Harriett.
On board tlie ' Hermes ' : December 12, 1832.
We are again out of sight of land, having been out in
order to double Cape Finisterre. We lost the Lizard about
five o'clock on Saturday, and after that did not see land tiU
yesterday (Tuesday) morning, about ten. The interval was
occupied in passing round ' the Bay,' which we did almost by
a straight line from Falmouth to Cape Ortegal. Seldom at
this time of year is a voyage so prosperous.
In giving his experience of sea-sickness Mr. Newman
certainly did not look for a wide class of readers, but thought
was busy ; the impulse to analyse was strong in him ; and he
could reckon on amused sympathy ; and perhaps may have it-
still. My sea-sickness, if it may be so called, left me in twenty-
four hours. It is an uncomfortable feeling certainly ; but ill

1832 UN BOARD THE ' HERMES* 253
saying that, I have said the worst of it. Never certainly had
I ailment more easy to bear ; and, so far from having my
spirits depressed, I could do nothing but laugh at the oddity
of my plight. It began on going down to dinner on Saturday.
The motion is felt much more below, and the cabin is close.
A strange feeling came over me ; the heaving to and fro of
everything seemed to puzzle me from head to foot, but in such
a vague, mysterious way, that I could not get hold of it, or
say what was the matter with me, or where. On I ate : I
was determined, for it is one of the best alleviations. On I
drank, but in so absurdly solemn a way, with such a perplexity
of mind, not to say of body, that, as I have said, I laughed at
myself. How I wished dinner over ! Yet, on I sat, heaving
up and down, to and fro, in an endless, meaningless motion ;
a trouble without a crisis ; the discomfort of an uneasy dream.
I went upstairs and got better. Then I lay down and was
well. Got up at eleven at night, walked about, and was
better again — went to bed and slept soundly. Sunday morn
ing I was languid and qualmish ; lay down on the deck and
got well, but was afraid to stir. We had great difficulty to
read the service. Archdeacon Froude was very bad and in
bed. R. H. F. was getting well, but I did not like to let him
try by himself. However, he read, and I was able to respond.
I was better and worse all day, and after bed-time had no
more trouble up to this time, when I eat and drink, loll about,
read and write as usual. Sea- sickness is to me a very light
evil ; lymg down is an instant specific for it, and eating a cer
tain alleviation and fortifying against it.
I am only just now getting reconciled to my berth, which
yet is very far superior to most, if not all, accommodations of
the kind. I will not speak of its smallness, more like a coffin
than a bed, nor of its darkness ; but, first, think of the roll of
the vessel to and fro. The first night my side was sore with
the rub, rub of the motion. Then fancy the swinging, the
never-ended swinging — you knock your head, you bruise your
arms, all the while being shelved in a cupboard five feet from
the floor. Then the creaking of the vessel ; it is like half a
hundred watchmen's rattles mixed with the squeaking of
Brobdingnag pigs, while the water dashes, dash, dash against
the side. Then overhead the loud foot of the watch, who
goes on tramping up and down for more or less the whole
night. Then in the morning the washing of the deck ; rush
comes an engine-pipe on the floor — ceases, is renewed, flourishes

254 John Henry Newman 1832
about, rushes again : then suddenly half a dozen brooms,
wish-wash, wish-wash, scrib-scrub, scratching and roaring
alternately. Then the heavy flump, flump of the huge cloth
which is meant to dry the deck as a towel or duster. Last,
and not least, the smell. In spite of airing it, the berth will
smell damp and musty ; at best it is close ; there is no window
in it ; it opens into the cabin, which at night is lighted with
oU. Added to this, the want of room for your baggage, and
your higgledy-piggledy state ; and you wUl allow I have given
you enough of discomfort. Yet one day like yesterday out
weighs them all ; and, in fact, they are vanishing fast To be
sure, a valetudinarian could not bear it. I think that it would
quite have knocked me up a year or two since : and as for
those who, in advanced stages of consumption, are sent abroad,
it must be a martyrdom : yet, I repeat, our vessel is a peculiarly
convenient one.
But I am glad to say I am getting over all these things. First
we have decided on going on with the vessel to Zante, Patras,
Corfu, and to take Malta as the vessel comes back ; thus we
are sure of remaining on board for a month and more to come ;
so I shall unpack, which will be a comfort. . . . You must
know that each berth has two sleeping-shelves, one above the
other, which are both occupied when the vessel is full (fancy
the misery). But we have no cabin passengers on board
beside ourselves ; so we have our berth each to himself. Now
the under shelf i shall empty of bedding and arrange my bag
gage there. There are several little shelves, too, on which I
shall place various little articles and books. . . . Next I am
getting to understand my berth, and the way of lying in it
comfortably ; and certainly I cannot deny that it is snug,
though odd. I get not to mind the noises, and I have effected
a better ventilation.
This is all I have to say at present. Meanwhile, I tran
scribe one of my follies, having done it before breakfast this
morning. Ere yet I left home's youthful shrine
My heart and hope were stored
Where first' I caught the rays divine,
And drank the Eternal Word.
I went afar, the world unrolled
Her many-pictured page ;
I stored the marvels which she told,
And trusted to her gage.

»ww— V* "WJ/l,^ 4 J/ii JLX LJ.t\MES ~S5
Her pleasures quaffed, I sought awhile
The scenes I prized before ;
But parent's praise, and sister's smile.
Stirred my cold heart no more.
So ever sear, so ever cloy,
Earth's favours as they fade,
Since Adam lost for one fierce joy
His Eden's sacred shade.1
I have written one on Athanasius, and a sort of song ; and
one on the Church of Rome, and I wish to take Old Testament
subjects, but cannot yet seize them.
I wonder what news you have at home all this while.
How strange it is to have given up all thoughts about the
French and Antwerp ! But, hearing nothing, we are forced,
in self-defence, to forget what otherwise is so interesting.
Rose has answered our proposal about the ' Lyra ApostoUca '
in the most flattering manner. I hope he will let us do as we
wUl. To his Sister Jemima.
The 'Hermes' : December 12, 1832.
Having nothing at present to tell you, I have invented
something, which I now send you.
They do but grope in learning's pedant round
Who on the f ant asies of sense bestow
An idle substance, bidding us bow low
Before those shades of being which are found
Stirring or still on man's scant trial ground ;
As if such shapes and moods, which come and go,
Had aught of Truth or Life in their poor show
To sway or judge, and skill to sain or wound.
Son of immortal Seed, high-destined Man I
Know thy dread gift, a creature, yet a cause,
Each mind is its own centre, and it draws
Home to itself, and moulds in its thoughts' span,
All outward things, the vassals of its will,
Aided by Heaven, by earth unthwarted still.

O Aged Saint I far off I heard
The praises of thy name ;
Thy deed of power, thy skilful word,
Thy zeal's triumphant flame.

Off the Lizard, December 8.

256 John Henry Newman 1832
I came and saw ; and, having seen,
Weak heart, I drew offence
From thy prompt smile, thy simple mien,
Thy lowly diligence.
The Saint's is- not the Hero's praise ;
This have I found, and learn,
Nor to profane Heaven's humblest ways,
Nor its least boon to spurn.
(-To-night the fire-flies are most beautiful, and the water
phosphoric. We are in latitude 41° about.) It is curious to
see the Great Bear close to the water's edge. I was familiar
enough with the Celestial Bear [this is an allusion to Whately]
to make it feel odd to see him near the horizon ; yet he quite
squints, like a word ill spelt. I wish I could draw in your
style a picture of men taking the log — that is, finding the rate
the vessel is going. A rope is thrown into the sea with certain
knots to mark the rate. It is briskly unwound from a roller
as the vessel moves, while another man holds a minute glass.
About four or five men are employed in it, and the grouping
is very good.
December 13. — I have had before my eyes the last two
hours visions such as I can hardly believe to be real : the
Por-tug4iese_coast, in all that indescribable peculiarity of
foreign scenery which paintings attempt. Whether it is in the
clearness of the air or other causes, it is as different from
England as possible, and I can hardly say how. ''The cliffs are
high, composed of sandstone. They form a natural architec
ture — pyramids, and these in groups. The water, which is
beautifully calm, breaks in high foam ; the sun is bright
and casts large shadows on the rocks and downs^ Above, all
is exposed, barren, or poorly cultivated ; an immense plain,
irregularly surfaced, slopes down to the brink of the cliffs, a
beautiful pale reddish-brown. Through the glass we see houses,
flocks of sheep, windmills with saUs like a spider's web, mar-
tello towers with men lounging about the walls, woods of
cork-trees with very long stems, all as clear and as unnaturally
bright as you can fancy. To the south the town Mafra, which
we are passing ; above the magnificent heights of Torres Vedras.
Cintra is to the south, and we are expecting it. It is so very
tantalising that we cannot land and really determine that
it is a country. It is like a vision. It is the first foreign
soil I have come near. The line of Torres Vedras is now
most distinct. We are passing a point beyond which we see

1832 UN BOARD THE 'HERMES 2 57
nothing. But I suppose Cintra and Lisbon are on the other
side. Since I wrote the above the lines of Torres Vedras and
the rocks underneath have passed before us like a pageant.
The cliffs are high and bold, all sorts of colours, a greenish-
reddish-brown, very sober. Above the cliffs are the country
houses of the nobility, scattered along rising plains which
terminate in a sharp bold outline, receiving and screening the
lines of Torres Vedras. At the base of the cliffs the waves are
dashed, the foam rising like Venus from the sea. I never saw
more graceful forms, and so sedate and deliberate in their
rising and falling. The colour of the heights a strange bluish -
greyish something or other, very subdued.
Eight o'clock p.m. — In the afternoon we had two more
sights : the rock of Lisbon, and the other side of the Torres,
Vedras, with the mouth of the Tagus. The latter is the most
strange sight of this day. Am I only five days from England ?
Am I in Europe 1 I expect America to be different ; but is it
possible that what seems so unlike home should be so near
home ? How is the North cut off from the South ! What
colouring ! A pale greenish-red which no words can describe,
but such as I have seen in pictures of Indian landscape — an
extremely clean and clear colour. We shall make Cadiz by
to-morrow evening, while Williams is lecturing at Littlemore.
The sunset has been fine — the sky bright saffron, the sea
purple. The night is strangely warm. Latitude 39° or 38°.
The Great Bear almost in the water. The glass 66° in my
berth, which is cooler than the cabin, which opens upon the
external air.
December 14. — The weather gets warmer and warmer,
though I believe we are in astonishing fortune for the time of
year. This morning porpoises are about us, and we nearly
ran over two large turtles. The first object at sunrise was
Cape St. Vincent. We had just spoken with a fisher-boau
with four men. Whether it is the atmosphere or sky, the
colours were very picturesque ; the clearness of the air I can
not describe. ) I end, having room, with a verse :
Poor wanderers, ye are sore distrest
To find that path which Christ has blest,
Tracked by His saintly throng;
Each claims to trust his own weak will ;
Blind idol 1 so ye languish still,
All wranglers, and all wrong.
VOL. I. 8

258 John Henry iwewman .»32
He saw of old, and met your need,
Granting you prophets of His creed,
The throes of fear to suage j
They fenced the rich bequest He made,
And sacred hands have safe conveyed
Their charge from age to age.
Wanderers 1 come home I when erring most,
Christ's Church aye kept the faith, nor lost
One grain of Holy Truth ;
She ne'er has erred as those ye trust,
And now shall lift her from the dust,
And reign as in her youth I
To his Mother.
Gibraltar: on board tlie ' Hermes' : December 16, 1832.
I went on deck this morning at sunrise, and took a survey
of this place which one has heard of so much. We are in the
harbour close by the Mole, lying under the inside of the Rock.
Everything is foreign. To the N.E. by compass is the range
of mountains which I spoke of to Aunt when I saw them at
the other side at Cadiz. Under them, and close at hand, we
see the town of St. Roque, and the hill called the Queen of
Spain's Chair, because it is said she was placed at the top of
it to see the siege of Gibraltar. To the east, in perspective,
the Rock begins ; and on the side of it lies the old Moorish
town, which is still the seat of the mixed Gibraltar population.
The old Moorish fort is visible, but I see nothing more. The
great batteries, I am told, lie under.
The population is limited by rule to 18,000, in order to
provide against the risk of an excess during a siege ; but this
rule is evaded, and the town held three times that number at
the time of the yellow fever, two or three years since. The
population is said to be very dense and dirty, with a great
many Jews. The town is cut off from the garrison by walls
of defence, and an open space, which is planted and called the
Almeidah. Still closer to us are the barracks (still on the
Rock), with the Government houses, officers' lodgings, &c.
Under, and close opposite to our starboard stem, lie several
Dutch coalers detained by the embargo. Right opposite on
the other side of the vessel, and on the N.W., runs the Mole
close to us, covered with coal, which the foreign jabbering
heavers are conveying into the vessel.
The whole scene is something quite different from anything
I have seen during this wonderful week, and unlike any pic
ture or panorama I have met with.

1832 UN BOARD THE ' HERMES' — GIBRALTAR 2$Q
The Rock has a magnificent outline, very sharp in the
ridge ; the other and outer side (which we do not see) being
perpendicular down to the Mediterranean. It is coloured
with aU sorts of hues — grey, red, white and green — all, of
course, subdued. (The space between the town and garrison
is traversed by a road lying on the side of the cliff, with
gardens on both sides. It is fringed with orange-trees as
high as a mountain-ash (to judge from a distance), with long
stems. ) The grass is tinted in places with a bright yeUow,
which, in England, we should judge to be buttercups. The
garrison buildings are very picturesque. The barrack itself
is a long, whitish, handsome building ; but about it are
houses in groups — high, and turning all ways- painted of all
colours. Close to us is a large, dull red shed or storehouse,
low and long, with gables ; above them are buildings faced
with blue, cream colour, brown, white and red.
The water is so clear we can see, plainly as if they were
out of it, innumerable fish of considerable size playing about
in all directions. Galleys and boats are moving about, one
pulled by more oars than I could count. The morning is very
bright — indeed, as the day gets on (now it is 10 a.m.), too
bright for the beauty of the scene. Early the surgeon of the
garrison came alongside of us, and we were each asked par
ticularly about the cholera, whether we had been in cholera
districts, &c. From his manner we are sure we shall be
allowed to land ; but the Board of Health does not meet tiU
after church ; so, instead of going to church on shore, we
shall enjoy the black dust of the coal. The yellow quarantine
flag dangles from our mast-head. Having at this moment
nothing to write, I add a sonnet which I meant to have sent
to Aunt :
Are these the tracks of some unearthly Friend 1
His footprints, and his vesture skirts of light,
Who, as I talk with men, conforms aright
Their sympathetic words, or deeds that blend
With my hid thought ; — or stoops him to attend
My doubtful — pleading grief ; — or blunts the might
Of ill I see not ; — or in dreams of night
Figures the scope in which what is will end ?
Were I Christ's own, then fitly might I call
That vision real ; for to the thoughtful mind
That walks with Him, He half unveils His face;
But when on common men such shadows fall,
They dare not make their own the gifts they find,
Yet, not all hopeless, eye His boundless grace.

260 John Henry Newman 1832
Last night the stillness, after a week's rattling and roaring,
had a most singular effect ; it was so unnatural. I never felt
anything like it, and cannot describe it. I had, in consequence,
a very good night — the first for a week — it was very soothing.
Eight p.m. — Our fate is dscided, we are not to be released
till 2 p.m. to-morrow. The St. Roque Spaniards, who are
members of the Board of Health, are the cause of our
quarantine. This has been a most uncomfortable day ; a
Sunday without the signs of a Sunday I can hardly understand.
The vessel not being allowed to stop over to-morrow, the men
have been all day engaged in bringing on coal. It has been one
scene of confusion, dust flying about — the cabin, in consequence,
closed — the native coalmen jabbering about nothing at all ; the
sun blazing on deck ; service impossible ; the crew very busy or
very idle and listless. The warmth of the weather is quite
strange, but not relaxing at all. Yesterday we left off all our fire,
which even before was nominal, and dined with open skylights.
The nights are brilliantly starlight, yet without 'anything like
frost. Mars, to all appearance, almost in the zenith.
I shall be heartily sick of not hearing from you till I get
to Naples, which is the first place to which letters may be
safely directed. ... I add a sonnet,1 and some verses :
Whence is this awe, by stillness spread
O'er the world- fretted soul 1
Wave reared on wave its boastful head,
While my keen bark, by breezes sped,
Dashed fiercely through the ocean bed,
And chafed towards its goal.
But now there reigns so deep a rest,
That I could almost weep.
Sinner I thou hast in this rare guest
Of Adam's peace, a figure blest;
'Tis Eden seen, but not possessed,
Which cherub-flames still keep.

O Lord ! when sin's close marshalled line
Urges Thy witness on his way,
How should he raise Thy glorious Sign,
And how Thy Will display ?
Thy holy Paul, with soul of flame,
Kose on Mars'-hill, a soldier lone ;
Shall I thus speak the Atoning Name,
Though with a heart of stone 1

1 Never published.

1832 UN BOARD THE 'HERMES' — GIBRALTAR 26 1
• Not so,' He said : — ' hush thee, and seek,
With thoughts in prayer and watohf al eyes,
My seasons sent for thee to speak,
And use them as they rise.'
To his Sister Harriett.
On board the ' Hermes ' : December 18, 1832.
I have sent you from Gibraltar, by the ' Flamer ' steam-
packet, a parcel containing two letters to my Mother, and one
inside parcel, with six letters besides, to you and Jemima, to
Aunt, to the Archdeacon (Oxford), to the Provost, to Pope.
We left Gibraltar at 9 p.m. yesterday, and are now on the
open Mediterranean — the sea without a billow, and a strange
contrast to the Atlantic ; and in the distance the dim shadows
of snowy mountains, ranging up the Spanish coast to the N.E.
Africa out of sight.
But I must go back to give you an account of our brief
visit to Gibraltar. I no longer wonder at younger persons
being carried away with travelling, and corrupted ; for certainly
the illusions of the world's magic can hardly be fancied while
one remains at home. I never felt any pleasure or danger
from the common routine of pleasures, which most persons
desire and suffer from — balls, or pleasure parties, or sights —
but I think it does require strength of mind to keep the
thoughts where they should be while the variety of strange
sights — political, moral, and physical — are passed before the
eyes, as in a tour like this. (I have just been called up to see
the mountains of Grenada, which we have neared ; they are
enveloped in a sheet of snow.)
With this remark I proceed to give you some poor account
of our visit to Gibraltar, the first foreign land I ever put
foot on.
We were to have obtained pratique, as it is called (I cannot
learn the right meaning of the word), at 2 p.m. yesterday
(Monday), but by the good offices of one of Archdeacon Froude's
friends, who was afterwards our guide and host, a meeting of
the Board of Health was effected in the morning, and we were
allowed to land about half-past twelve. Col. Rogers, of the
Artillery (the officer in question), took Archdeacon Froude in
his gig, and gave Hurrell and me horses, and off we set to the
southern point of the Rock — Point Europa. Here the Rock is
thrown about into a vast variety of forms with deep fissures
or valleys, and most picturesque groups in consequence. It is

262 John Henry Newman 1832
of a grey colour, varied here and there with a reddish sand.
What the solid Rock is composed of I am ashamed to say I
do not know ; but it may be the same as the rock which is
always forming around it — namely, a sandstone cemented
and indurated by water passing through limestone. In conse
quence, it has an oolitic appearance, and sometimes a granitic.
There are various caves abounding in stalactites in consequence.
The lime is so adhesive that they mix no glutinous substance
in the whitewash made of it, as they do in England ; and
when used for walks, instead of gravel, we observed it looked
as solid as a granite pavement. The old Moorish fortifications
are entirely made of it — that is, of the earth of the place.
They are entirely made of earth rammed tight together in a
framework, which is afterwards removed after the manner of
the Pisans, which the Duke of Bedford introduced to England
some time since at Woburn Abbey.
So much on the nature of the rock. As we rode up the
carriage-way the Rock seemed to heighten marvellously. It
had so hung over us, and at the same time receded from us,
when we were in the vessel, that it seems but a few hundred
feet high, being really 1,500 feet. But now our up-hill ride
convinced us, though our eyes were unconvinced ; still, I can
give you no account of the guns and batteries, which I do not
understand ; of course, they are very imposing. Before us lay
the range of African mountains, which differ in shape from
the Spanish. The African seems to be of volcanic origin —
conical and independent like waves. Ape's hUl rises 3,000
feet from the sea, being the termination of the Atlas chain.
Behind we saw this part of the Atlas distinctly, covered with
snow, I think ; the range is very high, the highest mountain
being 10,000 feet. Further towards the east, about Fez, the
range is highest, being in one place 14,000 or 15,000; I forget
which. The Rock of Gibraltar, where we now were, presented a
very broken surface, being more like haycocks or a ploughed
field than anything else. In the intervals grow large aloe?,
the flowers still remaining ; geraniums clothe them as ground-
ivy may a bank in England. As we went along the road,
huge cactuses sprawled over the walls. I did not know they
grew so large ; they were as thick as the trunk of a good-
sized tree. The oranges were in full fruit, and various other
hot-house plants. We went round the side as far as the
Monkey Cave, where we were fortunate enough to see some of

1832 UN BOARD THE ' HERMES' — GIBRALTAR 26$
the monkeys skipping like birds all over the surface. The
Colonel considered we were in high luck. He was in Gibraltar
two years before he saw one ; yet we also saw some afterwards
on the north. At the furthest extremity we reached, the cliff
descends right down to the sea from the top, 1,500 feet ! with
hardly a break, certainly none of consequence. There are
caverns at the bottom.
After entering the town we went first to the convent,
which is now the Government House. Archdeacon Froude
had introductions with him to a number of superior ofiicers,
and he took this opportunity of staying half an hour with
Col. Mair, the Governor's Secretary, with whom we lunched.
He is a very young-looking man for a Colonel, remarkably
handsome and agreeable, and of a literary turn. On looking
over his table 1 was surprised and amused to see the ' British
Magazine' there among the books.1 We had a delightful
lounge in the convent garden, which even at this season is
luxuriant and fragrant. Immense cactuses, the date, the
orange, the lemon, the custard-apple, the turpentine-tree, the
dragon-tree ; last, and not least, the palm, about eighteen feet
high, and a most singular tree — a perfect garden of Alcinous.
Col. Mair told us that in a month's time the garden would be
one mass of odours and splendours. Col. Mair gave us some
superb Cyprus wine, and then we set off to join Col. Rogers
again. ... I will transcribe for you a sort of ecclesiastical carol
which I wrote as an experiment, but which I am by no means
confident is a successful one.
Faint not, and fret not, for threatened woe,
Watchman on Truth's grey height !
Few though the faithful and fierce though the foe,
Weakness is aye Heaven's might.
Infidel Ammon and niggard Tyre,
Ill-attuned pair, unite ;
Some work for love, and some work for hire,
Bat weakness shall be Heaven's might.
Eli's feebleness, Saul's black wrath,
May aid Ahitophel's spite ;
And prayers from Gerizim, and curses from Gath,
Onr weakness shall be Heaven 's might.
1 This was afterwards explained to Mr. Newman when, on his return
to England, he found Col. Mair was brother-in-law to Mr. Rose — the
editor — at whose table he afterwards met him.

264 John Henry Newman 1832;
Quail not and quake not, thou Warder bold,
Be there no friend in sight ;
Turn thee to question the days of old,
When weakness was aye Heaven's might.
Moses was one, yet he stayed the sin
Of the host in the Presence bright ;
And Elias scorned the Carmel-din
When Baal would scan Heaven's might.
Time's years are many, Eternity one,
And one is the Inlinite ;
The chosen are few, few the deeds well done,
So scantness is still Heaven's might.
P.S. December 26. — I purpose sending you this letter from
Corfu overland, and I shall send a packet of letters and a
chest of oranges by the ' Hermes ' on its return. I send you
some verses. How can I keep my Christmas feast
In its d ue festive show,
Belt of the sight of the High Priest
From whom its glories flow 1
I hear the tuneful bells around,
The blessed towers I see ;
A stranger on a foreign ground,
They peal a fast fur me.
O Britons I now in scoffings brave,
How will you meet the day
When Christ reclaims the gift He gave
And calls the Bride away ?
Your Christmas then will lose its mirth,
Your Easter lose its bloom ; —
Abroad a scene of strife and dearth ;
Within, a cheerless home 1
To his Sister Jemima.
On board the 'Hermes' : December 18, 1832.
I finished Harriett's letter abruptly ; the paper ending
like the night in the narratives of Scheherazade. This day
has been just fitted for writing these letters : first, as being
the very next day after my visit to Gibraltar ; next, we have
been nearly all day out of sight of land ; thirdly, I am indis
posed to any exertion of body — such as walking the deck—
from the labours of yesterday. The sun has been so hot to-day
we have had an awning on deck. Porpoises and sword-fish
have been sporting about us ; the sea being as calm and the

1832 UN BOARD THE ' HERMES'— GIBRALTAR 26$
motion of the vessel as slight as that of a steamer going to
Richmond on the Thames. . . . We expect to make Algiers
by Thursday morning. Col. Rogers walked down with us to
the water's edge. He is a hospitable, warm-hearted, and con
siderate man. We are much indebted to him: It does not
diminish our debt to him, that it broke the monotony of his
military life to entertain strangers. He spoke in high terms
of the Mess, but lamented that so few officers were single men,
so that he had but a small society. As our boat went off
to the vessel, I saw again the electric phenomenon which I
mentioned in a former letter ; and its beauty cannot be exag
gerated. The edge of the water, where it broke against the
pier, was all on fire. Wherever the oar went it was a sheet
of soft liquid flame, sparkling besides, wherever the splashes
fell. It was as if the under surface of the water was fire, and
the oar turned it up. We got back to the vessel very tired.
It set off about nine. I slept soundly, and found myself this
morning in the open sea.
When Marshal Bourmont.was here two years ago, his
criticism on Gibraltar was that its fortifications were over
done. This may be true, but such a judgment will vary with
possession and non-possession.
By a curious coincidence an assistant chaplain of my name
is expected here. Accordingly the report got about that he
had come, and Arch-bishop Froude had come to consecrate the
chapel. . . .
Having nothing more to say, I conclude with some verses :
Tyre of the West, and glorying in the name
More than in Faith's pure fame,
O trust not crafty fort nor rock renowned,
Earned upon hostile ground ;
Wielding Trade's master-keys, at thy proud will,
To lock or loose its waters, England I trust not still.
Dread thine own power ! since haughty Babel's prime
High towers have been man's crime ;
Since her hoar age, when the huge moat lay bare.
Strongholds have been man's snare.
Thy nest is in the crags ; ah I refuge frail 1
Mad counsel in its hour, or traitors, will prevail.
He who scanned Sodom for his righteous men,
Still spares thee for thy ten ;
But should vain hands pollute the temple wall,
More than His church will fall;
For as Earth's kings welcome their spotless guest
So gives He them by turn to suffer or be blest.

266 John Henry Newman 1832
To his Mother.
On board the 'Hermes': December 19, 1832.
One great convenience of a voyage is that time is given
one to record one's thoughts as they occur, and to see things
without the bustle of moving and an over-rapid succession.
And I am glad that this has been my fortune at the earlier
part of my tour, when my impressions from new objects are
more vivid than they will be in a short time. Yet, however
interested I have been in what I have seen, I do not think I
have ever for a moment so felt as not to have preferred, had
the option been given me, to find myself suddenly back again
in the midst of those employments and pleasures, that come
to me at home in the course of ordinary duty (perhaps the ,
moment when I first saw Cadiz, with the hope of landing, is
an exception), so that I have good hope I shall not be un
settled by my present wanderings. For what are all these
strange sights but vanities, attended too, as they ever must
be, with anxious watchfulness lest the heart be corrupted by
them, and by the unpalatable necessity of working up oneself
to little acts of testifying and teaching, which mere indolence,
not to say more, leads one to shrink from ! So that I really
do think that the hope of benefiting my health and increasing
my usefulness and influence, are the main considerations
which [cause me to] absent myself from you and Oxford.
Yet even [such ] thoughts do not reconcile me to the length of
time I shall be away, which is so vast as quite to make me
despond ; and under these forlorn feelings I cannot but limit
my view to the present day, and enjoy the novelties and
wonders before me, dismissing all thoughts of the places
which are yet to be undergone before I get back. You must
not suppose me melancholy because 1 say all this ; it is,
of course, an habitual feeling with me which I now express,
partly because I have leisure for it, partly because I happen
still to be somewhat fatigued with the exertions of the day
before yesterday. We are now still making for Algiers, being
out of sight of land. The weather most delightful, with a
breeze ait.
tWhat has inspired me with all sorts of strange reflections
these two days is the thought that I am in the Mediterranean.
Consider how the coasts of the Mediterranean have been the
seat and scene of the most celebrated empires and events

1832 UN BOARD THE ' HERMES 267
which are in history. Think of the variety of men, famous
in every way, who have had to do with it. Here the Romans
and Carthaginians fought ; here the Phoenicians traded ; here
Jonah was in the storm ; here St. Paul was shipwrecked ; here
the great Athanasius voyaged to Rome) Talking of Athanasius,
I will give you some verses about him :
When shall our Northern Church her champion see,
Raised by Divine decree,
To shield the ancient Truth at his own harm ?
Like him who stayed the arm
Of tyrannous power, and learning's sophist-tone*
Keen-visioned Seer, alone.
The many crouched before an idol-priest,
Lord of the world's rank feast.
In the dark night, 'mid the Saints' trial sore
He stood, then bowed before
The Holy Mysteries, — he, their meetest sign,
Weak vessel, yet divine.
Cyprian is ours, since the high-souled primate laid
Under the traitorous blade
His silvered head. And Chrysostom we claim
In that clear eloquent flame
And deep-taught zeal in the same woe, which shone
Bright round a Martyr's throne.
And Ambrose reared his crosier from the tomb,
Though with unequal doom,
When in dark times our champion crossed a king-
But good in everything
Comes as ill's cure. Dim Future 1 shall we need
A prophet for Truth's Creed 1 December 23.
I write this before we get to Malta, which is to be
tomorrow morning, lest new sights should confuse old ones.
A severe gale, from which I am just recovering, has prevented
my writing what I have to tell while I saw it. I began this
letter on Wednesday, the 19th. On Thursday morning, which
was very fine, we neared Cape Tenez, a fine headland- — but I
shall weary you with my descriptions. The sun was behind
it, and as it ascended and shot its rays downwards, the
surface, which had before been purple, became varied into
lulls and ravines, beautifully coloured of a rich sienna. Mount
Atlas soon showed itself again, and went with us the greater
part of the day. A sublime range, indeed, with its head every
now and then in the clouds, and three or four tiers of heights
under it, tiU.the eye came down to the cliffs overhanging the

268 John Henry Newman i«32
sea — vide the first fifty lines of the ' Odyssey.' Only in a
steam vessel can one approach so near the land. About
dinner-time— three o'clock — we neared Algiers, which, in its
way, is as interesting a sight as we have had. I wish I could
do justice to it.
On going on deck there lay before the eye a huge hill
covered with heath, with folds and recesses and a roundish
form. On this hill — I suppose a mile or two from the town —
were perched about a numb°r of very white houses, apparently
of Frank merchants, looking very desolate, as if they wondered
how they got there. They seemed to have no gardens, lodges,
farmyards, or outhouses, such as make an English country
house look like a small village. At length the town opened
upon us. It lies on the side of a slant, not very steep, appa
rently, and is of a triangular form, not reaching to the top
of the hill, with the fortifications in front of its base. The
French tricolour floated from them. The houses are closely
jammed together, and are of a discoloured yellow. They
have very small windows, some high narrow arches at bottom.
The western side of the steep (I did not observe the other) is
flanked by a high wall. A mosque stands without it, and
there are several within. A considerable space walled in is
still further west, and at the foot of the heathy hills. The
fortifications run along the water's edge with one high tower ;
here Lord Exmouth took his station. The French, on the
contrary, landed in the bay to the east, and attacked the city
behind. A boat was put off to us to receive the despatches, rowed
by four natives - strange-looking fellows — two with somewhat
Saracenic features ; the other two puzzled me, being very like
the old Egyptians : yellow, with skin like leather — you could
hardly believe it to be skin — and fine regular features. One
of them, with a remarkable vacancy of countenance, took
no notice of us, though we were staring at him, or of our
vessel : a vacancy like a statue, most strange. This nest of
insects, with 4,000 sick in the city — which is small and has
such a reputation for the plague that, had we touched any
thing belonging to them, even their boat, we should, I suppose,
have incurred three weeks' quarantine at Malta — affected to
put, us in quarantine on account of the cholera, and were
prompt in assuring us we must not land ; and would not
receive our letters till they were cut through (to let out the
cholera, I suppose), and then only at the end of af pair of tongs.
How odd it is I should have lived to see Algiers !

lt>._ UN BOARD THE • HERMES ' — MALTA 269
After Algiers we saw nothing worth speaking of. We
made the small island of Galita yesterday (the 22nd). This
morning (the 23rd) we neared Cape Bon, and saw the track
to Carthage. An island lies to the west, and the course is
between the two. (Nothing I had seen so touched me as this.
I thought of the Phoenicians, Tyre, of the Punic Wars, of
Cyprian, and the glorious Churches now annihilated}, the two
headlands looked the same then as now ; and I recollected I
was now looking at Africa for the last time in my life. It
disappeared towards noon, and as it diminished, Pantellaria
came in sight, a fine volcanic island, thirty miles in cireum-
ference. We passed close by its small town. It has an un
fathomable lake in the centre, once the crater of a volcano.
Its inhabitants are mixed Italian and Arabic. It is a depen
dency of Sicily. And now we are making quickly for Malta.
I am greatly wearied by the gale we encountered after
Algiers, which was severe enough to make half the sailors
sick. . . . Malta : December 24.
I am quite recruited now, and proceed : I care 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, wine 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 get, 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 three 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, creak
ing, 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,

270 John Henry Newman 1832
but epicyclical, thus fo a CX,a being the point where the
motion 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 ever smelt,
suffocating. What would I have given to have been able to
sleep on deck on Thursday night last ! But the hail and sleet
made it impossible. Of course I had no rest.
Another trouble : you know a lee shore is always formidable
to sailors. Now we were off a coast without a harbour in it,
the wind shifting about from the N. W. to N.E. This, indeed,
is little to a steamer, which moves against the wind. But on
Wednesday our engines had got damaged, and taken a long
time to mend, and we fancied they might not be strong enough
to make way against the gale, which was severe. About two
in the morning the engines stopped ; we did not know why.
So I got up and went on deck, and was relieved by being told
all was right, but it had been an anxious matter.
The next day, Friday, the usual swell followed, which is
sadly fatiguing. I have not had a night's sleep since I left
England, except when we were quiet at Gibraltar, and it is
wonderful how little I suffer from it. I am sore all over with
the tossing, and very stiff, and so weak that at times I can
hardly put out a hand. But my spirits have never given way
for an instant, and I laughed when I was most indisposed.
And now we are safe at Malta, and hope, please God, to have
a quiet night before Christmas Day. We start for Corfu on
Wednesday, but it is the passage of only a day or two; we
remain there six days, and then back to the Lazaret ; then I
shall try to write verses. Not a day has passed since I em
barked without my doing a copy. When I was most qualmish
I solaced myself with verse-making. I send ' Bide thou thy
time,'1 'Moses,' 'Woe's me.'2
Bide thou thy time 1
Watch » ith meek eyes the race of pride and crime
Sit in the gate, and be the heathen's jest,
Smiling and self-possest.
O thou to whom is pledged a victor's sway,
Bide thou the victor's day I

' The Afflicted Church.' 2 ' Jeremiah.'

1833 1//V BUAKU THE TlJlKMH.^  MALTA 2/1
Think on the sin
That reaped the unripe seed ; and toiled to win
Foul history-marks at Bethel and at Dan —
No blessing, but a ban ;
Whilst the wise shepherd hid his heaven-told fate,
Nor recked a tyrant's hate.
Such need is gain ;
Wait the bright advent that shall loose thy chain I
E'en now the shadows break, and gleams divine
Edge the dim distant line.
When thrones are trembling, and earth's fat ones quail,
Tiue iSeed I thou shalt prevail 1

Mo-es, the patriot fierce, became
The meekest man on earth,
To show us how Love's quickening flame
Can give our souls new birth.
Moses, the man of meekest heart,
Lost Canaan by self-will,
To show where Grace hath done its part,
How sin defiles us still.
Thou Who hast taught me in Thy fear,
Yet seest me frail at best,
O grant me loss with Moses here,
To gain his future rest 1

•Woe's me 1 ' the peaceful prophet cried,
' fp ire me this troubled life ;
To stem man's wrath, to school his t ri le,
To head the sacred strife I
* O place me in some silent vale
Where groves and flowers abound ;
Nor eyes that grudge, nor tongues that rail,
Vex the truth-haunted ground ! '
If his meek spirit erred, opprest
That God denied repose,
What sin is ours, to whom Heaven's rest
Is pledged, to heal earth s wo^s?
To nis Sister Harriett.
On board the 'Hermes ' : December 25, 1832.
We are keeping the most wretched Christmas Day, and it
seems a sad return to that good Providence who has conducted
us here so safely and so pleasantly. By bad fortune we are

272 John Henry Newman 1832
again taking in coals on a holy day, and as the captain's
orders are precise about his stay, there seems no alternative,
But what provokes me is that the coal will be got in by the
afternoon, and they are making preparation for a Christmas
dinner, which seems incongruous. This morning we saw a
poor fellow in the Lazaret close to us, cut off from the ordi
nances of his Church, saying his prayers with his face to the
house of God in his sight over the water ; and it is a con
fusion of face to me that the humblest Romanist testifies to
his Saviour as I, a minister, do not. Yet I do what I can,
and shall try to do more, for I am very spiteful.
Yesterday morning, Monday the 24th, we saw Gozo on first
coming on deck (by-the-bye, Graham Island, which went down,
was about fifteen miles from Pantellaria, which I spoke of to
my Mother). Next we passed Camino, and then came Malta.
These three are called the Maltese Islands. We passed along
the north side ; on our left, in the distance, being the height
above Girgenti in Sicily. One of the first sights we came to
in Malta was St. Paul's Bay, where tradition goes that the
Apostle was wrecked. Above St. Paul's Bay is Citta Vecchia,
where probably was the Roman garrison spoken of, Acts xxviii,
They say there are many antiquities there.
Malta is a strange place, a literal rock of a yellowish brown ;
the coast presents an easy slope towards the sea, and the plain
is intersected by a number of parallel walls to keep up the
soil. They say here they have had a month of rain, and that
the weather changed yesterday. In what good fortune are we 1
It was certainly a beautiful day, like July, no sign of winter ;
but it is only what we have had nearly the whole of our passage.
This is the rainy season here, I believe. The night turned
cold, and there was much rain and heavy in the early morning,
and it has been raining now.
Immediately on our mooring (opposite to the Lazaretto)
we were put under the care of a guardian who watches over
our quarantine, both to keep us from others and others from
us. A queer set of fellows they are, with yellow collars. We
are in the smalls r port off the Manual Battery. There is a
bright sun upon the light-brown rock and fortresses. The
sea a deep green ; a number of little boats, some strangely
rigged, others strangely rowed, pushing to and fro, painted
bright colours ; not a few Greek trading- vessels of a respectable
size. Their flag is blue and white striped. I never saw a finer
group than the coalheaver'3 on the wharf, fhere are abqut

1832 ON BOARD THE ' HERMES'— MALTA 27$
a dozen of them of all ages, slight and elegantly formed men,
many of them —they stood for perhaps half an hour, waiting
for our being ready, each in his own attitude, and grouped.
In the afternoon we got into one of our boats, and rowed
round the quarantine harbour, for which leave is granted.
First we went to the parlatorio, which is the place of intercourse
between men in and out of quarantine. It is a long naked
building or barn divided into several rooms, and cut length way
from end to end by two' barriers parallel, breast high. Between
these two, guardians are stationed to hinder contact, the men
in quarantine on one side, the townsmen on the other, the
latter being either friends of the imprisoned party, or pedlars,
traffickers, ifec. A crowd of persons are on the prison side,
each party under the conduct of its own guardian ; for if these
parties were to touch each other the longer quarantine would
be given to the party which had the smaller number. Jf I
were to touch a Greek, I should have fifteen days of quarantine.
The strange dresses, the strange languages, the jabbering and
grimaces, the queer faces driving a bargain across the barrier,
without a common language, the solemn absurd guardians
with their staves in the space between, the opposite speaker
fearing nothing so much as touching you, and crying out
and receding at the same time, made it as curious a sight as
the free communication of breath, and the gratuitous and in
consistent rules of this intercourse made it ridiculous. But
the British Government is forced to be strict in its rules by
the jealousy of other Powers. By being so, Malta becomes a
gate for the whole Continent, and the Lazaret here is much
more comfortable than elsewhere, so that it is lucky for us
that it is so. Yet, absurd as the system is, I believe the
plague is strictly contagious. They say that before now its
circle has been gradually narrowed till it actually has been
shut up in a box.
The most interesting sight in the parlatorio was a number
of Greeks. Their most graceful and becoming dresses, their
fine countenances and shapes and attitudes, and the thought
of their ancestors, not only heathen but Christian, contrasted
with the fact, which no one can doubt, that they are now as a
people heartless and despicable, sunk below the Turks their
masters, made me feel very melancholy. But the power
which out of the wild olive-tree formed an Origen or an Atha
nasius, can transform them too. Fancy being rowed in an
open boat without a greatcoat on a December evening, and
VOL. I. t

274 John Henry iwewman i»„*
not feeling cold. The sun went down gloriously and the sky
was of an indescribable gold colour. The only object of interest
which struck me on our return, was a vessel towed by about a
dozen of small boats, like a number of ants bringing in some
large insect into their nest.
The bells are beautiful here, as at Gibraltar and Cadiz,
deep and sonorous, and they have been going all the morning,
to me very painfully [for reasons above given]. We went
after breakfast across the plank to the Lazaretto to choose
our rooms for our return to Malta. It is as like a prison as
one pea to another, yet it is a fine one too. The loss of fifteen
days quite casts us down. After several courts we came to
a quadrangle of curious but simple architecture. A flight of
steps leads to a gallery which runs round it outside, almost
half-way up, and is supported by a strange kind of prop i_

It is imposing. In this gallery are openings into our apart
ments. We may have as many of them as we please, and all
for nothing. They are fine rooms, fifty by thirty at least (we
measured them) ; the roof is arched, the walls whitewashed,
the floors stone pavement. No furniture (they say we can
buy furniture almost for nothing, for a few dollars) ; there are
bed-steads. We find everything. We have taken two rooms ;
we shall sleep in one and live in the other. I should not have
been unwilling to have been there for a few days for the fun
of the thing, nor do I care for the length, but for the waste of
time. But we must have had a quarantine somewhere ; in
the north of Italy I suppose, if we went overland, and for
our fifteen days we have gained a sight of Gibraltar, and
shall see the Ionian Isles besides Malta itself. No one knows
whether, in the course of events, it may not be our turn to bo
put into a worse prison than this. We shall make ourselves
as comfortable as we can, eat and drink. I shall write, and
perhaps hire a violin. After all, it is a great waste of time
when life is so short, and one has so much to do. I thought
of learning Italian. 1 know enough to read a good deal, but
as to speakirg you must be among the people.
I hear there is an overland post from Corfu, which I shall
avail myself of, to send a letter to you. Ah ! those sad bells ;
there they go again. I have not time to read this over, and
this applies to all my letters. The Malta windmills have six

183a UN BOARD THE ' HERMES ' 275
sails, and are strengthened against the wind by a rod at right
angles to the sails from their centre, with strings from it to
their ends. To his Sister Jemima.
Between Zante and Patras : December 29, 1832.
At this moment our prospects are clouded, though it is
nothing to you to know this some six weeks hence. We are
threatened with twenty-one or fifty days' quarantine on our
return to Malta. Don't go and tell anyone. Of course, we
get into difficulties, and we get out ; but if only the getting in
is known, it is a good joke to hearers. At Malta we were
assured by the quarantine people we should have but fifteen
days for visiting the Ionian Isles, and we were sure of having
nearly as much for touching at Gibraltar. Now we find that
Lord Nugent has, out of his own head, put the Isles in
pratique with the Morea, which is in twenty-one or forty or
fifty days' quarantine with Malta. This we learned on touch
ing at Zante (pronounced Zant). Besides, we have taken on
board passengers from the Morea.
Our new passengers are the military Governor of Cerigo,
old Cytherea [Col. Longley], and the Consul of Patras [Mr.
Crowe], and their account of the state of the Morea is deplor
able. It is literally overrun with banditti ; and a traveller
cannot touch on the coast without being robbed. We have
had numerous instances of this in the case of military men or
messengers with despatches. The coast, too, swarms with
little pirates who have look-outs on the hills, who signal, and
the pirate vessels run into places where our men-of-war cannot
follow them. In such a state is the country that the factions,
tired of mutual inflictions, have in some instances had recourse
to the Turkish authorities on the other side the Gulf, for
arbitration or redress, as the Belgians may be doing to
Holland. Russia is at the bottom of these troubles, in order
to gain the post of arbitration and then of sovereignty, when
the Porte falls, which seems soon expected. She has encour
aged a portion of the National Senate to withdraw from the
seat of Government, and set up for themselves against the
new Regency, which is now in progress from Germany with
King Otho. The English Consul, now on board, was forced
to fly from Patras, sending his wife and family on board an
English man-of-war — Sir John Franklin's. Meanwhile, the
Turkish dominions are orderly, and, while the coast from
T2

276 John Henry Newman 1832
Patras to Corinth is impossible, Athens may safely be visited.
Indeed, one of the schemes that has dawned on us, if we are
driven hard, is to make for Janina, and so for Athens. I am
called on deck. Ithaca is in sight.
It is so strange in a vessel : you go on at your employment
downstairs ; you are called on deck, and find everything new.
A scene is spread before you as if by magic, and you cannot
believe it is real. I am now in the Greek sea, the scene of
old Homer's song and of the histories of Thucydides. Yester
day was the most delightful day I have had. The morning
was wet — being the first rain — except a shower perhaps .it
Malta (I forget), since leaving England. I am sorry to find
we are in the rainy season. Last night it rained incessantly ;
a pouring rain you have no idea of at home. We could seo
Zante, at the distance of sixty miles, with Cephalonia on the
left. The latter is different from anything I have seen ; the
outline, formed by what is called the Black Mountain, of a
bluish black ; which, being more or less covered with snow at
top, looked like polished marble. We sailed between them
and then we saw the Peloponnesus in the distance — kindling
what different thoughts from the Morea ! — the coast, blue
from the distance, with two purplish rocks, isles or promon
tories, in front, and behind a long and high range of snow
mountains ; to the left, far in the distance, the Acarnanian
coast, somewhere about the mouths of the Achelous.
Night fell before we reached Zante (the town), but we got
into a boat and made for shore. We wandered about the
town, and curious it is — (I have just been called to see a
magnificent snow mountain towards the north-west point of
the Peloponnesus ; the outline is wonderful ; a sheer descent ;
the day very unfavourable, thick and cloudy)— a triangular
space or Place surrounded by good-looking houses— a guard
room, (fee, with towers, a great many streets beyond it, narrow
and flagged, or like flagging. What appeared the chief street
had arcades running along on each side, giving it a handsome
appearance. The shops all open, without fronts, like booths
in England ; the halls of private houses open, with stairs and
a gallery ; a good many churches. Most people were abed,
we were told : those who were about were singing, walking
fast perhaps the while : some singing in parts, particularly in
shops, as at a shoemaker's. We went into the principal inn —
such a strange place — into a billiard -room, into several coffee-
and smoking-rooms, a barber's, a wine-merchant's, a currant-
merchant's, a pipe-seller's. We were surprised at the wealth

183a UN BOARD THE ' HERMES' — ZANTE 277
of this shop. The pipes were from 100 dollars (20Z.) down
wards. At a nondescript shop, a young urchin was buying
his obol worth of oil and bread for supper. We saw a barrel
of Cornish pilchards, which have long been in use here. We
drank some of the vin ordinaire — which we thought very good
of the kind— red and white. The men were miserably filthy,
and the countenances of many, who were drinking or playing
backgammon, &c, slovenly and sottish. We were told they
were the principal men of the place.
By-the-bye, 1 think I have made up my mind about going
to operas, &c. I think it allowable — as far as merely going to
see the place, &c. — in the same sense in which it is allowable to
visit the country at all — e.g. I see no objection to going into a
heathen country for the sake of seeing it, and going into a
playhouse is nothing more than this. If I may not go into a
place because bad men are in it, where can I go 1 If, indeed,
I go for the sake of the amusement — which would be the case
if I frequented it — then it would be a different matter ; but I
go and see, as I go and see a coffee-house, a billiard-room, or a
mosque Nor am I supporting persons in a bad way of life
— that is, the actors - for if no one went but strangers, as a
matter of curiosity, they would have a poor living. Theatres
are set up, not as objects of curiosity, but of amusement. I
am only seeing what is established and supported ; not esta
blishing and supporting it myself.
To return. When we rose this morning —raining as it was
— the view, which the night had hidden, was so lovely, that
we deplored our fate, which hindered our seeing the place at
more advantage. Virgil calls the island 'nemorosa' ' — it still
deserves the title. The whole face of a beautiful and varied
rock was covered with olive-trees in an exquisite way. They
say that the view over the heights, which takes in Cephalonia,
is one of the finest in these parts. We have lately passed
Ithaca ; the outline is very broken and abrupt, but it was in
mist, and we could not make much of it.
Since I wrote the above, the day has just so much bright
ened as to give the effect of light and shadow ; and I am lost
in enjoyment. The mountains are multiplied without end,
one piled on the other, and of such fine shapes and colours ;
some very high and steep like giants, and black at top, or
bleached with snow ; and to think that here were Brasidas,
Phormio, Demosthenes, Cimon, and the rest 1
1 ^n. iii. 270.

278 John Henry Newman 1832
7 p.m. — We are at Patras. I have seen Rhium and Antir-
rhium. The chain of Parnassus rises before us, shrouded with
clouds, which the eye cannot pierce, yet the imagination can.
I have landed on the Peloponnese. High snowy mountains,
black rocks, brownish cliffs— all capped with mist, shroud us.
The sunset, most wild, harmonises with the scene.
To his Mother.
On board the ' Hermes ' .• December 29, 1832, 9 p.m.
As every day brings its own matters, I begin at once this
letter, though I have only just now finished writing to Jemima,
to tell you about our landing at Patras, which is, in one sense,
the most considerable place in the Morea, as being the place
of export for the trade, chiefly the currant trade, of the west
of Europe. We called here to deliver despatches for the new
Greek Government at Napoli, in Argos, about ninety miles
off. From this place it is most accessible, though the banditti
make the road very dangerous.
The fortress of Patras is strong, and was bombarded by
the English several years since, when the allied Powers were
driving the Turks out of the Morea. I believe they did not
succeed with it ; anyhow, it is at present occupied by a self-
constituted authority, in the shape of a brigand, who would
not give up to the French, and now professes he will, or will
not submit to King Otho, according as he likes him or no.
The town was destroyed during the disturbances, and is now
slowly rebuUding, the work being interrupted this year by the
continued disorder of the country. We were told we ought
to use caution in paying a visit to the place at night, as plun
derers were about ; and it unluckily happens here, as at Zante,
that we scarcely arrived before nightfall. The first news
which greeted us at the Russian Consul's was that King Otho
was actually on his way, and that we had a chance of seeing
him at Corfu. Considering the state of the country, we were
amused to learn he was coming (besides a suite of high
officers), with thirty ladies, a hundred horses, and a throne
finer than anything in Europe. He sent to the man-of-war
which is to convey him, to inquire how many German stoves
they had on board in provision against cold weather. I sup
pose that this was an act of gaUantry towards the ladies.
We are assured by the Resident of Cerigo, who is sitting by
me, that there is not at NapoU, whither they are going, any

1832 ON BOARD THE ' HERMES ' — ITHACA 279
possible accommodation for ladies at all ; so that they wUl be
literally houseless.
We walked about the new-built town, or rather its founda
tions. It will be very handsome. We went through the
market or bazaar, crowded with people : stopped some time in
a billiard-room, where some Russians were playing, and sat
and took coffee in a room full of small Greek merchants. The
dresses of the men are most picturesque ; the ' snowy camese,'
spoken of by Byron, then an embroidered waistcoat, a plaited
and frilled white petticoat to the shins, and a large greatcoat
with the arms hanging down behind, the 'shaggy capote';
their faces and figures very fine ; evidently a mixture of races.
The coffee was almost the best I ever tasted, and so refreshing
I could fancy I had been drinking wine. We returned after
a ramble of about an hour. December 30.
I do not forget it is dear Harriett's birthday, and it is
signalised by our passing Ithaca. I could not have believed
that the view of these parts would have so enchanted me.
When I was for hours within half a mile of Ithaca, as I was
this morning, what did I not feel ! Not from classical asso
ciations, but the thought that what I saw before me was the
reality of what had been the earliest vision of my childhood.
Ulysses and Argus, which I had known by heart, occupied the
very isle I saw. It is a barren huge rock of limestone, appa
rently, a dull grej', poorly covered with brushwood, broken
into roundish masses with deep ravines, on which, principally,
cultivation had dared to experimentalise ; though the sides of
the hill were also turned up. Olive-trees have made their
appearance ; the vines, being cut down in the winter, are in
visible from the water. On a hill in the centre and narrowest
part of the island is a height called the Tower of Ulysses.
We could see through the glass parts of the Cyclopean ruins
which surmount it. Their make is far anterior to the historical
period. Homer calls the island ' dear and little.' l I gazed
on it by the quarter of an hour together, being quite satisfied
with the si^ht of the rock. I thought of Ham,2 and of all
the various glimpses which memory barely retains, and which
fly from me when I pursue them, of that earliest time of life
when one seems almost to realise the remnants of a pre-existing
1 See Od. ix. 27-37. Cf. vi. 208, xiv. 58.
1 Ham, near Richmond, where some of his earliest years were

280 John Henry Newman 183J
state. Oh, how I longed to touch the land, and to satisfy
myself that it was not a mere vision that I saw before me !
We were on the western side of it, running between it and
Cephalonia. The channel is from two to four miles broad, as
still as a pond, except that it flows ; it is, indeed, a majestic
river, the depth, I believe, being out of soundings. Behind
us lay the entrance to the Gulf of Corinth, the Morea, and,
in the distance, Zante. As we emerged from the strait, we
saw on our right the fine ranges of the Acarnanian Mountains,
which are certainly the finest in shape and grouping I have
seen. The whole scene was wonderfully grand. The masses
of Ithaca and Cephalonia behind us ; small islands of rock,
breaking the view of Acarnania ; its mountains rising as a
number of ridges, blue in front, with bright snowy heights,
with the sun upon them, behind ; Sta Maura (Leucadia) before
us ; the famous promontory of Leucas close by ; lastly, we
come to Sappho's Leap — still so called — which is certainly a
high cliff to fall from. By this time, it being about eleven, we
went down for the prayers. We are told we can have no
notion of the Greek climate by this specimen of it.
Corfu is close at hand. I shall go on deck. Meanwhile
take some verses. Thus I complete my fortieth set : '
My father's hope I my childhood's dream I
The promise from on high !
Long wail ed for I its glories beam
Now when my death is nigh.
My death is come, but not decay j
Nor eye nor mind is dim ;
The keenness of youth's vigorous day
Thrills in each nerve and limb.
Blest scene 1 thrice welcome after toil
If no deceit I view ;
O might my lips but press the soil,
And prove the vision true 1
Its glorious heights, its wealthy plains,
Its many tinted groves,
They call 1 but He my steps restrains
Who chastens whom He loves.
Ah I now they melt . . - they are but shades ;
I die ! — yet is no rest,
0 Lord ! in store, since Canaan fades
But seen, and not possest?
1 The title ' Moses seeing the Land.'

1833 ON BOARD THE ' HERMES' — CORFU 28 1
On board the 'Hermes] Corfu: January 1, 1833.
A happy New Year to you all at home. Ever since we
got here it has been pouring furiously, and almost incessantly,
and the accommodations are so suspicious on shore that as yet
we remain here on board. . . .
There are passages in the following letter to his sister
which show a reaction from the tension under which Mr.
Newman's mind had been held by the scenes around him.
To his Sister Harriett.
On board the ' Hermes,' Corfu: January 2, 1833.
This morning is the first tolerably clear day we have had.
Monday and Tuesday have been days of incessant violent rain.
On going on deck I was really astonished at the view. Even
to-day is not a bright day, so I have a poor idea what the view
really is ; but I see quite enough : high mountains of a brilliant
white or slate colour, folded in long plaits Uke a table-cloth
artificially disposed along a rising and falling outline, without
crease or rumple ; rocks of a rich brown, looking so near that
you think you could touch them, and others of a pale sad
colour, like Malta. We are to have a good ride to-day ; the
roads are said to be excellent, and soon dry. It is an over
powering thought to recollect that the place looked precisely
the same in the times of Homer and Thucydides, as being
stamped with the indelible features of the ' everlasting hills.'
Here that famous faction fight began which eventually
ran through Greece ; and what a strange contrast was the
scene last night at the Palace — the ball on the anniversary of
Constitution Day — at the magnificent palace of a nation in
the time of Thucydides not merely barbarous, but unknown.
Dresses, novel to them, and unbecoming, but rendered fashion
able as being the garb of their masters, soldiers in a like
costume, and Greek names and faces in the midst of them all ;
all mixed up and dancing together, as if it were the most
natural thing in the world. Let me set it down in my books,
a proposition settled and indisputable, that no change is so
great as to be improbable. January 4.
I have a great deal to say, but fear I shall forget it. No
description can give you any idea of what I have seen, but I
will not weary you with my delight ; yet does it not seem a

282 John Henry Newman 1833
strange paradox to say that, though I am so much pleased, I
am not interested 1 That is, I don't think I should care —
rather I should be very glad — to find myself suddenly trans
ported to my rooms at Oriel, with my oak sported, and I lying
at f uU length on my sofa. After all, every kind of exertion
is to me an effort : whether or not my mind has been strained
and wearied with the necessity of constant activity, I kno v
not ; or whether, having had many disappointments, and
suffered much from the rudeness and slights of persons I have
been cast with, I shrink involuntarily from the contact of the
world, and, whether or not natural disposition assists this
feeling, and a perception almost morbid of my deficiencies and
absurdities — anyhow, neither the kindest attentions nor the
most subUme sights have over me influence enough to draw
ine out of the way, and, deliberately as I have set about my
present wanderings, yet I heartily wish they were over, and I
only endure the sights, and had much rather have seen them
than see them, though the while I am extremely astonished and
almost enchanted at them.
The bad weather has almost left us. On Tuesday the rain
was so violent and the sea so rough, we thought we should not
be able to land for dinner. We managed it — not without a
drenching — and went in the evening to the Palace, where
almost the whole island was assenbled. We were told we
should see a great variety of costumes ; but the rain kept the
country people away, and there were not above ten Greek
dresses in the room. There is an affectation among the people
of the English costume. The most remarkable sight was
Madame M. (the late Mrs. Heber) and her husband in Greek
dresses. He is certainly a striking-looking man, with a fine
profile, and an expression of benignity and dignity. The
rocms are magnificent. We had dined at the Artillery mess,
and found the officers the same intelligent gentleman-Uke men
as they were at Gibraltar. The Artillery, I believe, is superior
to the rest of the army. The mess is the best appointed, they
having the advantage of waggons, &c, to carry their things
about with. Certainly they live in sumptuous style. Major
Longley (brother of Longley of Harrow), who is resident at
Cerigo, was our host, and Archdeacon Froude had letters to
Colonel Armstrong. Our reception was an amusing contrast
to our entertainment at the Commander of the Forces, Sir
Alexander Woodford's, with whom we dined the two last days.
He has been extraordinarily civil, and even asked us a third
time — Saturday. This company was entirely military ; a

ISoo kjiv auAKU inc. nt.KMES — CORFU 283
number of dandy officers, aides-de-camp, &c, brimful of the
indifference which is now the fashion. At dinner, a formidable
round table neither top nor bottom, Greeks to wait, a service
of plate, dishes handed round, no conversation. However, I
made a slight acquaintance with one of these, who seems to
have good about him. He interests me, because in a measure
I enter into his state of mind. He has a good deal of talent
and taste — a German scholar, passionately fond of Weber's
music — feeling his superiority to the generality, who follow
base pleasures, yet (seemingly) substituting refinement for re-
Ugion. He has kindly undertaken to get me some Greek airs
transcribed, which I mean to send you.
On Wednesday and Thursday we took rides about the
country, the first of twenty miles, the next of thirty ; and
how am I to speak of their strangeness 1 There was nothing
to remind you of England but the high roads, which are
capital, on Macadam's plan. Olive is nearly the only tree ;
there are forests and parks of them, through which the road
winds. The leaf must be monotonous in summer, but it is
beautiful now. The tree is very like a willow, such as in
Christ Church Walk ; the trunk and branches being more
graceful and white. It does not grow to a great size commonly.
The trunk separates into parts when it is old. Often it pre
sents a network appearance, as honeycombed. The tree, I
think, never dies ; as one portion goes another shoots out.
However — (Monday, January 5, having left Corfu ; Ithaca in
sight) — the olive in Corfu is of no great age. They were
planted in Venetian times, a great many of an inferior kind.
There is great uncertainty in the right of property in them.
A tree is sometimes divided among two or three persons — the
divisions of land are vague. The olive requires scarcely any
cultivation, except care that the roots are not left bare, which
happens in a rocky soil with occasional heavy rain and steep
banks. There is very little corn grown, Indian corn instead ;
the land is too swampy for the former. Sir F. Maitland
attempted drainage, but failed.
But I have digressed from my ride. The beautiful cypress
was another strange sight. It stands when grown in groups
of two or three, shooting up in black graceful spires amid the
olives. The shaft is used for the masts and yards of the lateen-
rigged vessels. It is beautifully straight. The orange- tree,
again, is in full fruit, with its bright-polished leaf ; I did not
observe many wild, and none that were wild with fruit. The
fig is not in leaf. We had a loss, too, as regards the colours

284 John Henry Newman 1833
of the ground, which in spring, we were told, is covered with a
profusion of wild flowers (I have got the seeds for my Mother,1
but not of the most striking flowers). Even at this season
the brushwood and hedgerows are beautiful. The myrtle,
which is profusely spread over the country, is of a rich brown-
green. The vines are cut down at this season, and look like
stumps. There is a dwarf holly, too, and the arbutus, all
evergreen ; here and there the cactus and the aloe.
The moving portion of this strange scene was as strange
as the trees themselves. Peasants on horseback (mules are
scarce and fetch a high price), two persons on one, with their
legs on one side and their load before them ; they have few
carts — I didn't see one market-cart- flocks of goats, sheep,
not woolly like ours, but with soft fleeces like hair, flowing,
and with queer graceful little bodies ; cows, like wild cows, with
strange necks and backs, and of a dun or iron-grey colour.
The landscape itself is beautifully varied ; finely-formed
heights, intersected with plains, deep ravines, villages, or
rather towers, perched up upon the hills. Both days we
digressed from the road, cutting across country. In that way
we had a specimen of what travelling is in Greece ; you may
cut across almost anywhere, but for the most part at a walk.
You descend by beds of rivers, you cross rocks. How horses
go I can't conceive ; fancy riding over the ruins of a brick
wall, and you will have an idea of it, except that the stones
are not sharp. The rock here is chiefly limestone, and the
weather polishes it. The steps up to the houses are all marble —
strange at first sight. The villages in a deplorable condition,
and seem once to have been more important than they are
now. The people are marvellously idle. In Corfu the streets
swarm with men doing nothing ; and the roads are full of
them. In a village where we stopped, a horse having lost a
shoe, a collection of idlers of all ages came round us ; all
dirty and uncombed. The children are fine-looking, and some
of the men ; the women keep indoors. Their bread is very
fair (the corn comes from Poland and the Black Sea through
Odessa) ; though in these parts, from Spain to Corfu, they
leaven it. This gives it a sour taste when it is old. The
population of Corfu by itself is said to be 40,000, which is
almost incredible, though the statement comes from one who
ought to know. Our rides across country have given me some
definite notion of the state of .travelling in Greece in the
1 Mrs. Newman was fond of flowers and devoted to gardening.

1833 On board the 'Hermes' — Corfu 285
times of Thucydides, &c. (also I have some drawings). It is
astonishing I should have so long read about a country without
realising it, and I am amazed how it ever became one country ;
how its inhabitants ever had intercourse with each other, how
they ever could go to war, &c. &c. ; for it is one heap of
mountains thrown together in the wildest way conceivable.
The town of Corfu is very picturesque in the Venetian
style. The churches are very numerous — as in Oxford (they
say) there is a pot-house every ten houses, so of the churches
here. Dissenters are unknown in the Greek Church. There
seems much superstition here. On Saturday we saw the
church and body of St. Spiridion, who was one of the Nicene
Fathers, though doubtless it is not his body. He is the
patron saint of the island ; each of the seven has its own.
The churches are Venetian ; but why it was that the Venetians
extended the Greek communion I have not made out. St.
Spiridion's is small, but handsomely fitted up, though not so
much more so than a country church which I by chance went
into. I was surprised ; the two were so much alike in arrange
ment and decoration. A number of paintings in gilt frames,
not badly executed, the subject the history of Genesis and the
Last Judgment ; large silver lamps ; staUs, like in cathedrals,
for the chief persons and the infirm — for the Greeks stand in
prayer for the most part. At the east end a number of
pictures in parallel niches — apostles, prophets, &c. Lower
down, our Saviour, the Virgin, St. Gregory, ifec, Moses. A
door opens into what in England is called the chancel — where
seems to be the high altar — the Consecration, I suppose,
being private ; in St. Spiridion the saint's silver tomb and
body. The Greek clergy of these islands, as. of the Morea, are of
a lower rank, as our Methodists. They are said to be very
ignorant, but moral in their lives. They interfere little, or not
at all, with their flocks, who pay them their offerings and
receive the rites of religion as a quid pro quo. There seems to
be no endowments, but the clergy are dependent on their
people. There is a bishop to each island, paid by the Govern
ment 2501. per annum each. There seems to be no excom
munication. The Greeks are very rigid in their fasts ; besides
the forty days in Lent, they have forty before Christmas, and
some others. At these times they eat no meat ; the pirates
are as rigid in keeping them as others. I turned over the
leaves of one or two books in the country church ; one was a

286 John Henry Newman 1833
collection of prayers by John of Damascus. There was little
objectionable that I saw in either of the books ; much that was
very good. There was a prayer to the Virgin, a prayer to
the Guardian Angel ; but the doctrine of the Trinity was the
prominent subject of all of them. The pictures I spoke of
abounded in representations of the Deity ; in one I saw the
Trinity. St. Michael seems a principal saint here ; his figure
is prominent in the pictures of the Last Judgment.' At St.
Spiridion's people were ever coming in, weeping and bowing
and kissing the pictures.
There are two Latin churches at Corfu, and one English
¦ — the garrison church. The Chaplain is Mr. Leeves, of the
Bible Society. I had not been to church for five weeks till
yesterday, and it was quite a comfort to get there. I had
hoped there might have been the Sacrament. Yesterday, the
6th, was the Greek Christmas Day. Mr. Leeves has been
very kind ; we dined with him yesterday. We first met him
at Col. Baker's, where I dined twice-; and the second time,
Friday, the Froudes also. They are friendly and kind people.
I called on Mrs. Baker on Saturday, and sat with her an hour
and a half. She gave me all the seeds she had (they are
tender and require a greenhouse), and directed me to the Lord
High Commissioner's Gardens, about two mUes out of the
town. I went there, but unluckily he was out.
In one of the villages we rode through on Wednesday
there is a church built by Jovian. Unluckily, we did not
know it at the time. On Saturday we dined again at the
Artillery mess, and very well-informed men they are. We
were all extremely pleased with a Mr. Askwith, who went
about with us every day. He has been a great traveller in
Greece this year, and was full of information. On Friday
we went to see the ruins of the old town. The fortifications on
Vido, a small island opposite to the town of Corfu, are in
progress. When they are completed the defence of the place
wUl be committed to them — the Citadel and Fort Neuf ; the
others, viz. Fort Abraham, St. Salvador, &c, being aban
doned. They are very strong, of Venetian construction, but
would require a vast number of men to man them. Sir A.
Woodford has a fine pepper-tree in his garden ; his geraniums
are superb. I told you that at Zante a man's shop was fuU
of expensive cherry-sticks for pipes, and argued thence that
at least some of the people were well off. Now, I find, he has
been in the practice of showing off this one stick, which ha

1833 On board the 'Hermes' — Corfu 287
bought years ago. This shows how cautious one should be in
receiving the facts and inferences of travellers. The weather
has been dry and fine since Tuesday.
January 7. — Very cold. There is a great deal of snow on
the Albanian mountains. We set off last night, passing the
eastern side of Ithaca, and now are making for Patras, where
I hope to present my letter from Bowden to Sir John Franklin.
The Albanian mountains are said, one portion of them, to be
a hundred miles off from Corfu — yet they seem quite close.
We had wild boar from Albania at Corfu. Turkeys are the
principal fowl, and they are brought from Albania ; those which
are ready fattened for the table cost 3*. apiece. Ithaca wine
has a good deal of fla vour, and not at all heavy. It has grown
upon me. I have been much surprised at the cheapness of
living at Corfu. We have been making many inquiries to
guide us in our Sicilian expedition. The high road is fur
nished with excellent inns, but we mean to diverge, and to
Uve like gipsies.
In the meantime here are some verses for you.1
The better portion didst thou choose, Great Heart,
Thy God's first choice, and pledge of Gentile grace 1
Faith's truest type, he with unruffled face
Bore the world's smile, and bade her slaves depart;
Whether, a trader, with no trader's art,
He buys in Canaan his first resting-place,
Or 'freely yields rich Siddim's ample space,
Or braves the rescue and the battle's smart,
Yet scorns the heathen gifts of those he saved.
0 happy in their souls' high solitude
Who commune thus with God, and not with earth,
Amid the sooffings of the wealth-enslaved !
A ready prey, as though in absent mood
They calmly move, nor hear the unmannered mirth.*
At sea: December 27, 1832.
' Those poems that were transcribed in the letters home are inserted
in the. letters ; but they present an insufficient idea of the impulse
given to Mr. Newman's mind by new scenes, witnessed in freedom from
his accustomed studies and cares. In illustration, the names and dates
of poems written in December, but not inserted in the letters, are
given below : —

The Isles of the Sirens . Dec. 13
Absolution . . . Deo. 14
Memory. . . . Dec. 15
Fair Words . . . Dec. 17
Penance .... Dec. 23

The Course of Truth
Sleeplessness .
The Greek Fathers
The Witness .

. Dec. 24
. Dec. 26
. Dec. 23
. Dec. 30

2 Title, ¦ Abraham.'

288 John Henry Newman 1833
Thrice blest are they who feel their loneliness ;
To whom nor voice of friend nor pleasant scene
Brings that on which the sadden'd heart can lean.
Tea, the rich earth, garb'd in her daintiest dress
Of light and joy, doth but the more oppress.
Claiming responsive smiles and rapture high,
Till, sick at heart, beyond the veil they fly,
Seeking His Presence Who alone can bless.
Such, in strange days, the weapons of Heaven's grace;
When, passing by the high-born Hebrew line,
He forms the vessel of His vast design.
Fatherless, homeless, reft of age and place,
Severed from earth, and careless of its wreck,
Born through long woe His rare Melchizedek.1
Corfu: January 5, 1833. January 10, 1833.
We are now off Malta, and have had a swell which again
caused sea-sickness. We came off Patras at night, so I lost
Sir J. Franklin. Next morning — the 8th — we saw the range
of Arcadian mountains, and in the distance Parnassus. We
landed at Zante. From the hill above the town there is a
fine view of the plain, where almost all our pudding currants
are grown — a flat of about ten miles, surrounded with hills,
studded all over with houses, before each a square drying plot
for the currants. So many are grown that the duty this last
year on the exports was 95,000£. Sir J. FrankUn has been
off Patras in his sloop for eighteen months, and neither he nor
his crew have touched land once. What an imprisonment 1
King Otho was expected at Corfu to-day.
I do so long to hear from you ; there is just a chance of
my hearing at Malta by the packet that left London about the
19th. I dream about you all, and that letters are brought
me ; but, when I begin to read, they are illegible, or I wake
up, as if there were men trying to tell me and others preventing
it. And the ship bells are so provokingly like the Oriel clock,
that I fancy myself there. Whether my health is improved
I cannot tell. I long for the fifteen days of peace in the
Lazaret. This is my last day on the ' Hermes.' How much
have I seen in the course of five weeks ! Tell Williams he
may see my little poems to stimulate him.
I saw thee once, and nought discerned
For stranger to admire —
A serious aspect, but it burned
With no unearthly fire.
1 ' Melchizedek.'

1833 ON BOARD THE ' HERMES' 28Q
Again I saw, and I confessed
Thy speech was rare and high ;
And yet it vexed my burdened breast,
And scared, I knew not why.
I saw once more, and awe-struck gazed
On face, and form, and air ;
God's living glory round thee blazed—
A Saint — a Saint was there I
Off Zante: January 8, 1833.

Banished the House of sacred rest,
Amid a thoughtless throng
At length I heard its creed confessed,
And knelt the Saints among.
Artless his strain and unadorned,
Who spoke Christ's message there ;
But what at home I might have scorned,
Now charmed my famished ear.
Lord, grant me this abiding grace,
Thy Word and Sons to know ;
To pierce the veil on Moses' face,
Although his speech be slow I
At sea: January 9, 1833.

• If e'er I fall beneath Thy rod,
As through life's snares I go,
Save me from David's lot, O God I
And choose Thyself the woe.
How should I face Thy plagues 1 which scare,
And haunt, and stun, until
The heart or sinks in mute despair
Or names a random ill.
If else — then guide in David's path,
Who chose the holier pain ;
Satan and man are tools of wrath —
An angel's scourge is gain.
Off Malta: January 10, 1833.
1 ' David Numbering the People.'
VOI,. I.

290 John Henry Newman 1833

Rev. J. H. Newman to J. W. Bowden, Esq.
Lazaretto, Malta: January 20, 1833.
. . '. Only imagine my pleasure at being in these places !
I was in sUent wonder ; and everything so grand and beautiful,
and the mode of conveyance such that I could look on without
stop and without fatigue. I had Homer's ' Odyssey,' Virgil,
and Thucydides with me, and seemed transported back to their
times, for everything looks now just as it did then. Mountains
cannot change. . . .
I have only told you part, though the most interesting, of
our hitherto tour. We have seen Gibraltar, Cadiz, and Algiers.
The African mountains are most imposing. There are several
tiers of them, the most distant being Mount Atlas, which ran
alongside of us from Tangiers to Algiers. Over against
Gibraltar it rises 10,000 feet. Well did Homer in the begin
ning of the ' Odyssey ' speak of it as supporting the heaven
(as having //.a/cpas klovos ovpavov '). It has just that effect if
you take the Mediterranean as the great centre of the earth,
and the sky stretched over it as a curtain.
To his Sister Jemima.
Lazaretto, Malta: January 15, 1833.
You will now receive my letters only at intervals. How
ever, I shall put two into the post here which you will receive
about March. I begin at once from this house of my im
prisonment, though I am tempted to delay, for my hand is
quite tired with writing. My dear Mother will say I am
doing too much ; but to one who has been employing his mind
actively for years, nothing is so wearisome as idleness, nothing
so irksome as dissipation. I assure you, Ir feel much more
comfortable now than when I was on that restless element
which is the type of human life, and much less wearied in
prison than in seeing sights.
We seem to have narrowly missed getting to Napoli, and
so on, perhaps, to Athens ; for Archdeacon Froude had letters
to Sir H. Hotham, &c, and I to Captain Swinburne, who set
» Odyss. i. 53, 54.

1833 Lazaretto, Malta 291
off to meet King Otho the day after we came here — and might
possibly have taken us, had we been a little sooner ; but I
cannot bring myself to regret what, nevertheless, I should
have rejoiced in.
The ' Hermes ' left this place on Saturday last — the 12th —
and I saw it go off with strange feelings. I had been securely
conveyed in it for five weeks, during which time I had never
once slept ashore. It was a kind of home ; it had taken me
up from England, and it was going back there. I shall never
take a voyage again. As it went off, I seemed more cast upon
the world than I ever had been, and to be alone — no tie re
maining between England and myself ; nor any assignable
path by which I can get back.
We are very comfortable here. The weather has turned
fine, having been unusually wet for three months. We found
the same complaints off the Morea. At Cerigo the glass had
been as low as 40° At Corfu our first two days were unin
terrupted rain ; the last five beautifully clear ; the last two
very cold, almost bitter. When we returned to Patras there
had been ice. At Zante, on the contrary, nothing but rain.
Patras is a finer climate than Zante — that is, for agriculture.
They are sure of two months' fine weather just when the
fruits are ripening. People frighten us with forebodings
about the weather during our Sicilian expedition. They say
February is the rainy month. The climate must be perfectly
delightful, though hot, of course, in summer there. I am
writing in a large room twenty feet high, without furniture,
opening into others far larger, and all the windows, which are
casements, entirely open — that is, in fact, I am sitting in the
open air. The floors are stone. We use a fireplace at break
fast and dinner, for boiling eggs and heating our milk. I
believe in the whole. Lazaret there is but one fireplace beside
our own. We burn olive wood. I assure you we make our
selves very comfortable. We feed well from an hotel across
the water. The Froudes draw and paint. I have hired a
violin, and, bad as it is, it sounds grand in such spacious halls.
I write verses, and get up some Italian, and walk up and down
the rooms about an hour and a half daily ; and we have a boat,
and are allowed to go about the harbour.
This Lazaret was built by the Knights for the Turks, and
many a savage fellow, I dare say, has been here, but they leave
no trace behind them. We have four rooms besides a kitchen ;
two facing the water ; the farther of them we do not use at
TJ2

292

John Henry Newman

1833

1

a

6 '-
7 6\
5
—
6 =
liiiiilllllr
s
4
all ; the other is our sitting and eating room ; it looks out
upon the Greek and other vessels, the fortifications of Valetta,
some few houses of the town, two wind
mills, and the great church of St. John.
No. 3 is a very large room 48 by 30, I
suppose, and 20 to 22 high, arched.
There are deep recesses through the
wall for the windows, which form
dressing-rooms for Hurrell and me. Our
beds, at right angles to the depth of
the wall, blocking them up. Our bed
steads are iron, with light musquito
curtains. There we lie, with one or two
thin blankets, and a very hard mattress. No. 4 is a kind of
hall which we do not use. No. 5 is the kitchen. We have
ired a |man-of -all-work to wait on us. No. 6 is the balcony
running round the inside of the quadrangle ; a staircase de
scending from it at 7 into a court which opens by large gates
upon a terrace over the water, where we have a small confined
walk upon the flags. On this common ground all persons on
quarantine may show themselves ; they may sit on the same
seat successively, but they must not touch. One soon gets
accustomed to this ; nobody touches nobody. I have only to
add that my dressing-room window opens upon the chimney
of the baking-room for letters ; and the sharp, sour smell often
reminds me of Frank's letters which have been baked and
doctored there.
Yesterday we met at the parlatorio Sir John Stodart,
Chief Justice, to whom both Froude sjand I had letters. He
gave us a good deal of curious information about the state of
the Catholic Church in Malta. It seems Malta was not taken,
but capitulated to us ; and one of the provisions was that the
laws and the religion should be inviolate. Now, the clergy
here were independent altogether of the State in such a way
as hardly in any other Catholic country at present. Till
1813 nothing was done, for the Government thought the
island might be ceded at the peace ; but, after Bonaparte's
defeat in Russia, they resolved on keeping it. A Commissioner
was sent out to adjust the legal and ecclesiastical system.
Sir J. Richardson went on with it — when here in 1826 — and
Sir John Stodart is going on with it now. He is introducing
trial by jury, which at first sight is a problematical improve
ment. As to the clergy, they were tried in courts of their
1833 LAZARETTO, MALTA 293
own (as in Becket's time), and irresponsible to the civil power.
How was this to be altered 1 For a Catholic to violate the
rights of the Church is a mortal sin, from which not even the
Bishop — no one but the Pope— can release him. Supposing,
then, the King to make it law that the clergy should be sub
jected to the State courts, the execution of such a measure
would, of course, rest with native magistrates ; let them then
enforce it against a priest, and then go to their confessor.
The priest cannot absolve them ; he has not the power : he
can do nothing without the Pope's assent. This exemplifies
the admirable system of the Papacy as an instrument of
power. Accordingly, representations were made to the Pope
— at that time Leo XII. — and, though he was considered
strict in his adherence to the privUeges of the Church, the
Government managed to gain a continual dispensation for the
Catholic magistrates here : and that thus the clergy are vir
tually subject to the State courts. This system of dispensa
tions is in force in Austria.
There is another difficulty about the Bishop, who is under
the Archbishop of Palermo ; for which reason, and also as
claiming the suzerainete of Malta, the King of Naples claims
to appoint him. I believe this is not adjusted yet, though
there is no dispute just now. The Maltese are a very indus
trious race —a contrast to the Ionians. The most industrious
servants at Corfu are Maltese. There was a plan some time
since to relieve the place of its abundant population by send
ing them there ; but, whether from the difference of religion
or other cause, it did not answer. Malta increases by a
thousand souls a year. It has the largest population on the
smallest territory of any place in the world — above 100,000.
Sir John Stodart said he had a plan for colonising them to
Negropont. I suppose it would not do. January 23.
We are just out of quarantine. We shall be in Malta
ten days. Do not tell people, of course ; but we had myste
rious night visitants in the Lazaret, which have broken my
night's rest, even worse than the sea, and have, given me a
cold. We can account for them to a certain point, but no
further, a characteristic of most such stories. My companions
both distinctly heard steps in room 4 about two o'clock of the
night of the Nth and 18th. They are perfectly convinced on
the point ; we are locked in. About the same time I dreamed

294 John Henry Newman 1833
that a man came to me (our servant I thought) and told me
it was only an hour from rising time, and as we were going
on a boat expedition next morning, I wished to be punctual.
I was so fully impressed with the reality of it, that I lay
awake for some time on my back, not thinking it a dream, and
have almost ever since woke at that hour and fancied it morn
ing [I certainly heard steps about my bed]. On talking it over
in the morning, we recollected we had heard noises before.
On Sunday night last, the 20th, I was awakened by a noise
in room 2 as I thought, so loud that I smiled to myself, and
said : ' Clearly this is too earthly to be anything out of the
way.' When it had been repeated twice at intervals, it struck
me that someone might be taking away Mr. Froude's effects
(who sleeps in a window of that room), and who was audibly
fast asleep. So the fourth time it occurred, I hallooed out
' Who's there ? ' and sat up in my bed ready to spring out.
A deep silence followed, and I sat waiting a considerable time,
and thus I caught my cold. From that time to the time we
left I heard nothing. Now I must tell you that on the night
of the 1 7th our next-door neighbour left the Lazaret about
two o'clock and walked along the external gallery ; but the
wall between our room and the gallery is ten feet thick. You
may say the noises came from some strange transmission of
sound ; or you may say that the quarantine island is hardly
Christian ground. Anyhow, we cannot doubt that evU spirits
in some way or other are always about us ; and I had comfort
in the feeling that, whatever was the need, ordinary or extra
ordinary, I should have protection equal to it.1
1 Those who have heard Dr. Newman converse on the spiritual world
will recall *he impressiveness and sincerity of conviction in his manner.
After his visit to Barrow-on-Trent, October 6, 1874, Elizabeth Mozley,
writing to her brother, Dr. Mozley, touches on this : —
' One sees that Dr. Newman's great power Cand it came out on the
question of modern miracles, spiritual manifestations, &c.) is a certain
vivid realisation of the unseen, or rather that there is an unseen that
you cannot see. " How can people say what is, or is not, natural to
evil spirits 1 What is a grotesque manifestation to us may not be so to
them. What do we know about an evil spirit 1 " The words wera
nothing, but there was an intensity of realisation in his face as he said
them, of a reality and of his ignorance about it, that was a key to me
as to the source of his influence over others. The siyht of belief in
others is next to seeing yourself ; and men cling to it.'

295

To eis Mother.
Malta: January 26, 1833
The weather has been unusually severe here. My cold
caught in the Lazaret ripened the day I came out of it into
the most wretched cough I ever recollect having, as hard as
the stone walls, and far more tight than the windows. This
is Saturday, and we came out on Wednesday morning, and all
that whUe, with the exception of one imprudence, I have been
a close prisoner, nay, in my bedroom. fYesterday morning I
was not up till twelve o'clock, an event unprecedented in my
history, as far as memory goes. To-day I am much better,
but not well. I have engaged an Italian master. >
(1 have seen St. John's Church, and most magnificent it is.
It is in the same style as St. Peter's ; in richness and exact
ness, minuteness and completeness of decoration, far exceeding
anything I have ever seen.J I shall go to it once or twice
more to get some more accurate notion of it. It is built with
a nave with side aisles leading to separate chapels or altars,
e.g. the French chapel, the Italian, the Spanish. It is covered
throughout with the most costly marbles and with gilding ; a
multitude of pictures — some very fine — some statuary, splendid
tapestries, and silver lamps and candlesticks of course. In the
(Jhapel of the Communion are the famous sUver rails which
were saved from the clutches of Bonaparte by being painted
to look like wood ; he took away the gold rails. By this and
similar acts the French have made themselves hated here.
The Knights of St. John (the Baptist, not the Evangelist) were
not allowed to leave away their property, accordingly immense
sums were available for religious works. It is said they
brought from Rhodes property to the amount of 300,000£. a
year. I have hitherto seen little of the Greek and Latin churches,
but what I have seen fires me ' with great admiration.' I do
not perceive that my opinion has in any respect changed
about them ; but (it is fearful to have before one's eyes the
perversion of all the best, the holiest, the most exalted feelings
of human nature. ) Everything in St. John's Church is admir
able, if it did not go too far ; it is a beautiful flower run to
seed. I am impressed with a sad presentiment, as if the gift-
of truth when once lost was lost for ever. And so the Chris
tian world is gradually becoming barren and effete, as land

296 John Henry Newman 1833
which has been worked out and has become sand. We have
lasted longer than the South, but we too are going, as it would
seem. As to the number of sects which have split off from the
Church, many of them have already ended in Socinianism and
heresy worse than any in Rome or Constantinople. All this
does not interfere with good men being in any Church, nor is
there any proof that we have more than they, though if you
cut away from us those who are in no sense Churchmen,
though called so, I think there are more in us, as far as
appearances go. By-the-bye, what answer do Protestants
make to the fact of the Greek Church invoking saints, over-
honouring the Virgin, and substituting ceremonies for a
' reasonable service,' which they say are the prophetic marks
of Anti-Christ 1 I do not see that the Romanists are more
than advanced Greeks, the errors being the same, though less
in degree in the latter.
I was speaking just now of the Maltese disliking the
French. They are said to like the Russians, as the Greeks
do ; but there is so much contradictory testimony. All agree
that they are a very industrious race, being an exception to
the general Mediterranean character ; I suppose they are
Arabs or Moors in great measure. Paul was Grand Master
of the Order, and I suppose the Russians narrowly missing
getting the island, instead of us, their troops, which were to
have co-operated with the English, being suddenly called off
to act together with the French against us, they appointed
wealthy men as commanders of their vessels in these parts,
with orders to spend a good deal of money among the Maltese
population. About five years ago they quite enriched the
place. At present there is extreme poverty. We are told
that, if any other people were so distressed, there would be
a mob of 4,000 or 5,000 starving men every morning at the
Governor's palace.
I cannot help thinking how we have been favoured in the
weather. The two packets which came out the two months
before successively had uninterrupted bad weather. A
steamer, which set out four days before us, damaged its
engine, and put into Lisbon for three weeks, arriving here as
we returned from Corfu. The brig that took out Lord Nugent
also suffered. This is a most curious town : the people are
very kind, and we overflow with invitations ; but somehow I
do not like the place, though I have seen little of it. I shaU

1833 MALTA 2Q7
be glad to be quiet at Rome or Naples for a while. Rome ia
the city of the Apostles, and a place to rest one's foot in,
whatever be the after-corruption. We shaU go almost by the
track of St. Paul from Malta to Rome. January 27.
Yesterday, in my solitude, I finished my Patriarchal
Sonnets. I now have completed fifty-four sets for Rose,
and am not anxious to do any more ; but, when thoughts
come into my head, it is impossible to resist the tempta
tion of fixing them. It is Sunday morning. I think of St.
Mary's and Littlemore. We do not know how great our
privileges are. All the quiet and calm connected with our
services is so beautiful in memory, and so soothing, after the
sight of that most exciting religion which is around me —
statues of the Madonna and the Saints in the streets, &c. &c. —
a more poetical but not less jading stimulus than a pouring
forth in a Baptist chapel. How awful seems (to me here) the
crime of demolition in England ! All one can say of Whigs,
Radicals, and the rest is, that they know not what they do.
Archdeacon Froude has just forbidden my going to church on
account of my cold. I have been to church only once since
I left England. Many the guileless years the Patriarch spent
Blest in the wife a father's foresight chose ;
Many the prayers and gracious deeds which rose,
Daily thank-offerings, from his pilgrim tent.
Yet these, though written in the heavens, are rent
From out truth's lower roll, which sternly shows
But one sad trespass at his history's close —
Father's, son's, mother's, and its punishment.
Not in their brightness, but their earthly stains
Are the true Seed vouchsafed to earthly eyes.
Sin can read sin, but dimly scans high grace ;
So we move heavenward with averted face,
Scared into faith by warning of sin's pains ;
And saints are lowered that the world may rise.'
Valletta : January 23, 1833.

0 specious sin and Satan's subtle snare,
That urges sore each gentlest, meekest heart
When its kind thoughts are crushed and its wounds smart,
World-sick to turn within, and image there
1 'Isaac'

298 John Henry Newman 1833
Some idol dream to lull the throbbing care !
So felt reft Israel when he fain would part
With living friends j and called on memory's art
To raise the dead and soothe him by despair.
Nor err they not, although that image be
God's own ; nor to the dead their thoughts be given,
Earth-hating sure, but yet of earth enthralled ;
For who dare sit at home and wait to see
High Heaven descend, when man from self is called
Up through this thwarting outward world to Heaven i ¦

O purest semblance of the Eternal Son I
Who dwelt in thee, as in some blessed shrine,
To draw hearts after thee, and make them thine ;
Not parent only by that light was won,
And brethren crouch'd who had in wrath begun,
But heathen pomp abased her at the sign
Of a hid God, and drank the sound divine
Till a king heard, and all thou bad'st was done.
Then was fulfill'd Nature's dim augury,
That ' Wisdom, clad in visible form, would be
So fair that all must love and bow the knee ' ;
Lest it might seem, what time the Substance came,
Truth lack'd a sceptre, when it but laid by
Its beaming front, and bore a willing shame.*
Lazaret, Malta: January 20, 1833.

Latest born of Jesse's race,
Wonder lights thy bashful face,
While the Prophet's gifted oil
Seals thee for a path of toil.
We, thy angels, circling round thee,
Ne'er shall find thee as we found thee
When thy faith first brought us near
In thy lion-fight severe.
Go ! and mid thy flocks awhile
At thy doom of greatness smile j
Bold to bear God's heaviest load,
Dimly guessing of the road — ¦
Bocky road, and scarce ascended,
Though thy foot be angel tended.
Two-fold praise thou shalt attain,
In royal court and battle plain ;
Then comes heart-ache, oare, distress,
Blighted home, and loneliness ;
Wounds from friend and gifts from foe,
Dizzied faith, and guilt, and woe ;
1 'Israel.' s 'Joseph.'

1833 Malta 299
Loftiest aims by earth defiled,
Gleams of wisdom sin-beguiled.
Sated power's tyrannic mood,
Counsels shared with men of blood,
Sad success, parental tears,
y And a dreary gift of years.
Strange, that guiltless face and form
To lavish on the scarring storm I
Tet we take thee in thy blindness,
And we buffet thee in kindness :
Little chary of thy fame,
Dust unborn may bless or blame;
But we mould thee for the root
Of man's promised healing Fruit ;
And we mould thee hence to rise,
As our brother, to the skies.1
Lazaret, Malta: January 18, 1833. January 28.
I am properly taken at my word. I have been sighing
for rest and quiet. This is the sixth day since I left the
' Lazaret ' ; and I have hardly seen or spoken to anyone. The
Froudes dine out every day, and are out aU the morning of
course. The two last days they have been on a visit to a
friend [I wished and insisted on their doing all this]. Last
night I put a blister on my chest, and, never having had one
on before, you may fancy my awkwardness in taking it off and
dressing the place of it this morning. I ought to have had
four hands. Our servant was with the Froudes, and the
people of the house are so dirty, cheating, and ignorant of
English, that they make a mistake whatever is told them.
Never was such a take-in as this place : we were recommended
to go elsewhere. Well, I am set upon a solitary life, and
therefore ought to have experience what it is ; nor do I repent.
But even St. Paul had his ministers. I have sent to the
Ubrary and got ' Marriage ' to read ! Don't smile — this juxta
position is quite accidental. You are continually in my
thoughts, of course. I know what kindness I should have at
home ; and it is no new feeling with me, only now for the
first time brought out, that I do not feel this so much as I
ought. Thank God, my spirits have not faUed me once.
They used, when I was solitary, but I am callous now.
Last night, as I put on my blister, I reflected it was just a
week since I caught my cold at the Lazaret by speaking to a
ghost. I wonder how long I shaU last without any friend
> ' The Call of David.'

300 John Henry Newman 1833
about me. Scripture so clearly seems to mark out that we
should not be literally solitary. The Apostles were sent two
and two, and had their attendants, so I suppose I should
soon fail. I am glad Frank [in Persia] has the comfort of
friends about him. February 2.
Since I wrote, Dr. Davy (to whom we had letters through
Mr. Hawkins among others) has recommended me a simple
remedy, which has almost, if not entirely, cured my cough —
fifty drops of antimonial wine three times a day. My morn
ing dose has made me feel not qualmish but languid till break
fast-time, but otherwise I have had no inconvenience from the
remedy at all, and it is wonderfully efficacious. February 14.
Just arrived at Naples. I am quite weU, as if I had never
had a cough. We have seen Egesta, Palermo, and Messina.
To his Sistee Harriett.
Naples: February 16, 1833.
Our two days' impression of Naples is very unfavourable.
We find a cUmate variable, capricious, bleak, stormy, and
miserable ; moreover, the streets overrun with mud and water,
not dripping, but pouring from the houses. We find everyone
we come in contact with — custom-house officers, shopmen,
and populace — thieves and cheats, having been subjected,
every step we have taken, to all sorts of provoking imposi
tions. We find such despicable frivolity, so connected with
religious observances, as to give the city a pagan character.
I am in vain trying to find out whether there are any letters
from you to me at the post-office. They are so careless that
some persons have been kept from their letters before now for
five weeks, and yet I do not know what other direction to
give you than Naples. . We shall stay here about a fortnight.
I got my Mother's letter yesterday from the Neales. My
present notion is to get Edward Neale to go through SicUy
with me in AprU. The Froudes have decided on giving up
Sicily and going home by the Rhine.
WeU, we left Malta on the 7th. Its climate is uncertain
and stormy in winter, though more than usually so this
season. Some days, after we left the ' Lazaret,' were piercingly
cold. Dr. Davy told me there was an endless passage of
wind from Africa to Europe during the winter, and that the

1833 Naples 301
barometer was always very unsettled. I was confined to my
room nearly the whole fortnight we were out of quarantine.
The Neapolitan steamer came (on Monday the 4th) just as I
was getting quite well of my cough. On Tuesday I went to
St. Paul's Bay by water ; and this expedition, with walking
a little about the streets, is all ;I have seen of Malta. The
houses are superb. They are great palaces. The Knights
spent their money in houses and fortifications. The houses in
Messina, Palermo and here are very splendid, but they are
inhabited in floors ; whereas in Malta one man — say Dr. Davy
— has the whole house, with its square court within, galleries,
<5rc. The rooms are magnificently lofty, and every part of
stone. The streets are straight, and at right angles to each
other ; the fortifications prodigious in point of size and extent,
but not worth much in a military point of view, each Grand
Master adding to his predecessor's work without unity of plan
or use for modern purposes. St. John's Church properly be
longed to the Government, and might have been made the
Protestant Church, as it was buUt by the Knights, and not
part of the island's Church property ; but, by mismanagement,
it was given to the Romanists, or perhaps it was impossible
for us to do otherwise. The present Protestant chapel is
insufficient to contain more than the chief English families ;
the multitude of English being left to either total neglect of
religious observance, or to the Roman Catholic priests, or the
Wesleyans, as the case may be.
I forget what opinion I gave about the attachment of the
Maltese to the English ; our final and confirmed opinion was
that they do not Uke us. England has laid a heavy corn tax
on them, which gaUs them much ; 1 20,000£. is thus raised,
which is profusely laid out in quasi-sinecures, and, after all, a
balance is transmitted to England. Few Maltese are put into
any posts of importance. It is urged, on the other hand, that
responsible men, Englishmen of wealth, must be put into places
which yet it is confessed none but Maltese deputies can execute.
So much about Malta.
We left Malta on board the ' Francisco,' a Glasgow-buUt
steamer beautifully appointed, with passengers to the number
of seventy or eighty, who had come from Naples to see the
island. There was Prince Galitzin, and the wife of the
Governor of Wallachia and Moldavia, and counts and princes
numberless, who spat about deck and cabin without any con
cern, Poles, Russians, Germans, French. The only gentlemen-

302 John Henry Newman 1833
like men were the princes of Rohan,1 Carlists,, who prose
cuted Madame de Feucheres last year. The elder one was a
sedate and pleasingly-mannered man, with a countenance like
Henri IV. Our voyage was singularly prosperous — a calm sea
and a warm atmosphere. We got to Messina in twenty-four
hours, and landing at one in the morning, encountered the
misery of custom-house officers for the first time, and a strange
language (it was our first foreign ground), and unluckily as we
landed it began to rain copiously. We were two days at
Messina, and starting thence on Saturday evening (last) arrived
at Palermo early Sunday morning. There the steamer stayed
two days ; on Wednesday morning we left Palermo and arrived
here with a swift passage in twenty hours on Thursday. Thus
I give our itinerary before speaking of Sicily.
Little as I have seen of Sicily, it has fiUed me with inex
pressible delight and (in spite of dirt and other inconveniences)
I am drawn to it as by a loadstone. The chief sight has been
Egesta (Segesta), its ruins with its temple. ( 0 wonderful
sight ! full of the most strange pleasure — strange from the
position of the town, its awful desolateness, the beauty of
the scenery, rich even in winter, its historical recollections
by contrast with the misery of the population, the depth of
squalidness and brutality by which it is surrounded) It has
been a day in my life to have seen Egesta. From the moment
I saw Sicily I kept saying to myself, ' This is that Sicily 5 ; but
I must stop if I am to find room in this letter for Messina
and Palermo, though really my mind goes back to the recollec
tions of last Monday and Tuesday, as one smells again and
again at a sweet flower.
1 The following passage is from a letter of Miss Frere's, pp. 241-242
in Sir Bartle Frere's Memoir of the Bight Hon. John Hookham Frere.
It is written from Malta, Feb. 11, 1833 :—
' These twj Frenchmen (great people, they had been in the steamer
with us, Rohans, I think), of finished manners, like the very best style
of English breeding, made a pleasant contrast with our three English
strangers, Archdeacon Froude, his son, and another clergyman, their
friend, who have a becoming simpUcity and placidity of deportment,
very agreeable also. We were sorry at their going, just as we found
out that we liked them. The son, on whose account they are travelling,
is quite well ; but the friend, Mr. Newman of Oriel, was confined with
some ailment of his chest. My brother had some good talk with him
one morning, and would have liked to introduce his Aristophanes to
him, had there been fair opportunity. The brother of this Mr. Newman
is a young man of great promise who has left the fairest prospect of
advancement in England to go a missionary to Persia.'

1833 From Palermo to Naples 303
February 17.
Another day of pouring rain, and a miserable scirocco,
howling as at Corfu. The wretches at the post-office, to whom
I have been five times, and most of the times by their own
appointment, have not yet examined whether there are any
letters due to me from you, though I cannot doubt there are.
WeU, for my narrative : — When we rose on the Friday morn
ing, the 8th, Sicily laid alongside us in mist, Etna invisible, at
least its top. As we approached the coast, we saw a vast
number cf ridges running up the country, steep, sharp, and
covered with olives and vines, every now and then a sand-
course into the sea, the bed of a flumara or torrent. We were
off Taormini : Italy on the other side in mist. We landed by
about ten o'clock, and having so many on board, had a diffi
culty in getting lodged. In spite of the threatening weather,
we walked up a high hill, 2,000 feet (the next day was beauti
ful), and I saw at my feet the Straits of Messina, with Scylla
and Charybdis and the fine coast of Calabria, with Reggio.
Charybdis is now the site of the Mole, and consists of Uttle
whirlpools, which in consequence have spent themselves. But
both it and ScyUa are still dangerous for small sailing vessels,
which, getting into the current from the one, are sent forward
upon the other.
We went into many of the churches both here and at
Palermo, and saw somewhat of the Roman service, which is
less reverent than the Greek, being far more public. There is
no screen, the high altar is in sight. Palermo is a far richer
and finer place than Messina ; some of the churches are magni
ficent. It is a beautiful city, and contains 160,000 inhabitants.
It lies in a splendid bay of bold mountains, snow-capped in
part. On the extreme right as you enter is Monte PeUegrino,
which in ancient times, I think, AmUcar held for three years
against the Romans. The whole scenery is wild and fearful,
with a very rich vaUey lying at the foot of it, in which the
city is placed. Far on the left you see Etna, a mass of white
with a smaU cloud above its summit. The city mainly con
sists of two streets intersecting each other at right angles, and
one of them perhaps a mUe long. The houses are very fine ;
numerous convents, which run along the upper floors — shops,
&c, being below. There is a splendid promenade running
along the water's edge. It was the carnival time, and the
main streets were thronged with people as full as London.
Fancy this at the length of a mUe. The beggars were incredibly

304 John Henry Newman 1833
importunate, thrusting their hands into one's face and keep
ing, them there for several hundred yards, till they, came to
the end of their beat, when others succeeded them. They
have a miserable whine, in all parts of the island that we have
seen, so as to make one quite nervous. The streets are filthy
beyond expression, and the mixture of greatness with littleness
is strange to an Englishman. They are paved side to side
with flags ; there is no footway. At Naples they are not so
filthy as in Sicily, and the beggars less troublesome, but the
boys at Naples are thieves. Froude has already lost a hand
kerchief, and I have had one half pulled out of my pocket, and
have caught one or two boys peeping into it.
We dined last Tuesday at Palermo with Mr. Ingham, one
of the principal British merchants, and yesterday (at Naples)
with Moberly's brother-in-law, Mr. Bennett, the chaplain here.
I ought to give you an account of an Italian dinner as we first
became acquainted with it on board the steamer, after waiting
till we were very hungry. First a course of cheese, pickles,
anchovies, raw sausages of mule's flesh — then soup, then some
boiled meat, then fish, then cauliflower, then a fowl ; lastly,
pastry with dessert. You are never helped twice. I see now
the meaning of the English phrase, ' cut and come again.' Yet
sometimes, as at Mr. Ingham's, this dinner becomes quite
superb. All over the South, according to our experience, after
two or three glasses of wine, the cloth not being removed,
coffee (one small cup) is brought in, which is followed by some
Uqueur, and so the entertainment ends.

To his Sister Jemima.
Naples: February 19, 1833.
We have fallen on bad weather at Naples. The books tell
us that a perpetual spring is here ; but more piercing winds,
and more raw, wretched rains, I have scarcely ever felt. For
invaUds the place is emphatically bad ; especially when they
don't see the harm of Unen wet from the wash. But yesterday,
when we went to Baiae, was a magnificent day. On Thursday
evening we went to the Opera. In spite of my reasonings,
which I continue to think sound, I felt so great a repugnance
to going, that, had I been alone, I should not have gone.
There was nothing there to offend me, however, more than
that the whole oity offends me. It is a frivolous, dissipated

1833 From Palermo to Naples 305
place. This is carnival time, and all sorts of sUly saturnalia
between King and people are going on. Religion is turned
into a mere occasion of worldly gaiety — as in the history of
the Israelites— and the sooner we are out of so bad a place
the better. And now I shaU leave mention of Naples, which
even in its scenery much disappoints me, after the glorious
SicUy and the majestical bay of Palermo.
That bay is, in my eyes, far finer than that of Naples. It
is not to the purpose that we have had bad weather here, for
I am speaking of outlines. The bay of Naples is partly sur
rounded by lumpish cliffs. In Palermo you have a theatre of
the most graceful mountains. Here is the difference between
SicUy and Greece. As far as the drawings I have seen, and
my experience, such as it is, confirms them, in Greece the view
is choked up with mountains ; you cannot move for them.
But in SicUy you have ample plains,1 and the high ground
rises out of them at its ease, calmly, and with elbow-room.
This is the beauty of the bay of Palermo ; but other influences
come in to move me. I saw the most interesting (profane)
country after Egypt ; and its history — beginning with the
highest antiquity — unites in due time both with the Greek
history and the Roman. It was the theme of almost every
poet and every historian, and the remains in it of the past are
of an earlier antiquity and more perfect than those of other
countries. And now it Ues in desolation under a bad Govern
ment. Not tricked out in the vanities of modern times, but
as if in mourning, yet beautiful as ever. These thoughts
suggested the following sonnet :
Why, wedded to the Lord, si ill yearns my heart
Upon these scenes of ancient heathen fame 1
Yet legend hoar, and voice of bard that came
Fixing my restless youth with its sweet art,
And shades of power, and those who bare their part
In the mad deeds that set the world in flame,
So fret my memory here. — Ah ! is it blame
That from my eyes the tear is fain to start 1

1 The following comparison illustrates the ground of that harmony
with Mr. Newman's nature which so attracted him to Sicilian scenery.
Writing to his sister, J. C. M., in 1847, he says :
' In myself I like an extensive view with tracts bold and barren in
It. Such as Beethoven's music seems to represent.'
VOL. I. X

306 John Henry Newman 1833
Nay, from no fount impure these drops arise ;
'Tis but the sympathy with Adam's race
Which in each brother's history reads its own.
So let the cliffs and seas of this fair place
Be named man's tomb and splendid record stone.
High hope pride-stained, the course without the prize.1
Messwia: February 9, 1833.
At Palermo the wife of the Governor of Moldavia and
Wallachia took the whole town. After being boxed about
from place to place, we contrived to secure two rooms, which
we pronounced to be unbearably filthy. Put it is astonishing
how our standard falls in these parts. On our return from
Egesta we pronounced them to be, ' after all, very fair apart
ments.' We got into them by ten or eleven on Sunday.
That night we went to bed early, and were called at three
next morning to commence our journey to Egesta, for we were
resolved to make the most of our time, the vessel starting on
Wednesday morning for Naples. By four we were off. A
traveUing carriage, drawn by three mules with bells, a driver
and his boy behind, and a servant hired as a guide for three
days, formed our set-out. We stop in the town at a cafe for
something warm in the shape of coffee, for we have a journey
of forty-three miles before us over a cold mountain country ;
and then eight or nine miles to and fro on mules before we
were to eat or drink again. A morsel of bread was our sole
breakfast. The revellers were returning home from the grand
masquerade as we recommenced our journey, the mule-bells ring
ing and clinking in the dark, till we came to the suburbs, and
began our long ascent of twelve mUes. What a wonderful
prospect broke on us with the day — wild, grey, barren emi
nences tossed about, many with their heads cut off by clouds,
others lighted up by the sun ! Then we descended into a
stupendous valley, a sheer descent of rock on each side of us,
of perhaps a thousand feet, meeting at an acute angle, and the
road then cut on one of them. Then foUowed a richly fertile
plain, large every way, full of oUves, corn, vines, with towns
interspersed, the bay of Castel-a-mare bounding it, around which
bold and beautiful mountains rear themselves. After passing
through one town we came to Scala di Partenico, where we
changed horses, and soon came to Alcamo, thence to Calatafimi,
which ended our drive, by half- past one. I now begin to un
derstand how Sicily was a corn country, not merely in vales and
plains, but up slopes of long hUls which are cultivated up to
the top, and in the midst of rocks and precipitous descents.
1 'Messina.'

1833 Egesta 307
I recommended a slight 'refection,' as Lady Margaret
would say, before starting on our mules ; so, after an egg or
two, we set off for the Temple, which is four miles off, and
which came in sight suddenly, after we had advanced about a
mile. Oh that I could tell you one quarter what I have to
say about it ! First, the surrounding scene on approaching it
is a rich valley — now, don't fancy valleys and hills as in
England ; it is all depth and height, nothing lumpish — and
even at this season the colouring is rich. We went through
groves of oUve and prickly pear, and by orange orchards till
we came to a steep hill covered with ruins. We wound up
the ascent — once doubtless a regular road to the city gate —
and, on surmounting the brow, we saw what we had seen at a
distance (and what we saw also afterwards at the end of a
long valley on leaving the plain of Castel-a-mare for Palermo),
the Temple. Here the desolation was a striking contrast to
the richness of the valley we had been passing. The hill on
which we stood was covered with ruins, especially of a theatre.
Opposite to it, a precipitous rock started out of the ravine
below. On the lull beyond it there were, as on our hill, ruins ;
and we conjectured they might mark the site of the Greek
town, but on the circular hUl there was nothing but a single
Temple. Such was the genius of ancient Greek worship —
grand in the midst of error, simple and unadorned in its
architecture : it chose some elevated spot, and fixed there its
solitary witness, where it could not be hid. I believe it is the
most perfect building remaining anywhere — Doric — six gigan
tic pillars before and behind, twelve in length, no roof. Its
history is unknown. The temples of later and classical tunes
have vanished — the whole place is one ruin, except this in the
waste of solitude. A shepherd's hut is near, and a sort of
farmyard —a number of eager dogs — a few.rude intrusive men,
who would have robbed us, I fancy, had they dared. On the
hill on which the theatre stood was a savage-looking buU,
prowling amid the ruins. Mountains around and Eryx in the
distance. The past and the present ! Once these hills were
full of life ! I began to understand what Scripture means
when speaking of lofty cities vaunting in the security of their
strongholds. What a great but ungodly sight was this place
in its glory ! and then its history ; to say nothing of Virgil's
fictions. Here it was that Nicias came ; this was the ally of
Athens ; what a strange place ! How did people take it into
their heads to plant themselves here ? At length we turned
x2

308 John Henry Newman 1833
about, and got back to Calatafimi by six o'clock. And now I
ought to teU you about Calatafimi and the towns we passed
through to get there, in order to complete the picture, but I
have not done it and cannot.
I send two songs a la mode de Walter Scott.
When mirth is full and free,
Some sudden gloom shall be;
When haughty power mounts high,
The Watcher's axe is nigh.
All growth has bound ; when greatest found
It hastes to die.
When the rich town, that long
Has lain its huts among,
Bears its new structures vast,
And vaunts, — it shall not last I
Bright tints that shine are but a sign
Of summer past.
And when thine eye surveys,
With fond adoring gaze
And yearning heart, thy friend,—
Love to its grave doth tend.
All gifts below, save Truth, but grow
Towards an end.1
Valletta: January 30, 1833.

When Heaven sends sorrow,
Warnings go first,
Lest it should burst
With stunning might
On souls too bright
To fear the morrow.
Can science bear us
To the hid springs
Of human things ?
Why may not dream
Or thought's day gleam
Startle, yet cheer us ?
Are such thoughts fetters,
While Faith disowns
Dread of earth's tones,
Becks but Heaven's call,
And on the wall
Beads but Heaven's letters ? 2

Between Calatafimi and Palermo: February 12, 1833.
1 ' Prosperity.' » ' Warnings.'

1833 Sicily 309
To his Mother. February 28, 1833.
We leave Naples for Rome to-morrow morning. You
may send me letters directed either to N aples, to Mr. Oates,
70 Vicolo Freddo, or to Rome, till just after the Oriel elec
tion, which is April 12 ; a letter will get to me by May 2
at Rome or Naples on my return (please God) from Sicily
homeward. I suppose I shall get to England by the begin
ning of June. »
We returned yesterday from Psestum. We have not
achieved Vesuvius. To return to Sicily.
I left Jemima without an account of the condition of the
lower classes in Sicily. I will now give you a traveller's de
scription, which is proverbially superficial. The mixture of
grandeur and dirt in the towns is indescribable, and to
an Englishman incomprehensible. There, at Naples and at
Palermo and Messina, the beggars are fearful, both in their
appearance and their importunity. One fellow at Messina
stuck by us for two hours. At Palermo they have beats ;
here at Naples their horribleness has most struck me : at
Palermo their dirt and squalidness. Oh, the miserable
creatures we saw in Sicily ! I never knew what human
suffering was before. ChUdren and youths who look as if
they did not know what fresh air was, though they must have
had it in plenty — well, what water was— with features sunk,
contracted with perpetual dirt, as if dirt was their food. The
towns of Partenico and Alcamo are masses of filth ; the street
is a pool ; but Calatafimi, where we slept ! — I dare not men
tion facts. Suffice it to say, we found the poor children of the
house slept in holes dug into the wall, which smelt not like a
dog-kennel, but like a wUd beast's cage, almost overpowering
us in the room upstairs. I have no sleep all night from
insects of prey ; but this was a slight evil. The misery is
increased from the custom of having the stable on the ground
floor and the kitchen on the first. The dweUing is on the
second floor. Yet it is pleasing to discern a better seeming
class amid the misery ; even at Alcamo there were tidy clean-
looking women, and outside the towns much washing was
going on. A great number of the Sicilians and Calabrians
we have seen are a striking and bright-looking race — regular

? i 1 ¦ 

310 john Henry ivewman 1833
and red healthy-looking cheeks. At Amalfi yesterday we
were quite delighted with them.
^The state of the Church is deplorable. It seems as if
Satan was let out of prison to range the whole earth again?)
As far as our little experience goes, everything seems to
confirm the notion received among ourselves of the priest
hood, while on the other hand the Church is stripped of
its temporalities and reduced to distress. The churches at
Messina and Palmero are superb, and there is a fine church
at Monreale, which is the see of the Primate (there are,
perhaps, ten sees ia the island). It is worth 10,000£. a year,
but the present bishop compounds with Government for 2, OOOJ.
I think I heard that originally the Sicilian Church was ex
pected to support the poor, but that the bishops compounded
for this by giving a certain sum to Government, which is now
spent in paying Government pensions. ' We have just heard
of the Irish Church Reform Bill. WeU done ! my blind
Premier, confiscate and rob, till, like Samson, you pull down
• the PoUtical Structure on your own head !} At Naples the
poverty of the Church is deplorable. All its property we
are told is lost. The grandfather of the present King, the
Lazzaroni king, began the confiscation ; the French completed
it. Thus these countries have the evils of Protestantism
without its advantages — that is, Anglican Protestantism ; for
there are no advantages whether in schism like Dissent, or
Socinianism such as Geneva's. But here, too, they have
infidelity and profaneness, as if the whole world (Western) were
tending towards some dreadful crisis. I begin to hope that
England after all is to be the ' Land of Saints ' in this dark
hour, and her Church the salt of the earth. We met in the
steamer an American who was a pompous man, and yet we
contracted a kind of affection for him. He was an Episcopalian,
and had better principles far than one commonly meets with
in England, and a docile mind. We are quite sorry to have
lost sight of him. Is the American Church to serve any
purpose in the Divine scheme 1 I begin to inquire whether
the Revelations do not relate to the European world only, or
Roman Empire, so that as ages of time may be summed up
in the first verses of Genesis, and the history commences only
with the creation of man, so the prophecy may end with the
history of Christianity in the Roman Empire, and its fortunes
in America or China may be summed up obscurely in a few
concluding sentences ; if so one would almost expect some

1833 Sicily 311
fresh prophecy to be given when the end of the European
period comes. I should add we afterwards found out that our
good friend belonged to the Wesleyan Episcopalians. To
return, doubtless there are God's saints here, and perhaps
brighter ones than with us. We heard of one man — at Messina,
I think — who, while bearing his witness against the profligacy
of the priesthood, rigidly attends Mass, and, on being asked
why, answered that the altar is above the priest, and that God
can bless His own ordinances, in spite of the instruments
being base. This seems very fine, but the majority of the
laity who think, run into infidelity. The priests have lost
influence exceedingly since the peace. The French Revolution
and Empire seem to have generated a plague, which is slowly
working its way everywhere. At Malta we heard the same,
and at Corfu.
I have been asking myself what the especial beauty of
Naples (that is the Bay) is, and why we are disappointed with
it, which we continue to be. fNow its fame seems to arise,
first, from the mountains and high hills scattered round it,
and next from the beauty of the colouring; Now, as to the
second point, we have not seen this by reason of the season.
I can fully believe that in fine weather the painting of the
scene is enchanting, and am convinced that the colours are
almost different in kind from anything we have in England.
But this I beUeve is the case with Corfu too, and in fact I
think that Corfu had spoilt us for Naples. As to the first
point, the land outline is certainly fine, especially Vesuvius, a
graceful object on the left, and the islands. Add to these a
grand expanse of water, calm, and dark blue — what can be
finer? Nothing, to those who have not seen Corfu. The
panorama there is far grander and more varied. The town
itself contains two picturesque rocks. Naples is surrounded by
lumpish cUffs like bolsters. Vesuvius indeed is perfect in its
way as a beautiful object, but cannot compare in grandeur
with the San Salvadore range at Corfu, which is a long ridge
as high as Vesuvius, and is taken up by the Albanian moun
tains, some of which, 100 miles off, are little inferior in height
to the Alps. Whereas the Salerno range, striking as it is, is at
the highest pcint not above 4,000 feet. Then at Corfu you
have inland seas, and hills covered with oUve-trees far finer in
shape and size than anything I have found here or in Sicily,
and the beautiful cypress, which I have seen nowhere else. So
that we have come to the conclusion that Naples is a watering-

312 JOHN HENRY IVEWMAN 1833
place with watering-place scenery, and will be admired chiefly
by watering-place people ; with a delightful climate in its
season — a place for animal gratification and as such chosen
by the luxurious Romans, who, tired with the heat of Rome,
made Babe their Brighton. We have seen the vUlas of
Lueullus, Cicero, Caesar, &c, which skirted its coast ; there are
the ruins of numberless others all along from Misenum to
Pozzuoli, to Pompeii, &c. But if we want real beauty, not
mere luxury, we must cross to the other side of the Salerno
range, and see Salerno itself, Vietri, Cetara, Minori, Maiori,
Atrani, and Amalfi.
We have seen the Lake Avernus, the Sibyl's grotto, and
Cuma?, and eaten oysters at Fusaro.
We have been to Pompeii and Herculaneum — wonderful
sights ! — and had a prosperous expedition to Paastum, where
the temple exceeded my expectation. Rome : March 3.
We arrived here safe yesterday evening after a tiresome
journey. We have just heard Mr. B., the chaplain here, a per
fect watering-place preacher, semi-evangelical. Mr. Bennett,
at Naples, is an accomplished man ; has travelled much,
speaks various languages, and is Uberal ; he wUl be a great
loss to the chapel there.
This is a wonderful place — the first city, mind, which I
have ever much praised. We were at St. Peter's yesterday.
It is of a prodigious size. Everything is so bright and clean,
and the Sunday kept so decorously.
To his Sister Harriett. Rome: March 4, 1833.
I hope my plans are pretty well settled. Edward Neate,
who is here, is well disposed to go with me to SicUy. Im
patient as I am to return on every account, I feel it would
be foolish, now that I am out, not to do as much as ever I
can. I only wish I could have the satisfaction of hearing
from you. It is now three months — thirteen weeks to
day — since I left Oxford, and I have only had my Mother's
letter and yours of December 17. It would be a great satis
faction merely to know you had received my letters. I am
always making conjectures of the dates at which you ought
to get them.

1833 POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM 3I3
Pompeii and Herculaneum are wonderful places, but they
do not move me. They are curious and strange. Pompeii
was destroyed by ashes, Herculaneum by lava. The lava
must have been quite liquid, and in immense quantities. It
has literally filled up every part of the theatre, as water
might ; every recess, every crevice is blocked up ; it has got
through the windows and doors, and run about everywhere.
What a torrent it must have been ! It was the first erup
tion of Vesuvius for centuries, though Pompeii is built upon
lava, and there is evidence of a crater before the date of the
destruction of the two cities. But it was a crater so seemingly
spent that it was covered with vegetation, and^something like
the crater of the Solfatara now, which is a royal park [in
Vesuvius it was that Spartacus and his followers took refuge].
Again, while Etna's eruptions are continually mentioned in
history, there is a silence about those of Vesuvius. After its
breaking out (a.d. 70-80) it continued in action till about
a.d. 1100, when it ceased for nearly five centuries, and then
the vegetation gradually returned. We have an account from
writers who ventured down its crater ; they went down a mile
or two. The mountain is altogether the creation of volcanic
action. Lava was thrown up from the level of the surface,
hardened, and formed a cone ; fresh lava was thrown up
in time, and thus the mount gradually rose and increased.
Even now its height is continually varying. The eruption of
1822 lowered it by breaking away the sides of the crater ;
then afterwards there was more lava, and it recovered its
height. To return : Pompeii, of course, is full of interest ; the
amphitheatre most of all. The people were at the games
when the cinder clouds fell. You have the lions' den distinct ;
a lion's bones were found there, and the bones of the keeper.
Excavations are going on in both cities, but very slowly. The
royal palace of Portici is built over Herculaneum ; not much
will be done there. It is five miles from Naples ; Pompeii, on
the same road, fifteen.
We set off for Paestum this day week (February 25),
passing Pompeii to Nocera and La Cava, and so to Salerno.
I have not seen such scenery since I was in Sicily. Salerno
is a beautiful town, and the inn is very respectable. It set in
to rain just after we arrived, so from 2 p.m. the day was lost.
Next morning at five we set off for Paestum. The country is
highly cultivated, and the country people are well dressed.

314 JOHN HENRY IVEWMAN 1833
They are strong, handsome, and pleasant-looking. They gave
us a very favourable notion of the peasantry. I think the
murder of Mr. and Mrs. Hunt some years back at Piestum
was hardly more [in intention] than what a petty theft would
have been in England. The murderers were not bandits.
Mr. and Mrs. Hunt took a good deal of plate with them, and
showed it. Some labourers in a field near the road, without
previous design, were seized with the temptation to plunder
them ; and Mr. Hunt stooping down as if to seize hold of a
pistol, one of them at once fired. The shot went through him
and his wife. The assassins made off. [The peasantry take
their guns with them into the fields. This afterwards I saw
on the eastern coast in 1847-8. Why is it allowed ?]
The roads are very well guarded now, and excellently
made. There were five parties there, besides ourselves, the
morning we went there.
There are ruins of two [Greek?] temples, a basilica, a
theatre, amphitheatre, Roman temple of peace, city walls,
gates, the foundations of the greater part of the city, &o.
The country is not striking, though the Apennines are fine ;
but the large temple far exceeded my expectation ; it is as
far superior to the temple at Egesta as its situation and the
scene: y round are inferior. It is, indeed, magnificent. We
got back to Salerno comfortably by six in the evening, and
next morning went to Amalfi, and back by sea. This side of
the Bay of Salerno contained such cliffs, ravines, caves, towns
perched aloft, &c, that I am full of silent, not talkative,
delight. How can people talk of the beauty of Naples with
such true beauty in the neighbourhood ? Amalfi is a town in
one of these ravines. The mountains open, and a long, nar
row, steep valley winds through their folds ; two abundant
streams run down it. On these streams there are fourteen
paper mills, which pond up and then pour down the water
from a number of precipitous heights. As you ascend, you
are surrounded by cascades, and grots with green creepers.
All is beautifully cool and sweet. The rocks above are
1,000 or 1,500 feet high. We were particularly pleased with
the look of the population. All were so neat and clean.
There was not a bad smell in the whole place, and they were
handsome. We met, coming down the hill, a clerical school
(such as we had often seen elsewhere) ; the boys were so
bright and smiling and intelligent-looking. There were a
great many of them — boys from fourteen to seventeen years

1833 Rome 315
old. We had hoped to get over the mountain to Castel-a-
mare, but did not venture. We rowed back, and so to Naples,
where we all arrived about half-past 8, very tired, not
having eaten since 7 a.m. On Thursday we packed up. On
Friday set out for Rome. I have no sort of affectionate
feeling towards Naples.
We are settled here in very comfortable apartments — six
rooms, kitchen, servants' room, and house-tops —for thirty
scudi the month, i.e. about \l. lis. the week. They are clean
and airy [in the Via Babuino], a few doors from the Wilber-
forces and E. Neate. And now what can I say of Rome, but
that it is the first of cities, and that all I ever saw are but as
dust (even dear Oxford inclusive) compared with its majesty
and glory ? Is it possible that so serene and lofty a place is
the cage of unclean creatures ? I will not believe it tUl I
have evidence of it. In St. Peter's yesterday, in St. John\
Lateran to-day, I have felt quite abased, chiefly by their ]
enormous size, added to the extreme accuracy and grace of/
their proportions, which make one feel little and contemptible. '
Fancy, I have been at the Coliseum, have stood in the Forum,
have mounted the Capitol, have crossed the Tiber, and live
in the Campus Martius, and yet I have scarcely begun to see
the city. The approach to Rome from Naples is very striking.
It is through ancient towns, full of ruin, along the Via Appia ;
then you come to the Pontine Marshes ; then, about fourteen
miles from Rome, to a wUd, woody, rocky region ; then through
the Campagna — a desolate flat, the home of malaria. It is
a fit approach to a city which has been the scene of Divine
judgments. After a time isolated ruins come to view, of
monuments, arches, aqueducts. The flat waste goes on ; you
think it will never have done ; miles on miles the ruins con
tinue. At length the walls of Rome appear ; you pass through
them ; you find the city shrunk up into a third of the space
enclosed. In the twilight you pass buildings about which you
cannot guess wrongly. This must be the Coliseum ; there is
the Arch of Constantine. You are landed at your inn ; night
falls, and you know nothing more tUl next morning. March 9.
Still no letters from you via Naples ; so I have learned to
despair. I only want to know one thing — that you are all
well, and that I am not wanted. I go on acting and planning
with the notion that any moment I may be summoned back

3i6 John Henry Newman 1833
[by the Bishop], though to return without summons seems
absurd ; so I must be content.
Rome grows more wonderful every day. The first thought
one has of the place is awful — that you see the great enemy
of God; — the Fourth Monarchy, the Beast dreadful and ter
rible. We need no Tower of Babel ; the immense extent of
the ruins ; the purposes to which, when in their glory, they
were dedicated ; the arena where Ignatius suffered ; the Jewish
candlestick on the Arch of Titus ; the columns, with the
p -oud heathen inscriptions still visible, brand the place as the
vile tool of God's wrath and Satan's malice.
Next, when you enter the museums, galleries, and libraries,
a fresh world is opened to you — that of imagination and
taste. You find there collected the various creations of Greek
genius. The rooms are interminable ; and the marbles and
mosaics astonishing for their costliness. The Apollo is quite
unlike his casts. I never was moved by them at all, but at
the first sight of the real statue I was subdued at once. I
was not prepared for this at all. I had only been anxious to
see it, and the celebrated pictures of Raffaelle. They are
beyond praise : such expression ! What struck me most was
the strange simplicity of look which he has the gift to bestow
on the faces.
As to the third view of Rome, here pain and pleasure go
together, as is obvious. It is strange to be standing in the
city of the Apostles, and among the tombs of the martyrs and
saints. We have visited St. Gregory's (the Great) Church.
It is built on the site of his house ; and an inscription at the
entrance records the names of some of our early Bishops,
including the monk Augustine, as proceeding from the convent
attached to it. The Roman clergy are said to be a decorous,
orderly body, and certainly most things are very different
from Naples. There are no trumpery ornaments or absurd
inscriptions in the streets, profaning the most sacred subjects,
and the look of the priests is superior. But there are (seemingly)
timidity, indolence, and that secular spirit which creeps on
established religion everywhere. It is said they got Mr.
Spencer quickly out of Rome because his fastings shamed
them [This is nonsense. — J. H. N.], and that no one thinks
of fasting here— a curious contrast with the Greeks. The
schools are neat and pleasant-looking. One I saw yesterday,
of orphan girls, was very interesting : but the choristers at
St. Peter's are as irreverent as at St. Paul's.

1833 Rome 317
I conclude with some verses, the idea of which beset me
as I walked along the Appian Way over the Pontine Marshes,
whfie the horses were changing.
Far sadder musing on the traveller falls
At sight of thee, 0 Rome I
Than when he views the rough sea-beaten walls
Of Greece, thought's early home ;
For thou wast of the hateful four whose doom
Burdens the Prophet's scroll ;
But Greece was clean till in her history's gloom
Her name and sword a Macedonian stole.
And next a mingled throng besets the breast
Of bitter thoughts and sweet ;
How shall I name thee, Light of the wide West,
Or heinous error-seat 1
O Mother, erst close tracing Jesus' feet,
Do not thy titles glow
In those stern judgment-fires which shall complete
Earth's strife wiih Heaven, and ope the eternal woe 1
Rev. J. H. Newman to Frederic Rogers, Esq.
Rome: March 5, 1833.
I hope my friends have not measured my attachment to
them by the punctuality of my correspondence, or I shall
get into disgrace with many of them, and with you in the
number. Indeed, my conscience has sometimes reproached
me for my sUence in your case, since you are the only per
son I have heard from in England since I left (except a
chance letter of my Mother's, written a day or two after
I went). You cannot imagine how wearisome it is to be
without news of home. At the time I got your letter at Malta
I was confined to my room with a bad cold, and, short as it
was, it was most welcome. Thank you for all the trouble you
and your Father and Mother took about the introductions.
You know, now, I missed some of them in England ; but I
availed myself of those you sent, though, unluckily, Sir H.
Hotham was away. For other reasons, besides your letter,
perhaps, you have claims upon my handwriting. I must seem
strangely inconsistent to you in having determined not to
return by the election at Easter ; though, if I recollect right,
I hinted to you in the letter which first announced my plan
that I might stop abroad a month or two later. But the
state of the case was briefly this : Froude and I calculated,
and found that one of us merely returning would have no

318 John Henry Newman 1833
effect whatever on the votes of the election, and as his Father
had determined he should stay till June (and I think wisely),
it was literally no manner of use my going back as far as my
vote went ; and I fully believe you have too many well-wishers
among us to need me for anything else. And I found, too,
that we were not to be at Rome tUl March ; so that, had I
returned, I should have seen nothing, hardly, and scarcely
done more than wander about the wide sea. Still, I am
extremely anxious, and at times annoyed almost with myself,
lest I have been wrong. Were you not to succeed, I know I
should reproach myself — yet I cannot doubt you will. I am
so sorry about your eyes, and hope you have taken my advice
not to say much publicly on the subject. This will get to you
just as the election is coming on — all good fortune be with
you. If you could send me just a line when it is over (and
about Wood and Wilson too) addressed to me, ' Mrs. Oates,
70 Vicolo Freddo, Naples,' it will get to me on my return
from Sicily, whither I suppose I shall go with Neate just after
the Holy Week (but do not mention this idea of mine, for it is
» not settled). I long to be back, yet wish to make the most
of being out of England, for I never wish to leave it again.
Pleasures I have had in abundance, and most rapturous ; yet
somehow (as was natural) aliquid desideravere oculi mei. It
might have been different were I younger ; but when one's
mode of life is formed, one is often more pained than interested
by what is novel.
We arrived at this wonderful place only Saturday last
(March 2) from Naples. It is the first city which I have been
able to admire, and it has swallowed up, like Aaron's rod, all
the admiration which, in the case of others, is often distributed
among Naples, Valletta, and other places. It is scarcely with
patience I hear people talking of Naples in comparison — nor
will I degrade Rome by dwelling on the notion. Of course, I
have seen very little of it ; but the effect of every part is so
vast and overpowering — there is such an air of greatness and
repose cast over the whole, and, independent of what one knows
from history, there are such traces of long sorrow and humilia
tion, suffering, punishment and decay, that one has a mix
ture of feelings, partly such as those with which one would
approach a corpse, and partly those which would be excited by
the sight of the spirit which had left it. It brings to my
mind Jeremiah's words in the Lamentations, when Jerusalem,
or (sometimes) the prophet, speaks as the smitten of God.

1833 Rome 319
Oxford, of course, must ever be a sacred city to an Oxonian,
and is to me. It would be a strange want of right pride to
think of disloyalty to it, even if our creed were not purer than
the Roman ; yet the lines of Virgil keenly and affectionately
describe what I feel about this wonderful city. Repeat them
in your memory every word, and dwell on each. ' Urbem,
quam dicunt Romam, Melibcee, putavi, stultus ego 1 ' &c. And
if you had seen the cypresses of Corfu, and the graceful,
modest way in which they shoot straight up with a composed
shape, yet boldly in their way, being landmarks almost for
miles round, you would see the beauty of the comparison of
the inter viburna cupressi. Since I have been abroad I have
been taking in stores of pleasure for many years to come. It
is impossible to enter into the full power of what one sees at
once — the sights of celebrated places are like seeds sown in
the mind. I have often felt the retrospect more delightful
than the first enjoyment, great as that was. It is strange,
too, the different kind of pleasure one has in different places.
Only think, I have seen Ithaca — seen it for hours — coasting,
in fact, all round it ; and then again Rhium and Antirrhium
and Corcyra — and again Sicily — and the landmarks leading
to Carthage. All these places had their own pleasure, and as
different as Homer is from Thucydides. I have so often
wished for you and others to share my gratification, but the
plague is, one feels it never can be. In other cases one says,
'Well, some other day, perhaps' ; but, though you may see,
I shall not — it is a thing past with me, not to return.
For two months we were without sight of English news.
At Naples, even, it is difficult to get an English newspaper,
but here there is a reading-room, where papers are regularly
received. It has surprised us to see how far Ministers have \
gone in their Irish Church Reform Bill— abolishing sees, j
taxing benefices immediately, &c. ; not that we doubted their
sacrilegious will, but thought them now too much of Conser
vatives. If it is any consolation to have partners in mis
fortune, we have abundance here ; for the clergy all through
Italy and SicUy (as far as we have been) appear to be in a
wretched state of destitution (i.e. more or less). In Sicily a
great portion of their revenues is appropriated for the pay
ment of Goverment pensions — in Naples, &c, their property
seems to have been almost entirely confiscated, the French
having completed and confirmed the spoliation. They sub
sist by their Masses in the most cowardly contemptible way

320 John Henry Newman ma
possible, not having had spirit enough to resist, but keeping
good friends with their robbers. They seem to have lost all
hold on the people, and we learn (as at Malta and elsewhere)
that there had been a considerable growth of avowed infidelity
in the course of the last fifteen years. It strikes me the superb
reUgious edifices with which Italy abounds are a great snare
to the clergy — they are a property of theirs which the State
holds as a bond for their servility. ' We will take your rich
churches ' is a virtual threat which persuades them to submit
to any insult or injury. At least, I think most men would be
exposed to the temptation had they such wonderful structures.
I am alluding now to the churches of Rome chiefly — we have
seen only a few, but the principal — and no words can describe
them. They could not have been in any place but Rome,
which has turned the materials and the buildings of the
Empire to the purposes of religion. Some of them are
literally ancient buildings — as the Pantheon, and the portion
of the Baths of Diocletian which is turned into a church.
And all — St. Peter's, St. John Lateran, <fec. — are enriched
with marbles, &c, which old Roman power alone could have
collected. The first effect produced on the mind by these
noble piles (and I can as yet speak of no other) arises from
their gigantic dimensions — everything is proportioned to the
size of the building. The statues of the Apostles (e.g.) — all
that the Germans would call insanos molis— produce quite
a moral effect of humiliation on the homunciones who gaze
on them. Thus we have all the richness of the latter ages
of the arts added to the magnitude which is the peculiarity
of the early Egyptian, Cyclopean, &c. It is a realisation
of the skUl and power of Da;dalus, who was beautiful while
he was stupendous (posuitque immania templa, <fcc). Talking
of great works, I have seen Psestum, and the principal
temple there far exceeded my expectations. It is, indeed,
wonderful ; but you know it so well from pictures that
nothing can be said about it except that it is wonderful. The
most exquisite treat we have had was a visit to Egesta, to
see the ruins and the remaining temple. The contrast be
tween the wildness and the richness of the country we went
over with the utter desolation and loneliness of the spot itself
and the miserable state of the population, and our own little
sufferings in the way of indescribable filth and annoyance,
combined to stamp quite a picture on the memory, which is
every day more touching. The temple itself is very fine, but

1833 KOMB ¦ 321
the situation — oh, the situation ! What strange fellows those
old Trojans and Phoenicians were to place themselves in so
wild a place ! When the city was in its splendour in Roman
times it must have been very magnificent. It is perched
on the top of a high hill (higher far, I should think, than the
aVoo7roA.£is of Greece), and a long stair wound up to the
city gate.
You have an unintelligible paragraph in your letter in
which you seem to quote some words from my last. I quite
forget what they were about, but suspect about verse-making.
If so, I really think you should give it a trial, as you seem
disposed to do. If e.g. you feel disposed to mathematise (as
men do on the top of coaches) well and good. This may be a
better employment ; but, rather than none, attempt verses.
One ought to make the most of one's talents, and may write
useful lines (useful to others) , without being a poet. Ten
thousand obvious ideas become impressive when put into a
metrical shape ; and many of them we should not dare to utter
except metrically, for thus the responsibility (as it were) is
shoved off of oneself, and one speaks u>s 7rai8i£a>v, though
serious. I am so convinced of the use of it, particularly in
times of excitement, that I have begun to practise myself,
which I never did before ; and since I have been abroad, have
thrown off about sixty short copies, which may serve a certain
purpose we have in view. Should you want a subject for
conversation the next time you happen to see my Mother
(if by yourself ; for pray be mum about this to every one), you
may ask for such as I have sent home, or, at least, for the
more lively ones, for many are sonnets, which are proverbial y
dull. At least the sight of them may stimulate you, and puo
you in good spirits, and suggest ideas and how to begin —
which is the great difficulty in all things.
Pray remember me most kindly to all friends, though I
hope to write to many of them in a day or two. Please to
write my name in my Tillemont, for which you have observed,
doubtless, I have as yet no fitting place in my library ; but 1
hope it is duly spread, as I ordered it to be, on the escritoire
between the windows, that it may cut a figure. By-the-bye,
I left one or two drawers of the said piece of furniture open
for you (have you found them out 1) with some regret that I
had closed so many. I often think of you, and fancy you in
my rooms. Oxford is the first of cities. What does Telemachus
say of Ithaca ? I read great part of the ' Odyssey ' (beginning
vol,. 1. y

322 John Henry Newman 1833
directly old Atlas was visible) while we wandered up and down
the Mediterranean ; and have read more of VirgU, and sapped
at it, than I have done since I was ten years old.
Ever yours affectionately,
J. H. Newman.

Rev. J. H. Newman to J. F. Christie, Esq.
Rome : March 7, 1833.
. . . Now I am in for it the chance is I shall stop as long
as I can, and see all that can be grasped in the time, for I
sincerely hope never to go abroad again. I never loved home
so well as now I am away from it — and the exquisite sights
which foreign countries supply both to the imagination and
the moral taste are most pleasurable in memory, but scarcely
satisfactory as a present enjoyment. There is far too much
of tumult in seeing the places one has read so much about all
one's life, to make it desirable for it to continue. I did not
know before, the mind could be excited in so many various
ways ; but it is as much so as if it were UteraUy pulled about,
and had now a leg twitched and now one's head turned. The
pleasure which the sight of the Morea gave me was different
in kind from that which I gained from seeing Ithaca, or Sicily,
or the Straits of Messina, or again Rome. This is a fine
sentence ; for it seems as if I had travelled over the Morea,
whereas we only landed on the coast for an hour or two at
night at a miserable, whole-burnt, half re-buUt town. Yet
our visit was sufficiently picturesque. In the first place, the
town was Patras, i.e. Patrse, of which Oxford men hear in
Thucydides ; and we saw in the dusk of the evening the
wild mountains of both coasts, and in the distance, Rhium
and Antirrhium. Next, the country was in a state of the
wildest anarchy, swarming by land and sea with bandits and
pirates. The former extended through the whole Morea, which
was at that moment in a state of great excitement, King
Otho being almost daily expected. Accordingly some were
hastening to NapoU to make interest with him on his arrival ;
others, secretly favoured by Russia, were keeping aloof, deter
mining to watch the course of things before they committed
themselves. A worthy of the latter class presided over the
destinies of Patras at that moment, nomine TzaveUas, or
Svellas, or SbeUas, or the like. He had taken possession of
the citadel, and some time before, the French had summoned

1833 Rome 323
him in vain. Three ships with the colours of the three great
Powern lay before the town. The English sloop was com
manded by Sir J. Franklin, who for nine or (as some said)
eighteen months had been stationed there without anyone on
board having set foot upon land ! that is, from fear of being
obliged to take part with one or other of the hostile parties.
We did not Uke to lose the opportunity of touching the Con
tinent, and pushed off from the steamer in the boat. The
town, so to call it, is in a miserable condition, and we had
great difficulty in the dark in keeping our legs amid the
foundations and ruins of the houses ; there had been rain,
and was much mud, and it was very dark. You wUl say this
was a curious way of seeing a town, especially as the town
was not yet built ; but we walked through the high street,
which was in a tolerably forward state ; we went into various
shops, we took coffee in the first coffee-house of the place,
which was full of Greek merchants, in their very picturesque
dresses, which were quite clean, since it was a feast. The
coffee was capital (we have got very little good since we have
been out of England), it is milled up in a strange way. Our
most respectable adventure was falling in with Zavellas! men-
at-arms, who were not a little surprised at seeing us, and
through whom we walked with as much sUence and quiet
rapidity as you would expect. On our return there from
Corfu, we found there had been a mutiny in the garrison
owing to Zavellas' refusing to pay his troops the money he
had levied for that purpose from the merchants of the place.
The Russian consul had interfered and persuaded him, and
they were all engaged in putting the castle in a state of defence
against their neighbours, who were expected to march against
it. It seems quite a hopeless task to civilise the Morea —
otherwise i.e. than by exterminating vast numbers of the in
habitants. We were told by travellers who had lately
travelled through it that there is certainly a better sort of
persons, and that the present anarchy is rather owing to
the ascendency of the worst spirits than to the character of
the people. But even allowing this, how can you alter the
inveterate habit which the better class have got of succumbing
to the most violent ? Nothing but great craft or great
tyranny wUl be able to manage them. It is curious that with
all their brutality these fellows observe most strictly the fasts
of the Church, which may be called the distinguishing feature
of the Greek Communion, as Masses, &c, is of the Latin,
t 2

324 John Henry Newman 1833
and they both answer the same purpose, and are a substitute
apparently for moral obedience and an opiate to the con
science. (The Greeks have two fasts of forty days in the
course of the year, besides many others of days and seasons ;
during these times it seems to be scarcely possible, certainly
not the custom, to get dispensations.) Meat of any kind is
literally refrained from— nay, I believe eggs and milk ; not
that they are likely to consider their bandit kind of life as
requiring some make-up. But it is the cruelties accompanying
it which must (more or less) revolt all but the most hardened
mind. I believe robbery is not more thought of in these
countries, even at most, than pilfering is with us. A bravo
adopts a profession indeed, and one in which murder may be
added to plundering ; but he is not in any sense more habitually
disobedient to his conscience, or more pained or sensitive than
a dishonest servant in England who picks up stray halfpence
of his master's or purloins his tea and sugar. And sometimes
the crimes which have been most talked about and were most
shocking were the chance result of temptation. Thus in tho
case of the dreadful murder of Mr. and Mrs. Hunt, which
took place at Psestum some years since. ... In the same
way Lord Harrowby was attacked near Naples a year or two
since. It was a rising of the country people — such an event
very rarely happens— I was told nothing of the kind had
happened between these two events. They had got a notion
of Lord H. being a great English lord. It is said the English
are less. likely to be attacked than men of other nations ; they
make such a noise about it. Consuls and ambassadors re
monstrate, and themselves and their friends offer large rewards,
so that the guilty parties have no chance of escaping. The
road from Salerno to Psestum is well guarded, but it is with
reluctance that one believes it necessary. The people are a
fine-looking race, very well clad, and the ground is well culti
vated. I wonder whether they make a distinction between
heretics and Catholics ? I suppose not. . . .
/ As to Rome, it is the most wonderful place in the world.
We do not need Babylon to give us a specimen of the old
exertions of our great enemy against Heaven (who now takes
a more crafty way) ; it was an establishment of impiety. The
Coliseum is quite a Tower of Babel ; this is but one of a vast
number of buildings which astonish one. Then when you go
into the museums, <tc, you get into a second world. . . . The
collection of statuary is endless and quite enchanting. The

1833 Rome 325
Apollo is indescribable ; its casts give one no notion of it ; as
an influence it is overpowering. And the great pictures of
Kanaelle, though requiring a scientific taste to criticise, come
home in a natural way even to the uninitiated. I never
could fancy anything so unearthly as the expression of the
faces. Their strange simplicity of expression and almost
boyishness is their great charm.
Well then, again, after this, you have to view Rome as
a place of religion ; and here what mingled feelings coint
upon one — *you are in the place of martyrdom and burial oi
apostles and saints ; you have about you the buildings and the
sights they saw, and you are in the city to which England
owes the blessing of the Gospel.) But then, on the other hand,
the superstitions, or rather, what is far worse, the solemn re
ception of them as an essential part of Christianity. But then,
again, the extreme beauty and costliness of the churches ;
and then, on the contrary, the knowledge that the most
famous was built (in part) by the sale of indulgences. Really
this is a cruel place. There is more to be seen and thought of
daily. It is a mine of all sorts of excellences.
The ' Lyra ' goes on flourishingly. It will commence (I hope)
in May ; but of course be silent. With best remembrances to
the Common-Room. — Ever yours affectionately,
John H. Newman.
March 9. — P.S. On reading this over I am shocked at the
slipslop it contains. Pray do not incautiously let anyone
see it.
To Rev. Thomas Mozley.
Rome .- March 9, 1833.
At first sight it would seem as if there were a great
contrast between Morton Pinckney and Rome, our respective
residences at present, but really there is not a great deal. I
have learned thus much by travelling, to think all places
about the same, which I had no notion of before. I never
could believe that horses, dogs, men and houses were the
same in other countries as at home, not that I exactly
doubted it, but my imagination could not embrace the notion.
But now I find that even the seasons are the same, which
perhaps you are not aware of. I assure you cold in all its
varieties is felt here as well as in England. We have had
rawness and bleakness and sharpness and wet, and the wind

326 John Henry Newman 1833
has blown tempests. At Malta I had a cough such as I never
had in my life before, and at Naples it rained incessantly and
gave me a very uncomfortable cold. Really, I now come to
think that the ancients went on as we do, which is a further
step of phUosophy. I have seen Herculaneum and Pompeii,
and the museum at Naples thence enriched, and find that the
ancients used portable stoves and ate cake ; and at Rome
there is a mule's head in marble, and a group of fighting dogs
as like present nature as one dog is like another.
All this is gain, and I suppose is part of that nil admirari
which one gets by travelling. 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
beheve for a time that it is foreign land. And then every
one 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. Nay if you fall in with those who have themselves
travelled more to the east and south than you, the case is
worse still. You feel actually Uttle for having been as far and
no further than you have, which is a pretty kind of reward
for coming all the way to see them.
Actum, inquit, nihil est nisi Poeno milite portas
Frangimus et media vexillum pono Kuburra '
I do not know how this will operate upon me eventually, and
when I am back again, but really it has a strange effect now.
It has in a measure destroyed the romance which I threw
around everything I had not myself witnessed. Yet perhaps
it has taken away no pleasure, and may be profitable. I now
do not wish to see Epaminondas or Codes ; I believe them to
be ordinary mortals, fruges consumere nati. Now that I am at
my confessions, it may be as well to add that I have (alas !)
experienced none of that largeness and expansion of mind
whic h one of my friends privately told me I should get from
travelling. I cannot boast of any greater gifts of phUosophic
coolness than before, and on reading the papers of the begin
ning and middle of February I hate the Whigs (of course, as
Rowena says, in a Christian way) more bitterly than ever.
We do so wish to know what the Church in general, then
Oxford, and then certain of our friends in particular, think ol
1 Juvenal, x. 155, 156.

1833 Rome 327
the atrocious Irish sacrilege BUI. What Magister Prsepositus,
e.g., says about it, and what poor Whately (entre nous).
We hope to be here a month or five weeks, and are busily
employed every morning in seeing sights ; for as Rome was
not buUt, assuredly it is not to be seen, in a day. I understand
the meaning of this proverb now. This is a wonderful place ;
you have in it remains sufficient to acquaint you with the
nature of Roman magnificence and Grecian genius, which is
all posterity can hope for ; and in its Christian monuments it
affords a third and most abundant subject for contemplation.
Neate is here, and very busy in learning all that is to be
learned ; he is soon going to Dresden and Vienna to study
German, and then he returns to England to keep terms at the
Temple. The Andersons are here also, and the W. Wilber-
forces, so we have quite society enough, not much being
wanted, when we have objects in the place itself to attend to.
When I set out I expressed a wish that we should see one or
two places thoroughly, and a great many hastily, just to say
we had seen them, and this wish has hitherto been fully
accomplished. The only thing I regret is having been so long
at Malta (four weeks), but it could not be helped. . . . The
only thing I did then worth mentioning was to get on with
conversational Italian, and this I certainly did very consider
ably. I had learned the grammar and structure of the
language some years ago, and could read it pretty well, so I
got a master and made him do nothing but talk with me.
But since I have left Malta I have gone back, for I have
scarcely had any need to talk since (except using a few words),
for one meets with English people, at least English talkers,
everywhere. My only difficulty is when I attempt to talk
French, for I am sure to mix a considerable infusion of my
newly acquired Italian with it, and, considering how little I
speak French at all, it is obvious how very little the balance
is after the deduction. Italian is a very easy language. Were
I to be here a few months, and threw myself into native
society, I should easily master it, and it is provoking to be
near an acquisition without acquiring it, yet qu. the use, did
I acquire it ? Maltese itself is entirely or almost entirely
Arabic ; the mixture of Italian is for the most part confined
to the city. It is curious to trace the consequent connexion
between it and Hebrew. I have seen tables of their corre
spondence, and nearly all the common words in both languages
(i.e. the necessaries of life, &c.) are the same. The number of

328 John Henry Newman 1833
such agreements is very great. How remarkable it is that
the Eastern nations should have so long remained the same,
as in other things so in language.
Our plans for the future are quite unsettled. ... I shall
think of you all very anxiously as I go towards Sicily. You
will be in the heat of the examination for Fellows : being at a
distance, I may say without breach of decorum, that I am
earnestly desirous that Rogers should succeed ; were I on
the spot, to say this would . be inconsistent with the impar
tiality of a judge. But I cannot doubt he will succeed, though
it will be very annoying to be kept in suspense so long. Yet
I am being inured to this — here I am above three months'
time from England, and I have not yet heard from anyone
there, i.e. except a few lines from Rogers and home a week
or two after I set out. That wretched Naples keeps all the
letters you direct to it ! you might as well direct to its bay as
to its poste restante.
Naples is a disappointing place ; it has nothing to recom
mend it but its ices, which are capital, though here Palermo
equals it — and, besides, fabricates a kind of cake called
Spanish bread, which you get nowhere else ; it is superb and
inimitable. You in England can have no idea of it ; it is
eating ambrosia. If the maker imported himself to England
he might make his fortune in no time. Palermo, by-the-bye,
is a far finer city than Naples, and beats it in its own line,
and the bay as far excels that of Naples quantum viburna
cupressi. They are very extortionate at Naples. The wind
ever blows, rain is always falling, the streets are . most
dangerously greasy (in spite of the rain) — you are sure to
be run over — boys are ever picking your pocket, and the hills
about the place are ugly and flat-topped. Vesuvius is graceful,
and some distant heights have something of an outline ; but all
this is nothing to Corfu.
By this time you are quite at home at Morton Pinckney.
I wish I had any means of hearing how your Baptist chapel
or other stumbling-blocks are going on ; there are no Baptist
chapels here.
Pray give my best remembrances to the Provost and aU
the Common-Room.

1833 Rome 329
Rev. J. H. Newman to R. F. Wilson, Esq.
Rome: March 18, 1833.
I have often thought since I left England that some of
our friends must have addressed our steam -vessel with the
Sic te Diva potens, &c, so exceedingly prosperous was our
voyage from beginning to end. I do not mean to say we
were exempted from sea-sickness, which indeed is not men
tioned in that invocation ; nay, we had one or two tosses in
the course of our expedition, but with these necessary excep
tions our weather was perfect. . . .
Froude heard from Keble the day before yesterday, and
so received news of Arnold's plan of Church Reform, which
seems very comprehensive. If I understand it right, all sects
(the Church inclusive) are to hold their meetings in the parish
churches, though not at the same hour, of course. He ex
cludes Quakers and Roman Catholics, yet even with this ex
clusion, surely there will be too many sects in some places
for one day. This strikes me as a radical defect in his plan.
If I might propose an amendment, I should say pass an Act
to oblige some persuasions to change the Sunday. If you
have two Sundays in the week, you could accommodate any
probable number of sects, and in this way you would get over
Whately's objection against the Evangelical party and others ;
make them keep Sunday on Saturday. This would not inter
fere with the Jews (who would of course worship in the parish
church), for they are too few to take up a whole day. Luckily
the Mahommedan holiday is already on a Friday, so there
will be no difficulty in that quarter.
Rome is one of the most delightful residences imaginable.
The air is too soft perhaps to suit me for a permanence,
otherwise I cannot conceive a more desirable refuge, did evil
days drive one from England. But this is impossible of
course, because one's duties bind one there, even were we cast
out as evil ; and besides, I cannot quite divest myself of the
notion that Rome Christian is somehow under a special shade,
as Rome Pagan certainly was, though I have seen nothing
here to confirm it. Not that one can- tolerate for an instant
the wretched perversion of the truth which is sanctioned here ;
but I do not see my way enough to say that there is anything
peculiar to the condition of Rome ; and the clergy, though
sleepy, are said to be a decorous set of men. They look so,

330 John Henry Newman 1833
except the canons at service, who laugh and talk. Far other
wise at Naples, which is a wretched place.
To his Sister Jemima. Rome: March 20. 1833.
At length Froude has heard from Williams, and I have
the comfort of knowing by implication that you are all well.1
I have the satisfaction of stating that my first 1001. has
barely gone even now. When we first came here we found
bright weather, with cold mornings and evenings — that is, sun,
and wind, and snow on the mountains ; since, we have had
rain. Rome is said to be a relaxing place. I think no place
(to speak boldly) is good in winter for invalids without their
own care. My friends have too great a notion that coming
abroad is an opus operatum. There is an absence of frost and
fog, but nothing is more common than sudden changes of
temperature, and these are the chief occasion of catching
cold. I wish I could say Froude's cough is gone.
The two special novelties which I find in Rome are the
Fountains and the Mosaics. I had no notion of either before
I came here — no notion at all of the mosaics, which are an
exact imitation of painting, from the Transfiguration to a
Lilliput St. Peter's upon a brooch. It is the mosaics which
are the chief boast of St. Peter's : first, the huge pictures I
have spoken of ; next, the altars, which are adorned with the
most delicate and softest scrolls and wreaths imaginable. As
to the fountains, those which adorn the Piazza of St. Peter's
are, I suppose, twenty feet high, and take the form of a grace
ful white lady, arrayed in the finest, most silvery of dresses.
There are a number of others — an abundance of water, in an
abundance of fountains. Water is found in almost every
other street.
Have I noticed the astonishing abundance of Marbles in
Rome 1 Churches are more numerous than the fountains ;
and a splendour and costliness of stones which would make
1 It is scarcely necessary to say that letters had been duly and con
stantly written to the addresses Jeft by Mr. Newman with his Mother.
A letter from his sister Harriett, written on a sheet of large foolscap
(filled by various hands), opens with the sentence, 'I begin all my
letters with my vexation at the delay or loss of our letters, for that is
always teasing me ! ' It almost amounts to sorrow, his Mother writes.
His own letters home reached their destination with greater regularity
and dispatch.

1833 Rome 331
the city a wonder if it had only one church such. It is
Herod's Temple repeated a hundred times over. I have some
times been quite aghast when, thinking I had got through the
churches here or there, I have gone into one I accidentally
met with, and found a fresh world of wonders. I might
enlarge, too, on the sculptures of the churches. They are
splendid ; but, if one must criticise, attitudinise too much for
correct taste. As to the houses, I have seen little of them ;
but, fine as they are outside, the rooms are not near so fine as
those at Naples, and still less than those at Malta.
We saw the Pope at St. Peter's last Friday.
We are in good spirits about the prospects of the Church.
We find Keble is at length roused, and (if once up) he will
prove a second St. Ambrose ; and others too are moving. So
that wicked spoliation Bill is already doing service ; no thanks
to it. We have encouraging accounts about Prussia from
M. Bunsen, who has received us very kindly. There is every
reason for expecting that the Prussian Communion will be
applying to us for ordination in no long time. We hear, also,
much about Germany, in the way of painters ! which leads us
to hope that a high reverential spirit is stirring among them.
A nd the Wilberf orces tell us that the recently ejected ministers
of Geneva are applying to England for Episcopal ordination.
Further, our friend the Yankee, whom we fell in with again
here, gave us so promising an account of the state of things
in America, that we mean, when turned out of St. Mary's, to
go preaching through the churches of the United States !
As to poor Italy, it is mournful to think about it. Doubt
less there are 7,000 in Israel. There are great appearances of
piety in the churches, still, as a system, the corrupt religion —
and it is very corrupt — must receive severe inflictions ; and
I fear I must look upon Rome, as a city, stUl under a curse,
which will one day break out in more dreadful judgments
than heretofore. Yet, doubtless, the Church wUl thereby be
let loose from thraldom.
As to Greece, it does not teach Purgatory and the Mass —
two chief practical delusions of Romanism. Its worst error
is its Saint-worship, which is demoralising in the same sense
Polytheism was ; but this is not the Church's act (though it
sanctions it in fact), but the people's corruption of what is
good — the honour due to Saints ; whereas the doctrines of the
Mass and Purgatory are not perversions, but inventions.
I expect the ' Lyra ' will commence in May. We have

332 John Henry Newman 1833
heaid of Arnold's pamphlet, the contents of which seem to
be atrocious. I am very well ; my Sicilian expedition will, I
hope, complete the benefit. I look forward to it with great
pleasure, but it will be far more delightful in retrospect than
in actual performance. Spring in Sicily ! It is the nearest
approach to Paradise of which sinful man is capable. I set
out on Easter Monday. To his Mother.
Rome : Good Friday, April 5, 1833.
I have received to-day your letters five and six. Number
four is still at Naples. As to Froude, whom Jemima blames,
I cannot have fully stated how it was I was left alone at
Malta. I had suffered much from being so much with
strangers for five or six weeks, and I wished to be left alone,
as the only remedy of my indisposition. In answer to Froude's
many solicitations, and his offer to sit with me or read to me,
I had assured him, all I wanted in order to recruit myself
was perfect solitude — in fact, my solitude for ten days or a
fortnight had surprising success ; I was quite set up by it,
and started from Malta with elastic spirits. The cough was
an episode quite distinct from my other indisposition. In
treating this, I did require assistance, but he was not in the
way then to give it. You know I can be very earnest in
entreating to be left alone. If I said anything else in my
letter, it was the inconsistency of the moment.
I fear my letter pained you as if I had been very UI. I
assure you I never will conceal anything from you. On my
voyage to Sicily I shall take a servant with me, since I am
alone. If a vessel is about to start from Palermo to England
at the beginning of May, I may be at home by the 15th or
20th ; but this is too good an anticipation to be fulfilled.
I am quite sure I shall be pleased with your proceedings
about the change of house.' The only disadvantage I can
think of is its loneliness ; so you see I do not see many
objections.
• As to the Roman CathoUc system, I have ever detested it
so much that I cannot detest it more by seeing it ; but to the
Catholic system I am more attached than ever, and quite love
the little monks [seminarists] of Rome ; they look so innocent
1 From Hose Hill, Iffley, to Rose Bank, Iffley.

1833 Rome 333
and bright, poor boys ! and we have fallen in, more or less,
with a number of interesting Irish and English priests. I
regret that we could form no intimate acquaintance with them.
I fear there are very grave and far-spreading scandals among
the Italian priesthood, and there is mummery in abundance ;
yet there is a deep substratum of true Christianity ; and I
think they may be as near truth at the least as that Mr. B.,
whom I like less and less every day.
To his Sister Harriett. Rome: April 5, 1833
We have seen Tivoli, which is unlike the knowing of it,
and Frascati (Tusculum), and the Lake of Albano ; and we
have seen pictures and statues without end. Canova is out
of fashion as being affected. Thorwaldsen aims at simplicity
and is in fashion. The original Roman stone .was peperino ;
afterwards they used the travertino, i.e. tiburino, for it is
made of the water about Tivoli, which you smell a mile off ; it
is of a blue milk colour, and quite hot. These sulphur rivers
seem in ages past to have spread over the country and to have
petrified whatever they met with. The process goes on now.
We were at the Lake Tartarus, branches, reeds, roots, &c, all
petrified. This stone was commonly used in Rome. I think
the Coliseum is built of it. The most remarkable stone is that
of the Temple at Pactum, which is like a honeycomb ; it is
still found in the Silarus (Sele), the river which flows near it.
As to pictures, at the Palazzo Falconieri (Cardinal Fesch's)
we have seen a picture of Raffaelle's when a boy of fourteen,
which is the most grotesque thing I ever saw, curious as his
— the passage of the Red Sea ; one unfortunate horse has just
his four legs visible in the air, all parallel to each other ; his
body being under water. Raffaelle degenerated, poor man !
as life got on. At the Sciarra Palace was Guido's picture of
the Cenci, which I admired extremely till I heard her story,
which ends with her murdering her father. I wonder at the
perversion of men's minds. It is worthily the subject of a
tragedy by Shelley — I did not know this. Raffaelle's Violin-
player is a beautiful picture, and Titian's Mistress, which is
extremely striking. To go to a very different subject, a small
picture of Albert Diirer's, the Death of the Virgin, is one of
the most impressive, religious, and admirable pictures that I
have seen. When you see Froude, which will be soon, ask

334 Jun.v iienry Newman 1833
him to give you some account of "the pictures of Francesco
Francia, to which he has taken a great fancy. At the Farnese
we saw some frescoes of Caracci, and at Grotto Ferrata. On
the whole, I am much offended by the picture galleries, and
am amazed how men of any religious profession and clergymen
can admire them.
What a delightful soothing place this is 1
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. Henry Jenkyns.
Rome: Easter Day, April 7, 1833.
. . . We are all of us charmed with Rome, where we have
been five weeks, and are now going to leave it. This last week
we have heard the celebrated Miserere, or rather the two
Misereres, for there are two compositions by Allegri and Boii,
so like each other that the performers themselves can scarcely
tell the difference between them. One is performed on the
Thursday, and the other on Good Friday. The voices are
certainly very surprising ; there is no instrument to support
them, but they have the art of continuing their notes so long
and equably, that the effect is as if an organ were playing, or
rather an organ of violin strings, for the notes are clearer, more
subtle and piercing, and more impassioned (so to say) than
those of an organ. The music itself is doubtless very fine, as
everyone says, but I found myself unable to understand all
parts of it. Here and there it was extremely fine, but it is
impossible to understand such a composition on once or twice
hearing. In its style it is more like Corelli's music than
any other I know (though very different too). And this is
not wonderful, as Corelli was Master of the Pope's Chapel,
and so educated in the school of Allegri, Palestrina, and the
rest. These are the only services we have been to during the
week. We have this evening seen St. Peter's illuminated. It is
a splendid ?ight, but so difficult and dangerous in execution
that it is surprising they make it so much a matter of course.
The men who are employed are let down by ropes outside the
Dome. We went up the Dome the other day, which presents
the most extraordinary sight of the kind I ever saw. Often
as I had been in St. Peter's, I could never realise to myself
its dimensions. I measured and measured, and though the
problem solvebatur ambulando, as old Aldrich says, my imagi
nation was unconvinced. But when you get aloft and look

1833 Rome 335
down inside the Dome, then you see what a mountain the
building is. No words can do justice to the strange sight
which everything below presents when you are only as high as
the first gallery above the arches which support the cupola.
The Tabernacle of bronze, which itself is 121 feet high, is
shrunk and withered up, and seems to barely rise above the
pavement. We went into the ball, but did not venture the
cross, which is ascended by a ladder outside. We are not
Dornfords — pardon us.
Rev. John Keble to Rev. J. H. Newman.
Oxford: April 11, 1833.
My dear N., — I am ashamed to scrawl in a paper so full of
neat writing,1 but I know you will be glad to hear that I
never knew so smooth an election week. R. and M. [Rogers
and Marriott] returned without a dissentient voice, and in the
order in which you read their names ; not that I think there
is any comparison between the two ; in strength of mind, in
deed, I look on R.'s as one of the very best examinations I
remember here, though I apprehend he has fallen very much
below himself in apparent scholarship — everybody is here,
Rudd and all.
Pray send me one letter if you have time, as I find it
gives people consequence to receive such things, and let me
know how Hurrell is. You would be very much pleased with
the Duke's letter. I think I must send you some of it : ' Till
I received your note of the 30th, I had not an idea that any
body of H.M.'s subjects had thought proper to approve of the
course which I followed upon the oscasion referred to. I felt
that my duty to the King required that I should make a great
sacrifice of opinion to serve him, and to save H.M. and the
country from what I considered a great evil. Others were
not of the same opinion. I failed in performing the service
I intended to perform, and I imagined that I had satisfied
nobody but myself, and those of my friends who were aware
of my motives and who knew what I was doing, and the
course which I intended to follow. It is very gratifying to
me to learn that several gentlemen of the University of Ox
ford observed and approved of my conduct upon the occasion
1 The letter is the joint production of Mrs, Newman, his sisters
HRrriett and Jemima, Mr. J. F. Christie, Mr. Isaac Williams, Mr.
Thomas Mozley, and Mr. Keble ; the postage paid at Oxford 2s. 5d.

336 John Henry Newman 1833
referred to ; and that they are desirous of testifying their
sense of it in the manner stated in the letter addressed to
your lordship. They may rely upon it that I will attend Mr.
Chantry or anybody they please with the greatest satisfaction.
I wUl do so not only because I am personally gratified by
their approbation, but I am grateful to them as a public man
and a faithful subject of the King, for the encouragement
which they give to others to devote themselves to the. King's
service, by their applause of the course which I followed on
the occasion referred to.'
Thus far his Grace. I hope you will like it as well as I do.
Tell Hurrell I got his letter of the 17th in good time. I am
very glad you are working so for Rose ; he pleases me more
and more. I fear P. is not playing his part of a true cham
pion in the House of Commons, and I fear the Bishops are
disposed to concede about the Church rates. If they do,
we must submit to the stifling and corrupting embraces of
Whiggery for some time to come. Isaac is rather fagged, but
not unwell I think. Here is Christie come for the letter, so
God bless you. Yours ever affectionately, J. K.
P.S. — We have thrown out one of the Berkeleys from the
city of Gloucester, which puts us in spirits.
Rev. J. H. Newman to his Sister Jemima.
Naples: April W, 1833.
As I sat at table yesterday, solitary, just arrived from
Rome at the Crocelli, with a variety of dishes before me after
the Italian fashion, with a mincemeat of giblets, and a large
dish of young green peas, I thought to myself how I should
have been startled this time year had a glass been held up to
me with the picture of what was to be in a twelvemonth.
More novel and luxurious than pleasant. I was left to my
self in a foreign land for the first time in my life.1 How
shall I describe the sadness with which I left the tombs of the
Apostles ? Rome, not as a city, but as the scene of sacred
history, has a part of my heart, and in going away from it I am
as if tearing it in twain. I wandered about the place after the
Froudes had gone with a blank face. I went to the Church of
? ' Archdeacon Froude and his son left Rome for France early in April.

1833 Rome 337
S. Maria in Cosmedin, which Dionysius founded A.D. 260, and
where Austin is said to have studied rhetoric. I mounted the
height where St. Peter was martyred, and for the last time
went through the vast spaces of his wonderful basilica, and
looked at his place of burial, and then prepared for my
departure. Also I have lost my companions, and I was going
among strangers into a wild country to live a wild life, to
travel in solitudes, and to sleep in dens of the earth — and all
for what ? for the gratification of an imagination, for the idea
of a warm fancy which might be a deceit, drawn by a strange
love of Sicily to gaze upon its cities and mountains. For half
an hour I may be said to have repented of my choice of having
thrown myself out of the society of others for a country which
I had seen, though only in part, instead of going in their
company to the South of France, where there was so much both
interesting and new : and I was going to travel to Naples with
one who was almost a stranger to me ; who, civil and kind as
he was, yet made it an obligation on me to talk and be agree
able, at a time when my heart was full, and when I would fain
have enjoyed the only remedy of grief, the opportunity of
grieving. So passed Tuesday, but on Wednesday morning,
when I found myself travelling, as the light broke, through a
beautiful country, which I had in March passed in the dark, I
began to gain spirits. We had passed Terracina ( Anxur) with
its white rocks by moonlight ; at dawn we had before us a
circle of beautiful blue hills, inclosing a rich plain, covered with
bright green corn, olives, and figs just bursting into leaf, in
which Fondi lies. Then came Mola, where Cicero was murdered,
and the country I saw was still more beautiful ; and so at
length we got to Naples in twenty-nine hours from Rome,
including two hours stopping, the distance being about
148 miles.
By-the-bye, I was surprised how backward the spring is ;
the forest trees are not in leaf, scarcely in bud even yet. The
weather is lovely. You will ask how I like Naples in a better
season ; I shall return substantially the same answer. The
sea, to be sure, is exquisitely blue, and the mountains about
the Bay are of a soft peach colour, tinged with slate, and the
towns of Castel-a-mare, Sorrento, ifcc, are dotted on them in
brilliant white specks ; but the town is essentially a watering-
place, and more like Brighton than any place I know ; the
same glare, the same keen brightness of the hills, the same
disposition of houses opening upon the sea, the same boisterous
vol. 1. Z

338 John Henry Newman 1833
wind, the same stimulating air, the same sparkling water, the
same bustle, or rather tenfold, and the same apparent idleness
of the people. Oh, what a change from the majestic pensive-
ness of the place I have left, where the Church sits in sack
cloth calling on those who pass by to say if anyone's sorrow is
like her sorrow !
I am interrupted by the thought that the decision of the
Oriel election is at this very time taking place. The Provost
is in the Common-Room, and the Fellows are sitting round.
Would that I knew how it was to be ! ... I shall not know
for some weeks ; but please God I shall be much sooner with
you than I could have supposed. Vessels go from Palermo to
Marseilles almost daily, and the usual length of voyage is six
days, sometimes only forty-eight hours, and sometimes ten
days. If I get to Palermo by May 2, I shall be at Marseilles
about the 10th,- and in London by the 17th.
I have to-day made my preparations for my journey ; a
set of cooking utensils and tea-service — curry-powder, spice,
pepper, salt, sugar, tea, and ham ; cold cream, a straw hat,
and a map of SicUy. I shall want nothing from the island but
macaroni, honey, and eggs. I shall be sixteen days travelling.
I shall take a servant and three mules — my servant finds his
own food and lodgings. My whole expenses wiU be about 15s.
a day — that is, for sixteen days 12?. Adding from Rome to
Messina, from Palermo to Marseilles, the expense will be \7l. ;
say 201. more than had I gone with the Froudes.
I ought to tell you about the Miserere at Rome, my going
up St. Peter's, and the Easter illumination, our conversations
with Dr. Wiseman and with M. Bunsen, our search for the
church of St. Thomas of Canterbury, my pilgrimage to the
place of St. Paul's martyrdom, the Catacombs, and all the
other sights which have stolen away half my heart, but I for
bear till we meet. Oh that Rome were not Rome ! but I seem
to see as clear as day that a union with her is impossible. She
is the cruel Church asking of us impossibilities, excommunicat
ing us for disobedience, and now watching and exulting over
our approaching overthrow. A scirocco prevents the vessel
sailing to-day and perhaps to-morrow (Sunday). It is half-
past ten p.m. and I am busy writing a sermon for Mr. Bennett
on the chance of its stopping. There is a fear I shall not get
a place in it at all — it is so full.
I will give you some account of my going up Vesuvius
yesterday. Mr. Bennett, Anderson and myself started about

1833 Vesuvius 33_r;
half-past eleven (just as the names of the new Fellows were
given out). On arriving at Resina, five miles from Naples, we
mounted mules and asses, which brought us up to the foot of
the mountain. You go a long way between two walls, the
boundaries of vineyards, then over the lava, which is like a
ploughed field, in colour and shape, petrified. Properly I
believe it is the scoriae and the ashes which lie on the lava, or
the substance into which the surface of the lava is converted
— I forget which. On dismounting, you address yourself to
the task of ascending the cone, which does not seem much too
high to run up, though certainly steep ; however, it is eight
hundred feet high. The material is fine ash with a few lumps
of lava scattered about it, which fall upon your shins. Well,
we set to, and a tug it was. The first ascent was six hundred
feet, for they take you up by the lowest way, and when half
up I confess I did for half a minute repent of beginning, though
there was no sun and very little wind ; for my feet at each
step slipped back about three-quarters of it. One's only con
solation was that one must get to the top some time or other,
and this I took to myself. At length we were landed on the
first crater ; and, sitting down on the ashes at the top, which
are so dry as not to dirt, we cooked some beef and drank some
wine, most delicious wine, though it is the common wine of
the place— so common as hardly to be drinkable anywhere else.
Then we began our rambles. First we went over some
sulphur beds, which are of a bright greenish yellow in the
midst of the black ash : then we commenced our ascent of the
second cone, which is inside the first crater, and is above 150
feet high. It is the same loose ash. When we got to the top
we found an awful sight ; the vast expanse of the true crater
broken into many divisions and recesses, up and down, and
resplendent with all manner of the most beautiful various
colours from the sulphur, white clouds of which ever steaming
and curling from holes in the crust, and almost unbearably
strong for one's lungs. The utter silence increased the impos
ing effect, which became fearful when, on putting the ear to
a small crevice, one heard a rushing sound, deep and hollow,
partly of wind, partly of the internal trouble of the mountain.
Then we began to descend the crater [I think it was 300
feet deep], which is very steep and at times suffocating from
the sulphur puffs. After various turnings and wmdings across
its side, we saw before us the pit from which the chief eruption
proceeds at present (for it varies year by year, and the whoU
z 2

34° John Henry Newman 1833
of this second cone has been thrown up by the comparatively
insignificant eruption of the past year), and we began to
descend into it. Here I suffered from having foreign shoes
on not sufficiently tight to my feet ; they filled (as by-the-bye
they filled both in ascending and descending the mountain)
with the hot ashes, which were intolerable, so that I was
obliged to cling by my hands. I can only say that I found
both my hands and the soles of my feet blistered all over on
my return to Naples, besides my hands being torn in various
places. I assure you I quite cried out with the pain. At
length I got to the bottom ; there it is tolerably cool. A cold
wind proceeds from the hole, which is not very large, and is
blocked up with lava.
After ascending and then descending the inner cone we
commenced our circuit of the outer cone, which is laborious,
and is three miles round, the greater part of which we tra
versed. First, we ascended the remaining 200 feet of the 800,
and then kept up and down an irregular ridge till we descended
to where we had lunched. The view is very striking. The
vast plain of Naples, which is covered with innumerable vines,
was so distant as to look like a greenish marsh. We could
see Pompeii and its amphitheatre very distinctly ; and in the
same direction various streams of lava, their age indicated by
their shade of blackness, coursing down from the mountain's
foot. It was grand to look down a sheer descent of 800 feet,
which began at one's foot, the walking place being a narrow
ledge almost perpendicular on each side. After getting to the
luncheon place we commenced our descent, which is a regular
tumble. The 600 feet ought to be done in three minutes, but
my shoes obliged me to stop every twenty or thirty steps. It
was very strange and amusing. At length we mounted our
beasts, and then entered our carriage, getting home to dinner
at half-past eight. The whole expedition only cost me a
piastre (four shillings). I have given you a very tame account,
but I am tired.
This is the most wonderful sight I have seen abroad.
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. S. Rickards.
Naples: April 14, 1833.
I hope you received, in due course, a letter I addressed
tardily to you from Falmouth. I had intended, before this,
to make up for its tardiness by inflicting upon you a second

1833 Rome v343
letter ; but again has my purpose been frustrated. So now
you have tardy letter the second. . . . We were five weeks
at Rome, and spent a most delightful time — its memory will
ever be soothing to me. Jerusalem alone could impart a more
exalted comfort and calm than that of being among the
tombs and churches of the first Christian saints. Rome is a
very difficult place to speak of, from the mixture of good and
evil in it. The heathen state was accursed as one of the
infidel monsters of Daniel's visions ; and the Christian system
there is deplorably corrupt — (yet the dust of the Apostles lies
there, and the present clergy are their descendants.) A notion
has struck me, on reading the Revelation again and again,
that the Rome there mentioned is Rome considered as a city
or place without any reference to the question whether it be
Christian or Pagan. As a seat of government, it was the first
cruel persecutor of the Church ; and as such condemned to
suffer God's judgments, which had not yet fully been poured
out upon it, from the plain fact that it still exists. Babylon is
gone. Rome is a city still, and judgments await her therefore.
I have no intention of proving this here, but wish to state my
view. When I had formed it I was surprised to find several
confirmations of it in a book of Roman antiquities I happened
to take up. (Gregory the Great seems to have held the notion
(three centuries after Rome became Christian) that stUl the
spot was accursed. It was on this principle that he encouraged
the demolition of the heathen edifices — such as the Coliseum —
as monuments of sin ; and I own he seems to me to have a
sounder Christian judgment than the moderns, who have
affected a classical tenderness for what were the high places
of impiety and the scenes of primitive martyrdoms.) It seems,
too, he especially considered Rome reserved for future super
human judgments ; for he mentions with approbation the
answer of some man, a servant of the Lord, to Alaric, that
Rome was not to be destroyed by barbarians, but by earth
quakes, tempests, &c. ; and he adds, ' which we have partly
seen accompUshed in our own times ' ; and certainly, from the
very magnitude of the masses which lie in ruins, one should
suppose nothing but elemental convulsions could have effected
their overthrow. An Irish Bishop of the eleventh century states
the same doctrine in a so-called prophecy which remains, of the
series of Popes to their termination. With the authenticity
of tliis document I am not concerned, much less with its
inspired character (though it is remarkable that the list he

34° John Henry Newman 1833
gives is now within about nine of the end) — it is sufficient it
was produced, a.d. 1600 about, in order to secure the election
of a particular Pope. Thus its doctrine evidently has been
acknowledged by a considerable party in the Church ; and, as
a tradition, has a sort of authority of the opinion of the
Church. It is contained in the concluding words, which are
such as these — after filling up his list he says : ' Then shall she
that sitteth upon the seven hills be destroyed when the Lord
comes to judge the earth.' You will observe this document is
written by an upholder of the Roman supremacy, who thus
makes the city and state still accursed though God's Church be
there. 1 1 may be said that it is impossible to distinguish between
the State and the Church, since the Bishop of Rome has been
the temporal sovereign. This is true, and accordingly (suppos
ing this view to be correct) the question arises, when was he
invested with the sovereignty, for that would be the period
of apostasy. But, granting this, it does not follow that the
Church is the woman of the Revelation any more than a man
possessed with a devil is the devil. That the spirit of old Rome
has possessed the Christian Church there is certain as a matter
of fact ; that that spirit lives is most true, quite independent of
this theory ; and, if it lives, must it not be led out to slaughter
some day ? The revivification of ancient Rome in modern has
often been noticed ; but it has been supposed that the Christian
Church is that new form of the old evil, whereas it is really a
sort of genius loci, which enthralls the Church which happens
to be there. I am not so clear as I wish to be, but I think the
distinction I make is important. Even were the old spirit
dead, the city would be under the curse by which children
suffer for their fathers' sins ; but the spirit lives to show they
are the children of those who killed the Prophets. The
Roman sway is still over its ancient territory even when the
people disclaim its dominion (as in the territory of the Greek
Church), it appoints its agents and representatives (bishops,
patriarchs, &c). Its language is still Latin, which is its bond
of union as an empire. Its policy is still crafty, relentless and
inflexible, and undeviating through a succession of rulers. It
still sacrifices the good of its members to the splendour and
strength of the Republic (what can be a greater instance of
this than the custom of the forced celibacy of the clergy ?).
The reUgion it upholds is still polytheistic, degrading, idola
trous ; and so strictly is all this connected with Rome as a
local source, that its authorities lose their power if they quit

1833 Rome 54,
Rome. We were surprised to hear that the reason Bonapar,
did not (as he wished) make Paris the seat of the Popedom
was that he found the Romish authorities could not act out of
Rome. I am a great believer in the existence of genii locorum.
Rome has had one character for 2,500 years ; of late centuries
the Christian Church has been the instrument by which it has
acted — it is its slave. The day wUl come when the captive
will be set free ; but how a distinction is to be drawn between
two powers, spiritual and devilish, which are so strangely
united, is as much beyond our imagination as it was beyond
the power of the servants in the parable to pull up the tares
from the wheat ; but that it is incomprehensible is no objection
to the notion of God's doing it. Indeed, the more I have seen
of Rome the more wonderful I have thought that parable, as
if it had a directly prophetic character which was fulfilled in the
Papacy. To the above may be added, as affording thought to
the Christian mind, the remarkable confidence of the Romans
in their safety — their securitas. They think nothing can
harm Rome. When the insurgents two years since were at
their gates, they were not at all excited. They said nothing
could harm Rome, and went on just as usual — it is a certain
insensibility to fear. This is not unlike the temper which may
have existed in Babylon, though in individuals very likely
there is much piety in it. Indeed, I am very far from think
ing there are not many good men among them. I like the
look of a great many of their priests — there is such simplicity,
gentleness and innocence among the monks : I quite love them ;
but I fear their system must cripple their t)8os.
Does it not seem strange that I who have been such a
keeper at home should now be wandering among a people
whose language I do not understand 1 And yet it seems to
come natural to one, so soon is the mind habituated to cir
cumstances. Though I should have liked a companion I am
not unwUling to rove by myself. Bad times are coming, and
no one can tell whether one may not have to travel as Wesley
and Whitfield. Harriett says you have been inquiring after
my book. It will make its appearance next October as an
independent work. I shall re- write nearly a third of it. I
think this wUl be a great improvement, though I rather dread
the labour. I am very well, thank God, and though I never
(doubtless) shall be in strong health, yet I trust this expeditions
will set me up. I think I wish nothing else than to spend my I
strength, whatever it is, in God's service, and I suppose I shall j

344 John Henry Newman 1833
never again in my life have a cessation from work, of this
duration, nor can I wish it. Do you know that Keble has
begun writing verses in the ' British Magazine ' ? I hear you
are soon to see him. In point of interest I have seen nothing
Uke Ithaca, the Straits of Messina, and Egesta (I put aside
, Rome), and in point of scenery nothing like Corfu. As to
Rome, I cannot help talking of it. (You have the tombs of
St. Paul and St. Peter and St). Clement ; churches founded
by St. Peter, and Dionysius {a.d. 260), and others in the
Catacombs used in the times of persecution ; the house and
table of St. Gregory; the place of martyrdom of St. Peter and
St. Paul ; but the catalogue is endless. 0 Rome ! that thou
were not Rome !
Rev. J. H. Newman to his Mother.
Naples: April 17, 1833.
I write because I wish you to hear the last of me before
you see me, and because you will not see me so soon as I
said. Here I am at Naples on the 17th when I hoped to be
at Syracuse. And I am going in a sailing vessel, and again
in a sailing vessel from Palermo to MarseiUes, so do not
expect me till the very end of May. The steamer with 125
passengers went off yesterday morning, and I and my servant
(who has been sixteen years in England in one family and is a
trusty man) have got a passage in an English merchantman,
the ' Serapis ' of Yarmouth, which starts to-night or to-morrow
morning. Now all this seeming disappointment is a very good thing
for me. First I avoid a very unpleasant passage in rough
weather in a crowded vessel, for the sea was high yesterday.
Next I escape what I always dreaded, the outpouring of
passengers upon Sicily, who would make inn-room difficult,
and raise the price of everything. My race against the
Countess's people at Palermo is an experience of this evil.
Lastly, I spend the bad weather here instead of at Messina,
which is a great gain. Nor is my expense increased by wait
ing. By the saiUng vessel I pay less than by the steamer. My
only loss is that of time, which I grudge, first because I am
impatient to get home, secondly because I had hoped to catch
up Froude at Sens or Chartres. The season here is said to be
most anomalous. Since Friday, when I went up Vesuvius, it
has been very rainy, most of the days continual rain, and that

1833 Naples 345
accompanied with a boisterous wind, and a vehemence of pour
which I have not seen since leaving Corfu.
Naples, then, has been unfortunate, supposing it was set
on pleasing me. Indeed I believe I have been too hard upon
it ; not that I can ever call the outlines of the bay fine, or
Vesuvius anything but graceful, or the grand range on the
Salerno side near enough or distant enough for a picture, but
the colours are certainly indescribably beautiful — the blues, the
indigoes, the browns, and the siennas. And again the people
are heathen, certainly. I am much offended at the very irreve
rent exhibitions of the Crucifix, and of the souls in Purgatory
—these struck me more because here we first saw them —
which are stuck about as puffs are on the London walls. But
I have really found the people very civil and good-natured,
though they are knaves, and the popular and exoteric religion
as pagan as you can fancy. They are very clever, and humorous.
They are quite Punches. Just now a ragged boy persecuted
me with a miserable whining for coppers, following me for a
minute or so. When he found that would not do, he sud
denly began to play a tune on his chin, with great dash and
effect. All the boys are full of tricks more harmless than that
of filching pocket-handkerchiefs, in which they certainly excel.
You see when we were here before we were simple strangers,
and these fellows knew a stranger at once ; it was bad
weather ; we had seen finer scenery ; in consequence we were
reasonably disappointed. So I think we have been hard on
this poor place, which I begin to like, if it were only out of
remorse for having abused it. I have made the most of my
rainy time, having been to Virgil's tomb, up to St. Elmo, and
to the library, pictures and museum.
And I find their living much better than before. Perhaps
the hotels are better than the restaurants ; certainly we were
wretchedly off before. It is not so now ; their onions are like
fine-flavoured apples. They never introduce garlic ; oil they
are not afraid of, but I do not dislike it. I was tempted to
take a bit of tempting cheese the day before yesterday, and
had in consequence a nightmare in bed, as follows :
First a weight and horror fell on me, after which I found
myself in the tower at Oriel. It was an audit, and the Fellows
sat round. Jenkyns and the Provost had been quarrelling
[what a shame ! I suppose they never did in their lives], and
the latter had left the room, and Jenkyns to expedite matters
had skipt on in the accounts and entered some items without

346 John Henry Newman 1833
the Provost's sanction (the extreme vividness of all this was
its merit ; after waking I could hardly believe it was not true).
I shook hands first with one Fellow then with another. At
last I got a moment to shake hands with the gallant Dornford,
who was on my right, with Denison, who stood next, and then
Copleston [these were the new tutors in our place], who said :
' Newman, let me introduce you to our two new Fellows,' point
ing to two men who stood on his right hand round the table.
I saw two of the most clumsy, awkward-looking chaps I ever
set eyes on, and they had awkward unintelligible names.
With great grief of heart, but a most unembarrassed smiling
manner, I shook hands with them and wished them joy, and
then talked and chatted with the rest as if nothing had
happened, yet longing to get away, and with a sickness of
heart. When I got away at length, I could find no means of
relief. I could not find Froude nor [J. F.] Christie. I wished
to retire to the shrubberies, which were those of Ham [my
Father had a house at Ham, near Richmond, from 1804 to
1 807, and when I dreamed of heaven as a boy, it was always
Ham]. ' There,' thought I to myself, ' on this seat or that
arbour, which I recollect from a boy, i shall recover myself ' ;
but it was not allowed me. I was in my rooms, or some
rooms, and had continual interruptions. A father and son,
the latter coming into residence, and intending to stand for
some Sicilian scholarship. Then came in a brace of gentlemen
commoners with hideous faces, though I was not a tutor, and,
lastly, my companion with whom I travelled down here from
Rome, with a lady under his arm (do what I will I cannot
recollect who I thought it was — I saw him with a lady at St.
Peter's on Good Friday). This was part of the dream, but
only part, and all, I say, so vivid. What shall we say to a bit
of cheese awaking the poetical faculty 1 I hope simply poetical,
and not historical. Indeed I have grown calm out of spite,
and am now so confident that Rogers has succeeded that I do
not think about it.
I have letters of introduction to Messina, Catania, Syra
cuse, Palermo. I shall try at Messina for one for Girgenti, and
then I shaU be complete. But how I wish it was over — though-
I shall enjoy it much at the time — for I wish to get home.
Have I told you of the inconsistencies of these Southerners,
of the delicacy and abundance of their table, and chamber linen
so white, and the intolerable dirt of their carpets, so dirty that
I dare not let my towel reach it? They have a fashion of

1833 Naples 347
spitting about, too, to an excess perfectly incredible to an
Englishman. They are ever at it. I have seen an elegantly
dressed lady on the Pincio spit manfully ; nay, rather I heard
her, which ma'le me look round to be sure; afterwards I
watched and saw her. In the churches this is quite a feature.
I have seen a woman at her prayers spit about, and a priest
at the most sacred part of the service.
April 18. — Another day, being the seventh of the scirocco.
The day is somewhat clearing.
Weather mends, but wind immovable. Slight shock of
earthquake last night. We look towards Vesuvius with ex
pectation, but it is thick in mist to the base.
Friday, April 19. — Half -past 7 A.M., the wind is fair. I
am off suddenly. To his Sister Harriett. Catania: April 25, 1833.
... I arrived at this place this morning, and should like
to give you an account of my proceedings, but I am lazy from
being tired.
I was hastily summoned on the 19th from Naples, just as
I had domiciled myself there. Indeed, I was so content with
the place that I was sorry to have to move. The pleasantest
time I have had abroad has been at Rome, when I was
stationary, and my habitual love of repose made me glad that
my passage to Sicily was delayed from day to day ; but at
last, early on the 19th, news came that the wind was fair,
and by nine o'clock we were off in the ' Serapis.'
There were three other passengers, Frenchmen, well be
haved, very talkative, and, I thought, humorous ; but I fol
low French far worse than Italian. Their conversation with
the Captain, a thorough Englishman, was amusing, each party
speaking his own language. ' Capitaine, quante miglie o'clock? '
This, I believe, meant 'How many knots are we going an
hour?' The Captain was a match for them. 'The other
batiment ' (speaking of a brig which had started with us)
' be aft this morning, gentlemen ! ' This sort of social inter
course sometimes went on for minutes. We did not arrive
at Messina till 5 a.m. on Sunday. We were becalmed all
Saturday near Stromboli ; there had been a brisk breeze the
day before, which made me very sick. On getting to Messina
I attempted to achieve a service that day, but failed alto

348 John Henry Newman 1833
gether. The Straits looked more beautiful even than before.
I never saw anything equal to the colour of the sea and of the
Calabrian coast. The steamboat went off for Catania between
eleven and twelve. It was impossible to get passports till
next day — Monday — and I did not start on my expedition
till twelve o'clock ; a loss of seven hours, which was a great
inconvenience — but I am, in fact, tired ; so I stop. [This
was almost the beginning of my fever.]
On setting off from Messina I felt amused and almost
ashamed of the figure I was cutting. I was chief of a caval
cade consisting of a servant, two mules, and several muleteers
(though the latter were soon reduced to one, who was to go
with us through), and when I happened to catch a sight of
my shadow, the thought of my personal equipments, at least
as regards my hat and my coat, was still more perplexing.
My neckcloth was the only black thing about me, yet black
without being clerical. Nor had I any such exuberance of
spirits as would bear me up against the ridiculousness of my
exterior. I was setting out on an expedition which would be
pleasant in memory rather than in performance. I have been
much annoyed at the delay of the passport, which threw me
out of my projected itinerary. Inns are not to be found
every mile here as in England ; and, though I had been told
I should certainly find accommodation at the twentieth mile
from Messina, yet my muleteer, when questioned, contradicted
himself. Nor was I satisfied with him ; the baggage kept
coming off, and we had frequent stoppages ; and the weather,
too, threatened, and I felt being alone — not because of the
solitude, but because a tour is the best time for turning ac
quaintances into friends, and I was losing a great opportunity.
Nor was there much in external objects to divert me from
these depressing thoughts. The coast is beautiful, but is
better seen from the sea than from a road. 1 he lower hills
were covered with vines and mulberries ; those above them
with corn and olives. We passed various fiumaras — dry, of
course ; one of them was about 250 paces, had two rapid
brooks still alive in it. There were flags growing on the edge
of the sea. At AU the hills receded ; and you saw Etna,
looking very near and white. At length we ended~the twenty
miles. I never got through a walk so easily, and found an
inn at San Paolo, and got a room and bed much better than I
had expected, though there was no glass in the windows and
plenty of fleas. So ends Canto the first.

1833 Syracuse 349
Canto the second. Tuesday was a great success We
set off between five and six, and had twelve miles to go to
breakfast at Taormini. As we approached, the country got
more and more striking. Syracuse : April 27.
The two last miles we diverged from the road up a steep
path, and soon came to the ancient stone ascent leading to
Taurominium. I never saw anything more enchanting than
this spot. It realised all one had read of in books about
scenery — a deep valley, brawling streams, beautiful trees, the
sea (heard) in the distance. But when, after breakfast, on a
bright day, we mounted to the theatre, and saw the famous
view, what shall I say ? I never knew that Nature could be
so beautiful ; and to see that view was the nearest approach
to seeing Eden. O happy I ! It was worth coming all the
way, to endure sadness, loneliness, weariness, to see it. I
felt, for the first time in my life, that I should be a better
and more religious man if I Uved there. This superb view,
the most wonderful I can ever see, is but one of at least half
a dozen, all beautiful, close at hand. One view is at the back
of the theatre, with a view of Calabria and the Messina side
of Sicily. Another is going out of Taormini on the descent.
The landlady of the fondaco asked me if I was going to Paris,
and begged me to take a letter to her daughter, which I have
done. And so I went off to Giarre. There first I went through
the river-beds. The hills receded — Etna was magnificent.
The scene was sombre with clouds, when suddenly, as the sun
descended upon the cone, its rays shot out between the clouds
and the snow, turning the clouds into royal curtains, while on
one side there was a sort of Jacob's ladder. I understood
why the poets made the abode of the gods on Mount Olympus.
And now I have told you nearly everything pleasant up
to this date —the 27th (except that the frogs between Giardini
and Giarre, which are louder even than those at Albano, are
the most musical animals I have hitherto met with — they
have a trill like a nightingale). I am hitherto disappointed
in birds and flowers. I never thought this expedition was to
be one of pleasure only, for I wished to see what it was to be
a solitary and wanderer. On Monday night I had little sleep,
and on Tuesday none, from the fleas. I counted quarter after

350 John Henry Newman 1833
quarter all through the night at Giarre, and there were noises
in the next room which annoyed me. The fleas were innu
merable, and they bite with a sting. In England we have no
idea what a Sicilian flea is. On Wednesday I resolved to see
the famous chestnut-trees, and so to go to Nicolosi under
Etna. I went to see them as evidence of the wonderful fer
tility of the soil. From Nicolosi the ascent of Etna is made.
The whole distance is not more than twenty-two miles, though
very fatiguing. The distance from Giarre to the chestnuts is
about six — a precipitous ascent over and along the beds of
torrents. I was disappointed in them [they are nothing but
roots, cut level with the ground]. We breakfasted in a house
where was a sick man, who was attended by a village doctor.
We were told it was three hours' march from thence to
Nicolosi ; it proved to be five ; it is along fields of lava, very
curious, certainly, but very hot with the sun on them — and
curious conical hills, of the finest, richest light-brown earth,
which seem dimpled by every breath of air, and lying in heaps
as if turned out of a cart and left there.
At length we came to Nicolosi, where I had come in order
to determine the possibility of going up Etna, as you never
get right intelligence at a distance. I found every discourage
ment. The snow lay as it had lain two months before, and I
was told I should have to walk for nine hours up and down,
taking in the cone, half that time in the night, and all in the
cold ; and the leaves were not out, and there was nothing to
see. And, on looking over the book of names of those who
had ascended, everything was discouraging. One said, 'I
have endured extreme fatigue, and advise no one to follow
my example.' Another, ' Better be wise late than never. If
you have been a fool in coming, do not be twice a fool in
going up.' However, I think I should have attempted it,
except that I had strained my leg in walking (but do not give
this as the reason ; the season is the straightforward reason),
and my servant was tired.
The discomfort of the so-called inn was excessive ; it was
the most forlorn place I ever was in. It was a ground floor ;
one window and no glass ; three doors with planks gaping
to the external air ; brick floor in pieces, and filthy walls.
Mrs. Starke took me in by talking of ' reposing ' before going
up Etna. In addition, my spirits of wine failed, and I could
not dress my dinner. . I had lived on almost nothing for two
days, and my servant had gone out to take care of himself. I

1S33 Syracuse 351
lay down on my so-called bed, and thought of the sick-room
at Ealing, and my mind felt very dry, and I thought, ' What
if I should lose my reason ? ' and I was in dreadful irritation
from the renewed attacks of the fleas. And I was altogether
out of sorts. And the bed was on a board, and the bed things
looked dirty, and I fancied it would all come to pieces in the
night. But my servant came in and poached me some eggs,
and threw down water under my bed against my enemies, and
I lay down to sleep by eight or nine o'clock, and slept very
soundly for eight hours, and got up on Thursday quite strong,
with the happy prospect of walking in to breakfast to the
comfortable town of Catania ; and the morning was fine, and
the road (twelve miles) a pleasant descent the whole way ; and
I lodged myself very happily there, and, though weak, I was
recruited. And now here I am at Syracuse, miserable again ; and I
seem to think I shall never get home — that is, though quite
weU, I cannot realise it. I stUl think of the 121st Psalm.

To his Sister Jemima.
Syracuse: April 27, 1833.
My last letter (to Harriett), which I have just finished,
left me safely disposed of at the Corona d'Oro at Catania ;
there I subjected myself to a thorough wash and amused
myself with looking over the travellers' names in the host's
book, and their praises of himself. My knee and the blisters
on my feet, and my considerable languor, hindered me moving
about much ; but I called on Froude's friend, Signor C.
GemeUaro, and he is to show me the medals of Sicily and
Magna Grsecia on my return to Catania from this place on the
morrow (i.e. yesterday), Friday, by speronaro.
A speronaro is a large boat used in these seas running, e.g.
from Malta to Sicily, from SicUy to Naples, &c. This was
about thirty-five feet long, and in all had fourteen persons
aboard. At the stern some hoops held up an awning some four
feet high, the rest of the boat was open. Since our passports
were made out for Syracuse ; we were not allowed to land at
any other place. We could, indeed, have got to Syracuse that
night, but not till after sunset, and then we should not have
got pratique till next morning. We had no provisions with
us, though luckily some wine, hearing the wine of Syracuse was

352 John Henry Newman 1833
inferior ; but the boatmen gave us a bit of bread apiece.
Luckily I had taken my cloaks with me.
At six o'clock we pulled to the shore about six miles off
Syracuse — a lonely spot ; and when for five minutes I got out
upon the rocks, and saw the beautiful clearness of the water
and felt the mildness of the evening, I quite congratulated
myself on having an adventure* with so little trouble. So we
laid down, I wrapped up, and sleeping soundly a long while,
very uncomfortable as everything was, including my companions
— my next-door neighbour being the first vulgar Italian I
have met with — and miserable as was my torment from fleas.
At midnight we hoisted sail, and with some little wind slowly
coasted on to Syracuse, where we arrived between three and
four, but could not obtain pratique till between seven and
eight this morning.
Archdeacon Froude had given me a letter to the Consul
here — Syracuse — and he has been of essential service to me
in all matters ; in seeing sights, getting passports, &c. ; all
which is a most tedious business here. The weather, however,
has been against me. The scirocco has at length come down
in profuse rain, and I can only be thankful that to-day was
not yesterday, when I was in the speronaro ; indeed, there is
no day on which I could have so well borne it since I set out.
As it is, it has only had the effect of lowering my spirits and
of making my visit here uncomfortable. I have seen the
fountain of Arethusa, and rowed up the Anapus to gather the
papyrus and to see the remains of the Temple of Minerva,
which are indeed magnificent, and looked at the remaining
columns of Jupiter Olympius. I have been conning over
Thucydides, particularly yesterday, and this morning in the
boat, and am at home with the whole place ; only I have not
seen the theatre and amphitheatre, which, being Roman, I care
little for. Glad to go back to Catania early to-morrow morn
ing. My intention was to have remained here all Sunday,
and, independent of my rule not to travel needlessly then, the
inn is comfortable enough, and the place so interesting as to
make one wish it ; but the wind is out of my power, and, since
it may change on Monday, and is now fair for Catania, I
ought not to run the risk of being detained here an indefinite
time, or of another night adventure. I will here set down
some verses which I. composed last night in the boat. You
wUl see that they want ease and spirit. Anxiety is the great
enemy of poetry. In the ' Hermes ' I had no foreboding care.

1833 Syracuse 353
Well, it will be all over when you get this, and the time is not
long. I do not mind saying all this to you, when you will read
it as a dream of the night, if God so will. I often think of
Cowper's two lines, ' Beware of desperate steps,' &c.
But for the verses, here they are :
Say, hast thou tracked a traveller's round,
Nor visions met thee there,
Thou could'st but marvel to have found
This blighted world so fair ?
And feel an awe within thee rise,
That sinful man should see
Glories far worthier Seraphs' eyes
Than to be shared by thee 1
Store them in heart I thou shalt not faint
'Mid coming pains and fears ;
As the third heaven once nerved a Saint
For fourteen trial-years.1
My servant taken from Naples is a very active, useful man,
but he knows of course nothing of the ways and means of this
country, and I am really roughing it. Yet I am not unwilling
to do so ; for I shall gain a lesson, so God does but sustain me.
In retrospect all bodily pain vanishes, and mental impres
sions (which have been chiefly pleasant) endure. Taurominium
will outlive Giarre, as Egesta Calatafimi. It follows, however,
that I heartily wish it over ; but this I have wished ever since
I left England, as you know. I have great comfort in knowing
I have your prayers, and of others at home ; in this thought
I seem to have a pledge of safe-conduct. I begin to dread the
voyage from Palermo to Marseilles in a foolish way. The day
makes me sad and stupid. The great harbour is now before
my eyes, the Olympieium, the Anapus, Epipolre, all drenched
in wet ; and here the Consul has just come to tell me that the
passport people are laying their heads together to keep me
here another day or extort money. So you see I am in strife
and contention. Catania: April 30.
Things improve with me this evening, but really I have
gone through more fatigue and vexation since I last wrote than
ever I did in my life.
I resume where I left off [April 27]. There were three
1 Lyra ApostoUca : ' Taurominium.'
VOL. I. A A

354 John henry Newman 1833
Englishmen at the hotel at Syracuse, who had come from Malta
on their way overland from India. They introduced them
selves, and asked me join their dinner party, which I did, and
went there in the evening to a great assembly for the celebra
tion of the marriage of the son of a judge with a Russian
Consul's daughter. The boudoir in which the ceremony was
performed (we came too late for it) was splendidly fitted up.
I went in traveller's dress, thinking, goose as I was, to be in
cognito, and merely a sightseer. You may fancy we were all
lions. Though by no means a brilliant party, it was such a
contrast to ancient Syracuse, that I thought of the Corfu ball.
Somehow altogether Syracuse is more like Corfu and the Ionian
towns than anything I have seen since : narrow streets, low
houses, misery visible ; and next morning when I went to
catch a glimpse of the amphitheatre before starting, its being
a garrisoned town reminded me still more forcibly of Corfu.
When we descended into the plain we had two rivers to
ferry over, and the road was bad. To increase our perplexity
we were told that the neighbourhood of the second river was
inf ested with robbers ; and to put the finishing stroke to our
trouble, when we got near it (at half-past eight), with a
moon, but a hazy one, we lost our way, our guide being quite
at fault. However, by the good hand of God, we found it
again, and gfjt here safe by half -past ten (I use a strong ex
pression), more dead than alive, from the jolting of the mule,
which at one time I urged to between five and six miles an
hour. I took some soup and went to bed, and had a remark
ably good night. However, in the course of this day [April 30]
some f everishness had come on ; but now, thank God, it is gone
away, and Signor Gemellaro tells me I shall have no roads like
those I have traversed. So my spirits have risen, and I pur
pose to start for Girgenti, to reach it by Saturday.
If I may speak of what has happened as over, for I am
not yet sure that I am what I ought to be, I would say I do
not see how I have been injudicious, only unfortunate.
The only question is : whether I was right in going on a
Sunday, and whether this wrong step has not brought all this
upon me ?
My servant is a treasure — very sharp-witted and ready —
an old campaigner, having served through the Peninsula, a
sailor in his earlier days, domesticated in England, yet a
perfect Neapolitan in language. He cannot read or write.
The place I slept at my first night was the ancient Thapsus.

1833 Syracuse 355
Epipolse is neither beautiful nor romantic, but striking as
resembling huge human works, walls, &c. From Agosta we
first passed over wild heath, then cornland, then wood, then
we descended to the sand ; and then the darkness came on.
I cannot tell what. [We lost our way by getting between the
river and the sea, and so crossing the former without knowing
it, since it has no mouth, but is swallowed up by the sand.
We got among shepherds' tents under Mount Etna, the dogs
barking at us.] I like what I see of the people ; dirt, with
simplicity and contentment. This I found both at the creek
and at Agosta. The English seem much thought of. We
had a slight earthquake tins morning — the day close and hazy,
as at Naples on a similar event.
The tone of the last two letters to his sisters shows that
Mr. Newman was already under the influence of the fever that
prostrated him for many weeks in Sicily. The following
letter of a much later date was valued by his correspondent
as ' a particularly interesting ' one, in which he gives the ac
count of his SiciUan sickness.

To F. Rogers, Esq.
Palermo: June .% 1833.
With what joy did I see in 'Galignani' yesterday that you
were one of us. It was quite a chance I saw it. I had some
days before looked over the papers of the last six weeks,
having seen, none during that time ; and yesterday the person
who lent them me said : ' There may be one or two yet which
you have not taken — hunt over the heap again.' I took home
four to read, and, as I was poring over some article on politics
(I believe), the wind blew over the page, and I was arrested
by the title of ' University Intelligence.' The first words were
' F. Rogers,' &c.
And now I suppose you are wondering what I do now at
Palermo ; and perhaps my friends at Oxford have been won
dering, unless they have sat down in the comfortable conclu
sion that I am imprisoned here for want of a vessel. I only
hope the Rose Hill people are not uneasy. I have not been
weather-bound or shipless, taken by the Barbary pirates, or
seized as a propagandist of Liberalism. No; but, you will be
sorry to hear, cotifined with a very dangerous fever in the very
A A 2

356 John Henry Newman 1833
centre of Sicily for three weeks. I will give you an account of
it, if my hand and my head let me. Only do not mention it
tdl you hear I am at home, which I trust wiU be in about a fort
night or three weeks. I sail, please God, in a Marseilles vessel
on Saturday next, the 8th, whence I shall despatch this to you.
This season has been remarkable for rain in this part of
the world, as Froude, if he is returned, has perhaps told you.
At Catania, Dr. Gemellaro told me that there sometimes fell
only seven inches of rain in the wet months, but that this year
there had fallen thirty-four. In consequence, a bad fever, of
the nature of the scarlet, was epidemic ; which I did not know,
nor should have thought of perhaps, if I had. The immediate
cause of my illness seems to have been my expedition from
Catania to Syracuse ; but doubtless I was predisposed to take
injury from any bad state of the atmosphere, by the sleep
less nights and famished days (though few) which I had had
immediately before. Sicilian couches abound in the most
inveterate enemies of slumber, and my provisions — for you
get none at the inns — though they ought not, were affected by
the weather, or were in themselves bad. (I bought them at
Naples.) And about Etna the transitions from heat to cold
are very rapid and severe — in the same day I was almost cut
in two, and exhausted with the scorching and dust of lava,
though I believe I never got chilled. And in many places they
have no glass in the windows, and the shutters do not fit
tight, which is bad of a night. Now you will say, how was it
/ alone suffered all this of all Sicilian travellers ? Why, to
tell the truth, the way to avoid it would have been to have
taken a Sicilian regular lionizer and purveyor, who would have
avoided all difficulties; but this for one person is very ex
pensive, and it falls light on several. I had a Neapolitan
servant, a good cook (I had bought my provisions before
I took him, and they seemed good), but knowing nothing of
Sicily. I knew a great deal of Sicily from others — everyone
was giving me advice to do things they had not tried them
selves. It' was from one of these plans I suffered. Now all
this, that I have put down in the last half-page, sounds so
gauche, that I beg you would keep it to yourself ; for it is a
gratuitous exposure on my part, and only takes up room in
my letter, as you will see from what follows.
Everyone recommended me to go from Catania to Syracuse
in a speronaro (by water). The distance by land and sea is
forty miles — by land the road is indescribably bad, especially

1833 Sicily 357
after rain — and the distance too long for mules in one day,
and there is no inn on the road. The time by sea was unani
mously declared by different persons to be seven hours — the
boatman said five. Dr. Gemellaro so fully acquiesced in these
statements as to allow of my making an engagement with
him for the middle of the day on which I was to set out from
Syracuse on my return. I set out for Syracuse by 7 or 8 a.m.
Well, when we were about half-way, a scirocco sprang up, and
by degrees it became evident we could not reach Syracuse that
night. We made for Thapsxis, and slept in the boat off the
peninsula. On my return, which I made by sea from the
probability of the scirocco continuing, and the probable state
of the road, the same ill luck attended me. The wind changed,
and I slept in the boat. Next morning we made for Agosta
(all we could do), the ancient Hybla. (Megara Hyblaea — whence
the honey.) — We arrived by 8 a.m. at Agosta. Delays of ob
taining pratique, passport, &c. &c, kept us till 3 p.m., when
we set forward on mules for Catania with the belief that the
distance was twenty-two miles. By the time it grew dusk we
had gone fourteen miles, and descended to the water's side ;
when to our dismay we learned we had eighteen miles before
us, three rivers to ford or ferry, a deep sand to traverse for
half the way, and the danger of being plundered. To complete
the whole, when we got to the most suspicious part of our
journey our guide lost his way. However, he found it again,
and alarms are nothing when they are over, but half an hour
was a substantial loss. We got to Catania between eleven and
twelve at night. The sun had been broiling during the day —
the night was damp. I must add, that the first day I was in
the speronaro I had had no food for twenty-four hours — •
having of course taken no provision with me — that at Syracuse
I had eaten very little, and only a breakfast on the day of
this fatiguing journey ; and, out of the three nights, I had
slept only one, and that but a little. I am ashamed of the
minuteness with which I am telling all this — but my head is
not yet entirely my own.
From my return to Catania I sickened. When the idea of
illness first came upon me I do not know, but I was obliged on
May 1 to lie down for some time when I had got half through
my day's journey ; and the next morning I could not proceed.
This was at Leonforte, above one hundred miles from Palermo.
Three days I remained at the inn therewith the fever increasing,
and no medical aid. On the night of the third day I had a

358 John Henry Newman 1833
strange (but providential) notion that I was quite well. So
on the next morning I ordered the mules, and set off towards
Girgenti, my destination. I had not gone far when a distressing
choking feeling (constriction?) of the throat and chest came on ;
and at the end of seven mUes I lay down exhausted in a cabin
near the road. Here, as I lay on the ground, after a time, I
felt a hand at my pulse ; it was a medical man who by chance
was at hand, and he prescribed for me, and enabled me by the
evening to get to Castro Giovanni (the ancient Enna). At
first I had difficulty in getting a lodging— had it been known
I had the fever I suppose it would have been impossible, for
numbers were dying of it there, at Girgenti, and, I believe,
everywhere. However, at last I got most comfortably housed.
I did not then know what was the matter with me, I believe,
but at Leonforte I had thought myself so bad that I gave my
servant directions how to convey news of my death (should it
be so) to England, at the same time expressing to him a clear
and confident conviction that I should not die. The reason I
gave was that 'I thought God had work for me.' I do not
think there was anything wrong in this, on consideration.
At Castro Giovanni I was immediately bled — an essential
service — but with this exception it seems as if nature re
covered herself ; but not till the eleventh day, during which time
the fever was increasing, and my attendants thought I could
not get over it. Since, I have gained strength in the most
wonderful manlier. My strength was so prostrated, I could
not raise myself in bed or feed myself. The eighth after the
crisis I began to walk about (with help). On the twelfth I
began a journey of three days to Palermo, going one day
sixty-two miles ; and here, where I have been these ten days,
I have surprised everyone by my improvement (though I can
not run yet ; the weather is very relaxing). When I came here
I could not read nor write, nor talk nor think. I had no
memory, and very little of the reasoning faculty. My head
had been quite clear (at least at intervals) during the early
part of my illness, and I had all through the fever corre
sponded with the doctor in (really very good) Latin ; but a
letter from home was brought me, containing letters from five
persons, and I pored through it to find news of your election,
you unworthy feUow, which it did not contain. This threw
the blood into my head, which I have not yet quite recovered.
And now you will say my expedition to Sicily has been a
failure. By no means. Do I repent of coming ? Why, cer-

1833 Sicily 359
tainly I should not have come had I known that it was at the
danger of my life. I had two objects in coming — to see the
antiquities and to see the country. In the former I have
faded. I have lost Girgenti and Selinunti, and I have lost
the series of perfumed gardens through which the mule track
near Selinunti is carried. But I have seen Taormini, and the
country from Adern6 to Palermo, and can only say that I did
not know before nature could be so beautiful. It is a country.
It passes belief. It is like the Garden of Eden, and though
it ran in the line of my anticipations (as I say), it far exceeded
them. I continually say En unquam,x being very homesick.
June 17. — At last our vessel is nearing Marseilles. I hope
to send you a newspaper from London or Oxford to announce
my arrival.
The day before this letter was finished, ' Lead, kindly Light '
was written, and, however familiar to many, perhaps most,
readers, it should have its place here.
Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on 1
The night is dark, and 1 am far from home-
Lead Thou me on 1
Keep Thou my feet ; I do not ask to see
The distant scene,— one step enough for me.
I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou
Shouldst lead me on.
I loved to choose and see my path ; but now
Lead Thou me on I
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will : remember not past years.
So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still
Will lead me on
O'er moor and fen. o'er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone ;
And with the morn those angel faces smi'e
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.
June 16, 1833 : in tlie Straits of Bonifacio?
1 Virg. Eel. i. 68.
2 ' I was aching to get home ; yet for want of a vessel I was kept at
Palermo for three weeks. ... At last I got off in an orange boat, bound
for Marseilles. Then it was that I wrote the lines, "Lead, kindly light,''
which have since become well known. We were becalmed a whole
week in the Straits of Bonifacio.' — Apologia, p. 35.

3Go John Henry Newman 1833
To his Mother.
Palermo : June 9, 1833.
Here I am waiting day after day and week after week for
a vessel, and very anxious lest you should be uneasy about
me. Had I written to you via Naples when I first came here,
though the letter would have been three weeks in getting to
you, you would have heard in good time. I write now, though
late, but I heartily hope I shaU be at home before you read
this. The captain of a Sicilian vessel promises to sail for
Marseilles to-morrow.
Then, again, I am told that calms are common at this time
of year — twelve or twenty days — but I run the chance. The
average time is six days.
I have two letters written for H. and J., one of which I
have destined for the post at Marseilles ; the second is un
intelligible without the first. [One went from Marseilles, the
other from Lyons.] My further adventures when we meet,
please God, by word of mouth — a more pleasant way. Excuse
my scrawl ; this place is very hot. I have enjoyed myself
here very much, have been a good deal on the water. The
breezes are most refreshing ; there is a delightful public
garden and terraces, and I know one or two of the merchants,
who are very kind. From Catania to Palermo I passed through
a country which baffles description. I never saw such a
country before ; it was a new thing.
I was very idle in verse-making till June, when I made a
start, and have done one every day since June began, having
done only three in April and May.
In much longing, for I am home-sick.
J. H. N.
P.S. — I have received the quinquipartite letter — you, H,
J., Williams, and Christie.
On the address of this quinquipartite letter, which lies
before the Editor, is written : ' 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
aU seemed Uke a dream. — J. H. N.'

1833 Lyons 361
To his Mother.
Lyons : July 1.
I trust when you receive this I shall not be far from you.
Really it seems as if some unseen power, good or bad, was re
sisting my return. £The thought of home has brought tears in
my eyes for the last two months. God is giving me a severe
lesson of patience, and I trust I am not altogether wasting the
opportunity of discipline. It is His will. I strive to think
that, wherever I am, God is God and I am I.-) It is only forty-
eight hours' journey from Marseilles here (200 miles), yet on
arriving here last night I found my ankles so swollen and in
flamed, that I have judged it prudent to remain here a day,
though in a miserable dirty inn, yet the best in Lyons. I have
the prospect of confinement in my bedroom all day, with the
doubt whether I shall be able to proceed to-morrow, for at
present it is with difficulty and pain that I hobble across the
room. Rest is the great remedy, I suppose. So it is a simple
trial of my patience. I am quite desolate. I am tempted to
say, ' Lord, heal me, for my bones are vexed.' But really I am
wonderfully calm, and I trust from right principles. Thwart
ing awaits me at every step. I have had much of this ever
since I left Naples. I earnestly hope that to-morrow will end
your doubts and anxieties about me by the receipt of my letter
from Palermo on June 9.
I have said nothing about France, which is truly la belle
France in all externals. I am enchanted with it.
[No letter was received in England from me between
May 7 and July 1— eight weeks. In the letter dated April 15
and received in England on May 7, I said I was waiting at
Naples for a wind to take me in a sailing vessel to Messina.—
J. H. N.J
Mr. Newman arrived at his Mother's house at Iffley on
July 9, 1833. On July 11 he wrote to Mr. Keble.
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. J. Keble.
Oriel: July 11, 1833.
I have come in a week from Lyons ; I was up six nights
out of the seven.

362 John Henry Newman 1838
Rev. Isaac Williams to Rev. J. H. Newman.
My dear Vicar, — Xaioe, tto\v xaW€> and again iroXv xa"oe-
How delightful it is to think of your being amongst us again,
particularly after your being so long unheard of !
Rev. H. W. Wilberforce to Rev. J. H. Newman.
Bath.- July 13, 1833.
I heard this morning, I need not say with how much
thankfulness, that you have passed through London towards
Oxford. Nor need I tell you how much I felt on hearing
indirectly that you had been so dangerously ill in the heart
of a nearly barbarous country, nor even the anxiety one could
not but feel at your long absence. ... I have thought
much of Mrs. Newman and of your sisters, and of the suffer
ing they must have undergone. ... I shall think of you
to-morrow, when, I suppose, you will be at St. Mary's. If
you have judged me worthy, it will greatly delight me to hear
something of what passed in your mind during all you have
gone through. It is not curiosity — considering it the case of
one so dear to me, and I think you will not fear from me that
vulgar publication of feelings uttered in the confidence of
friendship, which is one disgrace of our age.
It is not unlikely that this letter may have lived in Mr.
Newman's mind, and put him upon writing at a later date
what he could recall of his illness in Sicily. The following is
a paper of recollections, dreamy and uncertain, of the incidents
of his fever, written, as the reader must observe, at consider
able intervals of time. There are breaks in the narrative,
which may be understood as indicating passages too private
for print or scrutiny of strange eyes.
A friend whose judgment may be relied upon, on being
consulted by the Editor, has written on this remarkable paper,
'There is a great deal about his illness, and a good deal that
goes into minutiae and special feelings in illness. But he so
plainly always looked on the fever in all its features as a crisis
in his life, partly judgment on past self-will, partly a sign o£
special electing and directing favour, that the prominence
given to it is quite accounted for by those who knew him, and
explains why all these strange pictures of fever are given.'

1833 Illness in Sicily 363

My Illness in Sicily.
[August 31, 1834.] — I have wished for some time to write
in this book an account of my illness in Sicily [in May 1833],
for the remembrance is pleasant and profitable. I shall not
be able to recollect everything in order, so my account may be
confused, running to and fro. . . .
Again, I felt it was a punishment for my wilfulness in
going to Sicily by myself. What is here to be noticed is its
remarkable bearing on my history, so to call it. I had been
released from College business and written a book which I felt
on the whole was worth publishing Suddenly, I am led to
go abroad ; the work being still in MS. When out, I could
not but feel that something of service was in store for me. I
recollect writing to [John F.] Christie to this effect, that,
nevertheless, if God willed me a private life, the happier for
me ; and I think I do feel this, 0 my God ! so that, if Thou
wilt give me retirement, Thou wilt give me what I shall rejoice
and prefer to receive, except that I should be vexed to see no
one else doing what I could in a measure do myself. Well, in
an unlooked-for way I come to Sicily. From that time every
thing went wrong : I could almost fancy it was on that day
that I caught my fever. Certainly I was weak and low from
that time forward, and had so many little troubles to bear that
I kept asking almost impatiently why God so fought against
me. Towards the end of the next day I was quite knocked
up, and laid down at Nicolosi on the bed with the feeling that
my reason perchance might f aU me. Then followed my voyage
from Catania to Syracuse and back, and then to Adern6,
where the insects for the first time ceased to plague me. I
had noticed feverish symptoms in me the foregoing day [i.e.
I could not eat at Catania on AprU 30], and that night being
almost choked with a feeling which at the time I attributed
to having taken some ginger with my supper. However, I
have got into the narrative here, without meaning it. What
I wanted first to speak of was the providence and strange
meaning of it. The fever was most dangerous ; for a week my
attendants gave me up, and people were dying of it on all sides ;
yet all through I had a confident feeling I should recover. I
told my servant so, and gave as a reason (even when semi-
delirious, and engaged in giving him my friends' direction at
home, and so preparing externally for death) that ' I thought
God had some work for me.' These, I believe, were exactly

364 John Henry Newman 1833
my words, and when, after the fever, I was on the road to
Palermo, so weak I could not walk by myself, I sat on the bed on
the morning of May 26 or May 27 profusely weeping, and only
able to say that I could not help thinking God had something
for me to do at home. This I repeated to my servant, to
whom the words were unintelligible of course. Now it cer
tainly is remarkable that a new and larger sphere of action
had opened upon me from the very moment I returned. My
book [' Arians '] indeed was not published for some months ;
but long before that I was busy. Immediately on my return
I heard that Keble was going to preach an assize sermon on the
times, and it was preached on the very first Sunday after my
return ; then it was printed. Close upon this — I suppose,
within a fortnight of my return — I suggested to Palmer, Keble,
and Froude an association for tracts. In August I wrote and
printed four ; then followed the address to the Archbishop,
which with the tracts quite occupied me during Michaelmas
Term, in the course of which (Nov. 5) my work was published.
Then followed my sermons, published in February or March
of this present year. Then, in Easter Term, the resistance of
the Dissenters' University Admission Bill, in which I was
much concerned.
Now for the particulars of my illness. On Thursday,
May 2, 1 started from Adern6 — the scene was most beautiful —
hills thrown about on all sides, and covered with green corn,
in all variety of shades, relieved by the light (raw sienna) stone
of the hills. The whole day the scene was like the garden of
Eden, most exquisitely beautiful, though varying, sometimes
with deep valleys on the side and many trees, high hills with
towns on the top as at S. Filippo d'Argir6, Etna behind us,
and Castro Juan before in the distance. On the whole, I
suppose I went forty-two miles that day on my mule, but with
great pain. I set out walking, the mules coming after, and
fell to tears thinking of dear Mary as I looked at the beautiful
prospect. When I got to Regalbuto I was obliged to lie down
for an hour or so. I cannot tell whether I thought myself ill or
not. With much distress I proceeded, taking some wine at S.
Filippo, and, I believe, elsewhere [I recollect with difficulty dis
mounting, and crawling with my servant's help to a wine-shop,
and sitting on a stone], till in the evening I got to Leonforte.
Here [at Leonforte] I lay, I believe, without sleep, and next
morning, when I attempted to get up, I fell back and was too
ill to do so. (This is the best of my recollection.)

18S3 Illness in Sicily 365
[December 28, 1834.] — I believe I must have been somewhat
[not light-headed but] scarcely myself the day before on my
journey, else surely my indisposition would have been forced
upon my mind by my frequent stoppings and restings. I
fancy I had but one wish — to get on ; that my troubles at
Syracuse had quite taken away my present enjoyment of what
I saw, and that I looked at everything but as the matter for
future retrospective pleasure, which indeed was my original
view in coming here. Well, after some time, a great person
age having gone from the other inn, I managed to dress and
get down there. ... I think it was Friday, May 3, that I
began to think what I could take to do me good. ... I
thought and thought, till it struck me camomile would do me
good [as being a tonic and stomachic. — March 8, 1840]. I
had seen some growing wild at Corfu, and, remembering this,
bade my servant inquire. There were no shops in the place,
much less a chemist's ; but it so happened that camomile was
a familiar medicine with the common people, and each house
had it, so he got some. At first he made me some tea of the
leaves, which was very rough, and I had some comparison for
it, I believe, at the time, but I forget what. Next he made
me some with the flowers, which I thought beautiful, and was
certainly very refreshing. I consider it was owing to this
(under Providence) that I was enabled ultimately to proceed
on my journey. I recollect thinking at last I had found out
what was the matter with me, and the whole night I passed in
that distressing way . . . which I used often to do at home
before I went abroad. I told my servant so, and bade him
feel my pulse. He said it was fever. I said, ' Oh no ! I know
myself better.' As I lay in bed the first day, many thoughts
came over me. I felt God was fighting against me, and felt —
at last I knew why— it was for self-will. I felt I had been
very self-willed, that the Froudes had been against my coming ;
so also at Naples the Wilberforces, perhaps the Neates and
Andersons. I said to myself, ' Why did no one speak out, say
half a word ? Why was I left now to interpret their meaning 1 '
Then I tried to fancy where the Froudes were, and how happy
I should have been with them in France, or perhaps in
England. Yet I felt and kept saying to myself, ' I have not
sinned against light,' and at one time I had a most consoling,
overpowering thought of God's electing love, and seemed to
feel I was His. But I believe all my feelings, painful and
pleasant, were heightened by somewhat of delirium, though

366 John Henry Newman 1838
they still are from God in the way of Providence. Next day
the seif-reproaching feelings increased. I seemed to see more
i*nd more my utter hoUowiiess. I began to think of all my
professed principles, and felt they were mere intellectual
deductions from one or two admitted truths. I compared
myself with Keble, and felt that I was merely developing his,
not my, convictions. I know I had very clear thoughts about
this then, and I believe in the main true ones. Indeed, this
is how I look on myself ; very much (as the illustration goes)
as a pane of glass, which transmits heat, being cold itself. I
have a vivid perception of the consequences of certain admitted
principles, have a considerable intellectual capacity of draw
ing them out, have the refinement to admire them, and a
rhetorical or histrionic power to represent them ; and, having
no great (i.e. no vivid) love of this world, whether riches,
honours, or anything else, and some firmness and natural
dignity of character, take the profession of them upon me, as
I might sing a tune which I liked — loving the Truth, but not
possessing it, for I believe myself at heart to be nearly hollow,
i.e. with little love, little self-denial. I believe I have some
faith, that is all ; and, as to my sins, they need my possessing
no little amount of faith to set against them and gain their
remission. By-the-bye, this statement will account for it, how
I can preach the Truth without thinking much of myself.
Arnold, in his letter to Grant about me, accuses me among
others of identifying high excellence with certain peculiarities
of my own — i.e. preaching myself. But to return. Still more
serious thoughts came over me. I thought I had been very
self-willed about the tutorship affair, and now I viewed my
whole course as one of presumption. It struck me that the
5th of May was just at hand, which was a memorable day as
being that on which (what we called) my Ultimatum was sent
in to the Provost ; and that on the third anniversary I should
be lying on a sick bed in a strange country. . . . I recollected,
too, that my last act on leaving Oxford was to preach a
University sermon against self-will. . . . Yet still I said to
myself, ' I have not sinned against light.'
I cannot describe my full misery on this Saturday, May 4.
My door would only lock, i.e. no mere clasp, but with a key ;
my servant was a good deal away, and thus locked me in. My
feelings were acute and nervous in a high degree. I forced
myself up to keep my mind from thinking of itself, I kept
counting the number of stars, flowers, ifec, in the pattern of

1833 ILINESS IN SlCILY 367
the paper on the walls to occupy me. Just at this time
(before or after) the miserable whine of Sicilian beggars was
heard outside my door, the staircase communicating with the
street. Who can dessribe the wretchedness of that low,
feeble, monotonous cry ? which went on I cannot say how
long (I unable to do anything) till my servant released me
after a time. Now in my lowest distress I was relieved first
by some music from some travelling performers, who were
passing on (I b3lieve) to Palermo. [N.B. — I had seen a bag
pipe, to my surprise, between Catania and Palermo.] The
music was, I believe, such as harp and clarionet. And now I
think it was that my servant proposed a walk. He had talked
much of some handsome fountain at the end of the town, but
1 put off seeing it, I believe now, and we walked out in the
S. Filippo road, and then turned up a lane on the south (i.e.
the left hand). There I sat down on a bank under a fig-tree
(the leaves, I believe, were out), and wondered how it should
be that I was there ; it was the evening. I forget what else
I thought of or saw. (I think this walk was on this day, yet
somehow have sometimes a notion that the ride on the mule
which is to come presently was to-day.) My servant wished
to get on, I believe, naturally enough. [February 6, 1842, we
had a speculation about having a litter made, in which I
might be carried to Palermo.] He thought me dving> and
told me a story about a sick officer he had attended on in
Spain, who left him all his baggage, then got well. I did not
see the drift of the story at the time. I gave him a direction
to write to if I died (Froude), but I said, ' I do not think I
shall. I have not sinned against the light,' or ' God has still
work for me to do.' I think the latter.
[Sunday, March 1, 1835.] -During the Friday May 3 and
Saturday May 4 I had eaten nothing or very little. I could
not swallow. On the Sunday May 5 I was eating every half-
hour all through the day. A fancy came upon me, either the
Saturday or Sunday night, that I was quite well, and only
wanted food ; and T quite laughed with myself through the
night at the news I should have to tell in England, how
shameful it was and how ridiculous I had been to have missed
seeing Girgenti from such a neglect. One of these nights,
Saturday (I think), I was awake all night. (My servant slept
in the room. I forget when first.) I recollect asking him
whether he said prayers — he said, yes I had had a plan of
reading to him on Sundays, and had hoped to do it on the

368 John Henry Newman 1833
Sunday I supposed I should pass at Girgenti. I recollect [on
the Saturday] the dreamy view I had of the room, with the
wretched lamp. I dreamed of the buildings of Catania.
Well, on the Sunday I kept eating all day. I do not think I
knew it was Sunday. However, in the evening (if it was
Saturday), we went out on our mules towards Palermo for a
ride. It was very fine scenery. As we came back there was
a Sicilian family of the upper rank with servants, &c, loung
ing outside the town near the steep parapet of the cliff". I
recollect asking some questions about them, and somehow so
strongly connecting them with the notion of its being Sunday
that I certainly thought it was Sunday, whether it was or no.
That evening I determined to set off next morning for Palermo.
I had a strange feeling on my mind that God meets those who
go on in His way, who remember Him in His way, in the
paths of the Lord ; that I must put myself in His path, His
way, that I must do my part, and that He met those who
rejoice and worked righteousness, and remembered Him in
His ways — some texts of this kind kept haunting me, and I
determined to set out by daybreak.
Before setting out on Monday the 6th I drank some toast-
and- water which my servant made. We set out almost before
sunrise. Scarcely had we got half a mile, when I felt very
weak (I believe), and said I must have something to eat. I
said I must have some chicken (on which I had lived the day
before). My servant remonstrated — the things were just
packed up. I was peremptory, and he was obliged to undo
the baggage and get it. I forget what was on my mind. As
I went on again a great thirst came on. I began sucking
some most delicious oranges which were on the wayside,
very large and fine. I kept thinking what I should be able
to say to my mother and sisters about the fineness of these
oranges — not sweet or tart, but a fine aromatic bitter. (I
believe they were very fine. My servant said so ; they were
very large.) It was not thirst I felt, but a convulsive feeling
of suffocation almost about my throat — very distressing. At
last I took to eating the leaves of the trees as I went on. I
said I must have water. I imputed it to the toast-and-water,
which I was sure was bad. The bread had been harsh for
some time and I said it was very rough bread. This I think
was the notion which the feeling in my throat gave me.
Several miles passed and no water — no house. At last a cottage
to the right —but no means of getting anything. We were

!833 ILLNESS IN SlCILY 369
going through a level (high, I suppose), with Castro Giovanni
before us. I recollect (then, I believe) debating whether it
was worthwhile to turn aside thither ; it was four miles out of
the way. We saw the outline of the buildings and a temple
or castle. My servant was told by the muleteer it was
Roman work, I think. There were few trees or beauty of
scenery near the road. Caltanisetta, on the other side (the
right), I forget whether I saw it now or in the afternoon, in
my further progress.
This was seven miles from Leonforte. It might be between
six and seven o'clock. I set off before five, and we went about
three or four miles an hour. At length 1 was taken some
little way to the right to a hut, I think it was a tent, where
I got some water and rested. There was no floor, only the
ground. Under Etna, where we lost ourselves, I noticed
high black cones, like collections of hop-poles ; and I think
shepherds were in them ; we heard dogs. This might be
something of the fame kind. My blue travelling cloak was
spread under me, and I lay down at length. How long I
lay — hours probably — I do not know. In the course of the
day I recollect a man came in to the good people there, who
were of different ages and sexes, and as far as I understood
him, asked for money to pray souls out of purgatory. How
in my then state 1 could understand his Sicilian I do not
know. I recollect asking my servant whether a bad man had
not come in ; and he said no, a very good man. As I lay
when I opened my eyes, I saw the men and women, young
and old, hanging over me with great interest, and apparently
much rejoiced to see me a little better. At length, as I lay,
I felt fingers on my pulse. [Sunday, September 6, J835.] It
was a medical man who was visiting persons ill of the fever
(I believe), near, and some one had told him there was a sick
person, a foreigner, close by, and he came. I forget what he
said. I was almost stupid at times. I think he recommended
to give me a drink of camomile, lemon, and sugar, every now
and then, and to get to Castro Giovanni It was most refresh
ing. After a time, I do not know the time of day, someone
said an English party was passing. It turned out to be a
diligence on the way to Palermo. A thought came across me
that if I were dying, I might let my friends know the last of
me, and I insisted on speaking to them. My servant remon
strated. I was very earnest, commanded him, and could
almost fancy I rose, or opened my travelling bag, or bade him
VOL. I. B B

370 John Henry Newman 1833
carry it, or something or other. At length I got my way,
and one of the party made his appearance. They were not
English ; but this man, a German, could speak English. I
gave him the letter of introduction I had to Mr. Thomas (?)
at Palermo, and begged him to say I forget what ; and thanked
him most fervently, and felt much relieved, though it was not
much which I did, or he promised. After a time, I suppose
towards the evening, I managed to be put sideways, and held
on the mule, and so set off for Castro Giovanni or Juan. The
parting with the poor people in the tent was very affectionate.
I asked their name and said I would mention it in England.
(I have forgotten it.) My servant burst into tears, though I
should not have thought him especially tender. It was, I
suppose, four miles to Castro Giovanni, and uphill, very steep.
When we got there we could get no room ; nothing appeared
possible but some damp and dark place, which my servant
would not consent to. Some friars (in brown ?) passed by,
and I entreated my servant to ask them to take me into a
monastery. At length I got a very nice comfortable room in
the house of a man of some property who let lodgings. I was
put to bed ; the medical man who had felt my pulse and was
(they say) the chief in the place was out of the way, and they
brought in another, who was said to be inferior, but I made
much of him. He had moustaches and a harsh voice.
Now I do not know how to relate what comes. I shall
recollect so irregularly, and medical and other circumstances
so mingled together ; and thpre were some things I do not
like to put on paper. First, they determined to take blood
from me. I preferred my instep to my arm, thinking they
might not be skilful. They struck once, and I think again,
and no blood came I thought myself going. (I cannot quite
tell whether or not I am colouring this, so let me say once for
all that any descriptions of my feelings should bo attended
all through with ' I believe,' for I have half-recollections —
glimpses which vanish when I look right at them.) My ser
vant was so distressed he fainted away. At last the blood
came. I had three incisions. It was very like cupping.
They took away four ounces — little enough. Mr. Babington,
to whom I told it afterwards, said it could do me no good.; but
they said they were afraid to do more, I seemed so weak. I
cannot tell whether I was myself the next morning. I have
vague recollections of medicine being given me more than
once, with an injunction to dose me with cold lemonade. My

1333 Illness in Sicily 371
servant was for warm tea ; T insisted on the lemonade, and
made a formal complaint to the doctor that he (Gennaro)
changed the prescriptions (and I would not see Gennaro for
a while). I corresponded with the doctor in Latin. I have
the papers still with me. He, I suppose, was no deep Latin
scholar, and pretended my Latin was nonsense ; but it is very
good, particularly considering I was so ill. I was light-headed
these days, and barely recollect things. I was not still a
moment, my ssrvant said afterwards, and was flushed in the
face. They called it a gastric fever. It was very destructive
there. Persons were dying daily, and at Girgenti and at
Trapani (?) as I learned afterwards. It was attended commonly
. . . with what they called cholera, but not in my case. ... I
don't know how long it lasted ; perhaps from Catania to Aderno
(May 1 or 2 to May 11?). . . .
I have some notion that the other complaint lasted five
clays. I was in pain. . . . They gave me over for a week, but
my servant said he thought I should get woll, from the avidity
with which I always took my medicine. The fever came to a
crisis in seven, nine, or eleven days — mine, I believe, in eleven.
... I had some miserable nights ; the dreamy confusion of
delirium — sitting on a staircase, wanting something, or with
some difficulty, very wretched, and something about my Mother
and sisters. How I dreaded the long nights, lying without
sleep, as it seemed, all through the darkness. I wanted to get
some one to sit up with me, but did not succeed. Indeed, it
was with difficulty I got nurses. The principal one said to
Gennaro (as he told me afterwards), and he to her, ' Well, we
must go through with it, and if we catch the fever, we catch
it.' Gennaro slept in the room. I got the muleteer to sit up
with me. Ihe heat, too, was miserable. I suspect I ought
to have been kept quite cool. I was reduced to the lowest
conceivable weakness, not being able to raise my hand to my
head, nor to swallow. I had macaroni, <fec, but nothing
agreed ; biscuits, some I liked. (When I first got there, there
were some camomile flowers on the table near the bed, which
were most refreshing, and I begged they might not be removed.)
I continually had most oppress ve almost faintings ; I suspect
the heat had much to do with it. They had nothing but vinegar
to relieve me, which the muleteer with his great bullet tips
of fingers (so I recollect I called them, while he administered
it with them) applied to my nose in the middle of the night.
When I got better I used to watch for the day, and when light
B 11 2

372 John Henry Newman 1833
appeared through the shutter, for there was no blind or curtain,
I used to soliloquise : ' O sweet light ! God's best gift,' &c. By-
the-bye, I discharged the muleteer after some days with a
quarrel (he going before the magistrates) between him and me,
through Gennaro, about wages depending on working and
stopping days, in which I got somewhat the worse, as might
be expected. My continual faintness was most distressing by
day, afterwards. A continual snuffing up vinegar was the
only thing which kept me up. I wanted cold water to my
head, but this was long afterwards. The doctor and Gennaro
would not let me. I managed to outwit Gennaro by pretend
ing to dab my temples with vinegar, and so held a wet cloth
to them. He used to bathe with vinegar temples, ears, nose,
face, and neck (?).
A fair was held in Castro Giovanni after a few days, and
[March 8, 1840, Littlemore] I think I was much annoyed with
the great noise which this fair caused. It was under my
window. It was a great fair, I believe, and there were to the
best of my recollection lodgers in consequence, or guests, in
the next room (through the folding doors) — three, according to
my impression, who talked. What distressed me most was
the daily Mass bell (I suppose it was in a neighbouring church).
I used quite to writhe about, and put my head under the bed
clothes, and asked Gennaro if it could be stopped. He
answered with a laugh of surprise that it should not annoy
me, and of encouragement, as if making light of it. I have
since thought they might suppose it was a heretic's misery
under a holy bell. Gennaro ruled me most entirely. I was
very submissive, and he authoritative. The master of the
house was very civil. He heard I liked music, and he got
some performers to play to me in the next room. It was very
beautiful, but too much for me. What strange, dreamy
reminiscences of feeling does this attempt at relation raise !
So the music was left off. When I was getting well, all sorts
of maladies came upon me. One which came, or which I
fancied, was determination of blood to the head. I had a
notion it was mounting, mounting ; that it had got as high
as my ears, &c. I got an idea that sleep would bring it on,
that I ought not to sleep, and I did all I could to resist it.
A cough came on, a wearisome continual cough, for some
hours every day in the evening. I spit a good deal. At
length they would not let me, saymg it would hurt me. They
made an issue in my arm for it, which took it off, I think.

1833 Illness in Sicily 373
Even at Lyons I had profuse cold sweats at night. I had a
notion that I had got inflammation of the chest, and recollect
ing that at Brighton in 1829 Dr. Price had said he would not
leave my Mother till she could draw a deep breath without
pain, I was ever drawing deep breaths, and felt pain at the
bottom of my chest.
When the doctor came in the early part of my illness, he
used to shake his head on feeling my pulse and say, ' A-ah I
a-ah ! debil, debil I '
When I was getting better I walked about the room to gain
my feet, first leaning on my servant and a stick. But even
when I was come to Palermo I could not get out of the carriage
by myself, and for some time walked with a stick ; improving
rapidly, so that one of the servants about the inn said — I
think, in English — 'Come, sir, cheer up ; you will get quite
young again.' After walking about the room a little of a day,
my servant got me to walk a little in the next room, through
the folding doors, partly to amuse me, for it was the time I
thought I had inflammation of the chest, and at length he got
me with great difficulty downstairs (down the stone steps)
and took me out and seated me in a chair — I think under my
window, looking across somewhat of a space, so I seem to
think, to a pillar which he said was Roman. As I sat in the
chair, I could not command myself, but cried profusely, the
sight of the sky was so piercing. A number of poor collected
about me to see me ; I had made them a present already, at
my servant's suggestion, as a thank-offering. The chief Lady
Bountiful of the place had died of my fever during my ill
ness. I heard of her state from day to day, and at last of
her death. The bell at length went for her funeral. One day
I was able, with Gennaro's help, to get as far as the Cathedral.
I suppose it could not be far. I walked up the aisles. It was
Norman, to the best of my recollection. I remember nothing
but thick heavy capitals. The day before setting off for
Palermo, for which I was very impatient, we went out a little
in a close carriage.
When I was getting better, and lay in bed thinking, the
events of my life came thick before me, I believe, but I could
not recollect the state of things, e.g. I could not tell if Dr.
Nicholas was alive or not. I had all sorts of schemes how I
was to make money to pay my extra expenses from my illness.
And I thought a good deal of my book on the Arians, and how
it might be improved, and re-arranged parts — and I almost

374 John Henry Newman 1833
think I eventually adopted some of these suggestions. I think
it was on one of these early days of my illness — no, it must
be rather when I was getting well, for I fancy it connected
with the rush of blood to my head — that I called for a pencil
and paper, and, as it were, composed the verses (since in the
' Lyra ') beginning ' 'Mid Balak's magic fires.' When I got
to Palermo (I think it was) I found to my surprise that I had
already composed them at Messina. The immediate cause of
the rush of blood to my head was receiving a letter from
home ; it came up from Palermo, and I think this was from
five correspondents. I pored over it, small writing, without my
glasses, with great avidity, hoping to see the news of the Oriel
election, but it was not there. ... It seemed like a dream or
absurdity how I should ever get to England again. 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.
[March 25, 1840 (Littlemore).'] — I think I have forgotten
to say that I had continual pains in the early part of my
illness in a way which was very uncommon with me. Also I
should mention some fantastic dreams I had when I was
getting well, which I barely recollect now. One, that I was
introduced to the Russian Court, and that I began talking
to the Empress ; and then I bethought myself, ' How ill-man
nerly ! In the case of great people, one should not speak, but
be spoken to.' Another, that one army from Reggio was
crossing the strait to another at Messina, and taking a town.
I was in the one or the other, French or English, I think.
Another was an army coming up heights to Castro Giovanni.
These dreams about armies might be partly suggested by a
visit of three magistrates to me, who talked about the quarter
ing of the English at Castro Giovanni ; the occasion of their
coming was a quarrel I had with my doctor. When I found
myself getting well, I was greatly impressed with his skill and
very grateful. I wished to make him presents over and above
his pay. I gave him or the master of the house a pocket
compass, thermometer, a Virgil and, I think, some other Latin
books, and perhaps some other things. The doctor took a
fancy to something which Gennaro thought too expensive to
part with, or, as I fancy from the event, wished the master of
the house to have. He took it away with him, and my ser
vant took the matter before the magistrates, who accordingly,
partly perhaps from curiosity, paid me a visit. I did not

1833 Illness in Sicily 375
understand a word they said, though Gennaro interpreted
some things. By-the-bye, on my falling ill, all my knowledgo
of Italian, such as it was, went, while Latin remained. One
of the three was an ecclesiastic, and I do not know why, but
I stared at him in a strange way, till my servant, thinking it
would hurt me, forbade me briskly. I got my property back,
and then Gennaro wished me to give it to Aloysio, the master
of the house, but I would not. I was visited at the beginning
of my illness by a priest ; and told my servant, when half
light-headed, I wished to dispute with him. I was also visited
by the brother of my landlord, who asked and obtained of me
a yellow wash-leather, such as they rub plate with. There
was some one else in the early part of my illness whom in
my Latin with the doctor I called probus homo ; he might have
been the husband of my inferior nurse.
And now I have said everything pretty nearly that I can
recollect of this illness. I set off from Castro Juan on May 25,
Whitsun Eve. I mistook, by-the-bye, and calculated it a week
wrong. For at Palermo a week after, I fancied it was Whit
Sunday, whereas it was Trinity. On the Sunday before, I was
well enough to know that it was Jemima's birthday, and fancy
that I revived about the 17th ; but the crisis must have been
earlier. By-the-bye, I should have acknowledged the great
honesty of all my attendants. Gennaro had charge of clothes,
money — everything. I lost nothing. A large sum of money
came to me from Palermo in dollars safe. He paid nothing
without asking my leave ; and though he had coveted all my
effects, if I died, yet even then he wished them formally be
queathed to him. My watch, and indeed everything I had,
was at the mercy of a number of persons. No English consul
was nearer, I suppose, than Girgenti. To proceed ; I set off on
the 25th, and had great compunctions about travelling through
the Sunday (next day), but at last overcame them. I travelled
through an exquisitely beautiful country, part of it, however,
by night. My joy was too great for me at first. I never saw
such a country — the spring in its greatest luxuriance. All
sorts of strange trees — very steep and high Mils over which
the road went ; mountains in the distance — a profusion of
aloes along the road. Such bright colouring — all in tune with
my reviving life. I had a great appetite, and was always
coaxing (as I may call it) Gennaro for cakes. Here, by-the-
bye, I should record my feelings of returning appetite after the
illness. As I got better at Castro Giovanni he used to give me

376 John Henry Newman 1833
an egg baked in wood ashes and some tea for breakfast, and
cakes. How I longed for it ! And when I took the tea, I
could not help crying out with delight. I used to say, ' It is
life from the dead ! ' I never had such feelings. All through
my illness I had depended on Gennaro so much I could not
bear him from the room five minutes. I used always to be
crying out, for I don't know how long together, ' Gen-na-
ro-o-o-o-o-o ! ' They fed me on chicken broth. I did not take
beef broth or beef tea till I got to Palermo, and that gave me
something of the ecstatic feelings which the tea had given. I
got to Palermo the third day, May 27, having (I think) on the
26th rested at a sort of inn where the landlord came and
looked at me. I was very weak. When I got up the morning
of the 26th or 27th I sat some time by the bedside, crying
bitterly, and all I could say was that I was sure God had some
work for me to do in England. This, indeed, I had said to
Dr. Wiseman at Rome, but though sincerely said, the words
were not pointedly said ; but in answer to the question how
long we stayed there, I said that we had work at home. I wish
I could see my letter to Christie ; I must ask him for it. But
now my pulse was intense and overpowering, and my servant
of course could not understand me at all. But to proceed to
Palermo. I was lodged at Page's hotel — the hostess Ann Page,
who had married, I think, an Italian or SicUian. She was
very eager to please me, and begged me to recommend her
house at home. She was a motherly sort of person, and made
me sago and tapioca, &c. The merchants (wine merchants)
were very civil. At first they thought me dying. I was so
very weak, and could not speak except drawling. I used to
go on the water every day, and that set me up. I revived
day by day wonderfully. I was there nearly three weeks, till
June 13. It was a very trying time, yet perhaps I should not
have been strong enough before that time — and to go by my
self ! I composed a Lyra a day, I think, from the day I got
there. Hay-making was going on while I was there. I went
up to the Monte Pellegrino ; I went to the Hydra cave, &c. ;
but I made very little use of my time, expecting to sail almost
daily, and home-sick and much disappointed at the delay. I
went a great deal into the public garden, caUed, I think, the
Villa Reale, and along the beach outside, sitting in the seats.
However, they told me I must not go out in the middle of the
day, though in the shade. Sometimes there were sciroccos
and very trying, the wind like a furnace. The clouds were

1833 Illness in Sicily $77
blue, the tawny mountains looking wondrous. I dined besides
at the merchant's, at Mr. Thomas's, a merchant living two or
three miles out on the Monreale road — a married man. The
day before I sailed I met there Mr. Page of Ch. Ch. I called
on the German who had passed and come out to me when I lay
in the cabin on the road under Castel Juan. My conveyance
in which I had come to Palermo came from Palermo. All this
time I knew my friends in England were in a state of anxiety,
but I had no means of communicating with them. My 'private
diary ' for 1833 gives many daily details.
I left Gennaro at Palermo ; he was to go back to Naples
to his wife and family. Since, I have heard he is in Lord
Carrington's family in England. He was, humanly speaking,
the preserver of my life, I think. What I should have done
without him I cannot think. He nursed me as a child. An
English servant never could do what he did. He had once
been deranged, and was easily overset by liquor. I found him
so at Palermo, though he denied it. He once or twice left me
a whole day, or a long while.
When we parted, I fancy I gave him about \0l. over and
above his wages and a character written. Before I had given
him anything, he began to spell for something ; but what he
thought of was an old blue cloak of mine, which I had had
since 1823 ; a little thing for him to set his services at — at
the same time a great thing for me to give, for I had an affec
tion for it. It had nursed me all through my illness ; had ever
been put on my bed, put on me when I rose to have my bed
made, &c. I had nearly lost it at Corfu — it was stolen by a
soldier, but recovered. I have it still. I have brought it up
here to Littlemore, and on some cold nights I have had it on
my bed. I have so few things to sympathise with me that I
take to cloaks.— [March 25, 1840.]
[April 24, 1874. — I wonder I have not mentioned how I
simply lost my memory as to how I came to be ill and in bed,
and how strangely, by little and little, first one fact came back
to me, then another, til] at length I realised my journey and
my Ulness in continuity.]
[Littlemore: March 25, 1840.] — The thought keeps pressing
on me while I write this, what am I writing it for ? Fcr
myself I may look at it once or twice in my life, and what
sympathy is there in my looking at it ? . . . Who will care to
be told such details as I have put down above ? Shall I ever
have in my old age spiritual children who will take an interest ?

378 John Henry Newman 1833
How time is getting on ! I seem to be reconcUing myself to
the idea of being old. It seems but yesterday that the Whigs
came into power ; another such to-morrow wUl make me almost
fifty — an elderly man. What a dream is life ! I used to
regret festival days going so quick. They are come and they
are gone ; but so it is. Time is nothing except as the seed of
eternity

THE START OF THE MOVEMENT
From the long illness, fever, and consequent weakness in
Sicily, the soUtude of the sea, and the hurried journey, there
followed at once the plunge into the Movement. On July 14
Mr. Keble preached his assize sermon, ' which,' Dr. Newman
says in his ' Apologia,' ' I have ever thought the beginning of
the Movement.'
The Editor is allowed to open what may be regarded as a
history of the Movement, through the correspondence of its
movers, with the foUowing sentences from the pen best fitted
to write upon it : — -
' Mr. Newman landed in England at a critical moment.
It was the moment when the fears for the Church, which had
long been growing, and which arose, not merely from the
designs, avowed or surmised, of her enemies, but from the
helplessness of her friends, had led at length to the resolution
in a few brave and zealous men to speak out and to act. Ten
Irish bishoprics had been at a sweep suppressed, and Church
people were told to be thankful that things were not worse.
It was time to move if there was to be any moving at all.
The month of July 1833 saw several things. The resolution
was taken, Mr. Palmer has told us, in meetings chiefly in Oriel
Common-Room, by himself, Mr. Froude, and Mr. Keble, "to
unite and associate in defence of the Church." On July 14
Mr. Keble preached his famous sermon on National Apostasy.
Between July 25 and 29 a meeting was held at Mr. Rose's
rectory at Hadleigh, at which were present Mr. Palmer, Mr.
Froude, Mr. Perceval, and Mr. Rose. Mr. Keble was to have
been there, but there is evidence that he was not. Mr. New
man was not there. There appears to have been some division
of opinion at the meeting, but two points were agreed on : to
fight for the doctrine of the Apostolical Succession and for the
integrity of the Prayer Book. And two things followed from

380 John Henry Newman 1833
it — the plan of associating for defence of the Church, and the
" Tracts for the Times." Mr. Newman was not at the meet
ing, but he had already suggested the plan of association to
Froude and Keble, with whom he was in close correspondence ;
and, as soon as the determination was taken to move, he, with
Mr. Palmer, took the labouring oars in the effort which fol
lowed it.'
It may be well to anticipate the rapid course of events in
the last half of 1833 by giving here a fragmentary diary,
written by Mr. Newman, the final words of which bear the
date December 29, 1833. This manuscript seems to give the
first suggestion of what issued in so memorable a stir and
effort. Who the ' suggester ' was, whom the writer ' will not
name,' is not known to the Editor.
It was the habit of Mr. Newman in transcribing letters
and records (as in this diary) to interpolate short notes, em
bodying them within brackets, in the narrative. This system
will be retained. Whatever explanatory comment enclosed in
brackets stands in the page itself, must be understood to be
from the pen of J. H. N. — the only title which no change can
put out of date. Fragmentary Diary.
Oriel, December 6, 1833. — Keble preached his assize sermon
July 14, and the Advertisement ' prefixed to it was the first
intimation of what was to follow on our part.
I was low-spirited about the state of things, and thought
nothing could be done, when one, whom I wUl not name,
suggested whether something could not be done in the way
of a society, association, &c, for Church purposes, or at least
so pressed me to do something that I thought of it. I forget
which. I wrote to Froude, I think, who was in Essex, and to
Keble, urging on the latter the gift we had committed to us
in being in Oxford, which was a kind of centre and tradition
ary source of good principles. On his doubting about it, I
wrote him word he might join it or not, but the league was in
existence. It was a fact, not a project. Froude and I were
the only two members at that moment. I also wrote to
1 That is, when published.

1833 Fragmentary Diary 381
Palmer or spoke, and he liked the notion much. Rose, too,
was written to, and he came into it. This was at the end
of July. I wrote to various friends in August, but cannot tell what
was actually accomplished towards our object in that month.
I thought I brought out the first Tract in the course of it, but
the printer's bill dates it September 9.
Shortly after the first sheet and a half of tracts were out,
Palmer went into Warwickshire, and excited a great interest
there by the notion of an Association. By-the-bye, I should
have said that in August Keble wrote his 'Declaration of
Principles and Objects,' which we are now at length publish
ing. Palmer took it down to Coventry. It was thought not
businesslike enough, and ' Suggestions for an Association ' was
written by Palmer, which on his return I re-wrote, and
Ogilvie corrected. This paper was largely circulated ; the
tracts stopping which Palmer thought too violent.
By this time my views had much cleared on the whole
subject of our proceedings. I was strongly against an asso
ciation, i.e. any body in which a majority bound a minority,
and liked Keble's way of putting it, ' we pledge ourselves one
to another in our several stations, reserving our canonical
obedience.' I found a great many people agree with me.
Palmer went up to town at the end of October to Archdeacon
Bailey, Mr. Norris, &c. I wrote out for him clearly my views,
and he came into them.
Then I began reprinting my tracts most earnestly, and
distributing them. I had before this written to Rose hoiv we
had best start agitating. He recommended an address to the
Archbishop. When Palmer went to town the draught of the
address from Keble ought to have gone with him. But there
was a delay between Keble and Froude, who was going down
on his way to Barbadoes, and I was obliged to send up to
Palmer a draught of my own. This, in itself too moderate,
since I wrote under the fear of Palmer's thinking me ultra,
was further weakened by Palmer in London, who struck out
all mention of 'extra-ecclesiastical interference,' and was stUl
further diluted by our friends in London. Thus it came down
to us, and written in a most wretched style. We polished it,
struck out some offensive passages, and sent it back. It came
down again as uncouth, and almost as offensive, as before.
We amended it, and printed it ; then circulated it far and
wide.

382 John Henry Newman 1833
Meanwhile the friends of the Church who in any sense
listened to us split into two views of the subject — one party
for a Society, the other for Tracts. The associationists abomi
nated, or at least were offended at, the tracts ; the distributors
of the tracts dreaded an association as being anti-episcopal,
productive of party spirit, and open to secret influences, <fec.
In Oxford the unpopularity of the tracts was made a reason
for denouncing the Association. Mr. Norris and his friends
ni London made Palmer abjure the Tract system. Rose was
for the tracts. Pusey and Harrison of Christchurch took
them up. Archdeacon Froude wanted a monthly supply of
them — an idea of which I hope to take advantage, and get
friends everywhere to let me send them to them periodically.
Dr. Spry warmly approved the tracts. The Bishop of Win
chester expressed approval. At Bowden's suggestion we made
Tun-ill's our dep6t.
At the end of November the questions became frequent,
' How are we to act ? ' and to myself, ' Do you approve an
association or not ? ' So I wished to bring out Keble's
original paper above alluded to. On going to Palmer I found
Mr. Norris had almost cast off address, Association, and all,
being frightened at the laxity of the address. Palmer seemed
to assent to the proposal I came to him about. [This is
expressed in P.'s letter without a date. — J. H. N.]
Wednesday, November 27. — E. Churton came down from
London with the considerate desire of setting matters right
between Mr. Norris and Palmer. He wanted the address
altered, but found that impossible.
When I spoke to Palmer again about Keble's paper, he
was most earnestly opposed to the notion of printing it [this
is expressed in P.'s letter of November 29], but I determined
to do so. He was to see it in proof. Accidents delayed the
publication of it. Christie and Copeland had a talk with
him, and his indisposition to it was lessened. Palmer seems
to have thought that our joining the tracts to a project of
Association in one paper interfered with his promise to
Mr. Norris.
Tuesday, December 3. — Perceval called and made my
acquaintance. Thinks the address weak ; assists the tracts.
The ' Record ' took notice of and quoted the tracts. Before
this Rickards had written to me, strongly disapproving of
parts of them. R. Wilberforce also.
December 5. — Letter from the editor of the ' Record,'

1833 Fragmentary Diary 383
declining (or something like it) to receive any more communi
cations from me, and expostulating about the tracts. I had
sent him some letters on Church discipline.
December 6. — An attack upon us in the ' Record.' The
' Standard ' began attacks on Dissenters in a series of letters.
Letter from Rose approving of the tracts, urging their con
tinuance, and mentioning his intention to insert them in the
magazine ; from Turrill, saying they were approved, sold well,
and that he wanted more ; and from the Librarian of the
British Museum requesting copies.
December 15. — Since the last date the 'Record' has re
tracted the violence of its attack, apparently having been ex
postulated with by correspondents, who defended the doctrine
of the Apostolical Succession while they gave us up. Thus it
has, in fact, advertised us. I hear, too, that the ' Christian
Observer ' has attacked us — nay, Oriel by name. The Bishop
of London has turned round, and advocates the signing of
the address in his diocese, on the ground that it is the least
of two evils. He has denied, moreover, that he had any
thing to do with a Ministerial Liturgical Reform. Stronger
and stronger reports of the intention of ministers to intro
duce some sweeping measure, certainly ecclesiastical, if not
liturgical. December 29. — The ' Record ' has taken up ' the Movement
begun at Oxford ' and the association, but has declared the
tracts have been recalled and others substituted ! I have
seen the ' Christian Observer,' which does not mention Oriel
by name, but is very vehement. The Bishop of London is
said to have retracted his approval of the address, and again
recalled his retractation. The ministers are said to be sur
prised and annoyed at our Movement.
[This diary did not get further than this. — J. H. N.]
The earliest correspondence connected with, but preceding,
the start of the Movement relates to the little gathering of
High Churchmen at Hadleigh, Mr. Rose's living in Suffolk.
As Editor of the ' British Magazine ' Mr. Rose had for some
time been in communication with Mr. Newman and his
friends. The previous July, 1832, he had visited Oxford as
Mr. Palmer of Worcester's guest, and his impressions of
Oxford and of the men to whom his host introduced him are
given in a letter which the reader has already read in the
order of its date.

384 John Henry Newman 1833
The correspondence of 1833 must now be continued chrono
logically from page 362.
Rev. J. Keble to Rev. J. H. Newman. July 1833.
I mean to send you on the other page some names of
persons to whom I wish Parker and Rivington to send copies
of my sermon [on National Apostasy— -J. H. N.], other
wise, like many of its betters, it will surely pass away as a
dream. As you say [alluding to the ' Arians '] one's Opuscula do
indeed seem miserable when one comes to look coolly over
them ; but I suppose one must put up with that, as with other
unpleasant seemings or realities, for a chance of doing a half
pennyworth of good. I am much disposed to agree with you
that very few of our brethren are yet in the right posture of
mind for looking at this question ; but I depend much on the
iUuminating power of a little wholesome persecution. Nothing
in the world that we can write about is more likely to do good
gradually than bringing forward such examples as St. Am
brose, &c. [allusion to my projected 'Church of the Fathers']. J
Pray do it with all your might. ... I am very anxious that,
whatever one does publicly, whether alone or in concert with
others, should be somehow sanctioned episcopally ; and I do
hope Froude will bring us some facts or good opinions as to
what their Lordships (of course I do not mean your Whatelys,
&c.) would have us do.
Hurrell Froude, as has been said, was one of the party at
Hadleigh. The following letter to Mr. Newman gives his
report of proceedings and his impressions :
Rev. R. H. Froude to Rev. J. H. Newman.
Hadleigh: July 30, 1833.
I send you a line or two to say what we have been about.
I don't think Rose likes the notion of putting ' Lyra ' into the
correspondence. [N.B. — i.e. that the 'British Magazine'
should not be answerable for the ' Lyra ApostoUca.'] I told
him our notion of starting a separate concern, but he seemed
to think that it would be a faUure, though he did not say so.
My own notion is that, with the assistance of Miller and
others, we might start a purely religious periodical of prose as

1833 Letters and Correspondence 385
well as verse, with Keble's name, Excubice Apostolicce, exactly
on the plan of our present ' Lyra,' i.e. generally of personal
reUgion and now and then ecclesiastical. I think, as in its
nature it must exclude facts, it would take very little trouble,
and I should not despair of a very great sale if we made a
proper use of Keble's good fame among the Evangelicals. Let
us start the first number about Advent. . . .
They [N.B. — i.e. the meeting at Hadleigh] think that no
one will attend at present to anything one says about the
appointment of bishops. I see that Rose has not abandoned
Conservative hopes himself, and is in suspense. . . . His
notion is, that the most important subject to which you can
direct your reading at present is the meaning of Canonical
Obedience, which we have all sworn to our bishops ; for that
this is likely to be the only support of Church government
when the State refuses to support it. I myself have a most
indistinct idea of what I am bound to ; yet the oath must
certainly contemplate something definite, and sufficient to pre
serve practical subordination.
Rose has many good notions, and I like him much, but he
is not yet an Apostolical.
Perceval is a very delightful fellow in ^0os — a regular
thoroughgoing Apostolical ; but I think Keble should warn
him against putting himself Ui the way of excitement. Some
of the things he says and does make me feel rather odd . I
am sure he should be set to work on something dull that would
keep his thoughts from matters of present interest. I never
saw a fellow that seemed more entirely absorbed heart and
soul in the cause of the Church, and without the remotest
approach to self-sufficiency, which his writing so often with
his name made one suspect.
I have not heard from Rickards ; so I have not ventured
to go uninvited. I go to Round to-morrow, and shall pay
Archdeacon Lyall a visit afterwards. He is a most agreeable
man, and clever, and I should think not a mere Conservative
at heart, though no Apostolical.
Rose has just been throwing out a notion that might be
made something of ; that is, that we should proceed to elect a
Lay Synod, as SiaSoxos of the Church of England. . . .

vol. 1. CO

386 John Henry Newman 1833
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. J. Keble.
Oriel College: August 5, 1833.
. . . Palmer has returned from Rose, and I have heard
from Froude, as you probably have. Froude wishes to break
with Rose, which must not be, I think. Let us wait the
course of events. Rose is hoping for a reaction : till we clearly
see it [reaction] to be impossible, there is no reason we should
talk of the repeal of the Prmmunire — to say nothing of people
not being prepared for it— and yet we may protest against
measures we think unchristian. Rose has a notion of a Synod,
lay and clerical, and to get it as an exchange for the Church
rate being put on us, which he thinks inevitable. Is it lawful
to compound in this way ?
Do you not think we should act in concert, as nearly in the
way of a Society as possible ? i.e. to take measures for the
circulation of tracts, pamphlets, &c, and to write systemati
cally to stir up our friends. Would it be acceptable to the
Archbishop (Howley) to know the feelings of people as to his
speech on the second reading ? Do not you think we could
get many signatures under the heading of ' We, the under
signed members of the University of Oxford ' ? Does not the
Duke's letter ' show that public men do not hear of the ap
probation which quiet men give to their measures ? And
might not the Archbishop be cheered by it ?
Do you know enough of the ecclesiastical law to decide
what the clergy of Waterf ord should do ? If you can show
that they ought not to obey a Bishop of Cashel, ought we not
to do our part in stirring them up, or in stirring up the bishops
to consecrate a Bishop of Waterford ?
A friend of mine is eager on this point, and has been
writing to a clergyman in Ireland on the subject. Palmer, I
hope, is preparing for Rose a digest of the Primitive Canons.
I am anxious to see a paper in the Magazine from you on the
subject of virtual excommunication, such as you gave us reason
to look for. Really it would be of great use.
I have written one or two papers on St. Ambrose, but am
| diffident about them tUl Froude casts his eye over them. The
I subject is his dispute about the Churches. Perhaps I shall take
\his conduct towards Theodosius next. As to your proposal
about the Discipline question, unless it turns out to be very
' See p. 335.

1833 Letters and Correspondence 387
formidable, I should like to do it. I do not know Bishop
Jebb's arguments, but it seems so open to common sense that
a Church must have discipline (else, might a figure exist with
out outline) that it seems as if our business was rather to
accustom the imagination of men to the notion than to con
vince their reason.
I fear they did not get on very well at Hadleigh. Froude
wants you to give your friend Arthur Perceval a bit of advice,
which I think Froude himself partly requires. We shall lose
all our influence when times are worse, if we are prematurely
violent. I heartUy wish things may keep quiet for a year or
two, that we may ascertain our position, get up precedents,
and know our duty. Palmer thinks both Froude and Perceval
very deficient in learning, and therefore rash.
I do not think we have yet made as much as we ought of
our situation at Oxford, and of the deference paid to it through
the country. Are not many eyes looking towards us every
where, not as ' masters and scholars,' but as residents ; so
that all our acts, as coming from the University, might have
the authority of a vote of Convocation almost, in such cases as
when Convocation cannot be expected to speak out ? Now no
party is likely to be active in Oxford but ourselves, so the field
is before us. Do let us agree on some plan as to writing
letters to our friends, just as if we were canvassing. Now, if
I could say that other persons agreed with me in thinking it
desirable to say and do all in our power to stir up the Church,
and if I knew the points of agreement — i.e. if we were to settle
on some uniform plan of talking as to principles, &c. — then I
would not mind writing, as in an election, canvassing, to men
I knew very little of. Pray think of this, and send me a
sketch of principles — e.g. that by the Irish BUI the Church's
liberties are invaded, &c. And should we not aim at getting
up petitions next year to the King ? . . . What do you think
of preaching about the state of things ? Of course no one
should do so who is not conscious to himself that he is free
from excitement, nay sick of all the nasty bustle. ... If we
leave our flocks in ignorance . . . will they not be surprised
at a call to foUow us from the Establishment, should it come
to that \

co:

388 John Henry Newman 1833

Rev. J. Keble to Rev. J. H. Newman.
["Few of his letters are dated, which has been a source of
great trouble. — J. H. N.] August 8, 1833.
Many thanks, my dear N., for your kind long letter. If I
could answer half the questions in it I should be a much wiser
man than I am. As concerning Mater Ecclesia, think if the
Hadleighans could not agree [referring to the High Church
Meeting at this time at Rose's living. — J. H. N.], where inter
quatuor muros will you find six men to agree together ? But
I quite agree with you that Rose's Magazine must be supported
— unless he actually rats, which I never will believe till I see
it. As for Hurrell, he is so annoyed just now at his project
not being accepted that I count his dissatisfaction for very
little. Now as to what shall be done, first and foremost will no
bishop of them all give us a hint ? It would be so very much
better and more satisfactory to be acting under them, even
though one might not always think they gave the wisest orders
in the world. This I mentioned to Rose when I wrote to him
last, and I hope he will be able to give us a hint. He need not
name any names, as their Lordships are so very coy. Next as
to my own feelings, I think my mind is made up thus far,
that 1 cannot take the Oath of Supremacy in the sense which
the Legislature clearly now puts upon it. I cannot accept any
curacy or office in the Church of England ; but I have not
made up my mind that I am bound to resign what I have.
Indeed, I rather think not, now that I have given public notice
in what respect I differ from their construction. Also, I am
convinced of the propriety of preaching and otherwise pre
paring one's flock for some trial of their Church principles.
Indeed, I have already begun to do so ; and I am meditating
something of the kind in print. If for no other reason, it
should be done to obtain the prayers of the well-disposed.
Also, I am sure the thing can be made plain to them and in
teresting, too, without any kind of high political seasoning. I
don't say without making them indignant ; but if we are calm,
that will not be our fault.
Then comes the question what line we should take in the
' British Magazine,' 4c., and this is where I want, if possible,

1833 Letters and Correspondence 389
authority ; and if not, very good advice. I feel myself terribly
unlearned ; but, with all deference to Palmer, is it so much a
matter of learning ? . . . Saving, therefore, errors through
ignorance, this is my feeling of what ought to be done. If
there is any chance of such a reaction as shall lead the State
to mend what has been done, re-establish the ten bishops in
Ireland, and make the nation pay the church rates, by all
means let us wait for it (I confess it seems to me as unlikely
as the Duke of Bedford's restoring Tavistock Abbey) ; but if
the reaction do not amount to a retractation of the anti-
Church principle, I think we ought to be prepared to sacrifice
any or all of our endowments sooner than sanction it. ' Take
every pound, shilling, and penny, and the curse of sacrilege
along with it ; only let us make our own bishops, and be go
verned by our own laws.' This is the length I am prepared
to go ; but of course if we could get our liberty at an easier
price, so much the better. Only I don't see what you gain by
having a Synod, as long as the ruling members of that Synod
are nominated by an infidel Government. This would make
me hesitate about Rose's compromise ; but perhaps a greater
sacrifice of property, in addition to the rates, would purchase
the bishops' nomination for us ; and then the Synod would be
worth having. I see old Whately and the ' Times ' have both
been broaching something of the sort (par nobile), and this
you will say ought to make me suspect it ; but, however, it
seems as if the thing were feasible. This may give you a rough
notion of what I should like to be driving at in letters and
the Magazine, <fcc, and perhaps in tracts and pamphlets.
Your question about the bishopric of Waterford seems to me
to involve it all ; but I fancied that Palmer had long ago
thrown cold water on any notion of resistance there at present.
The whole matter appears to me newly modified, and made
infinitely more simple, and more within everybody's reach, by
the notorious anti-Christianity of the House of Commons.
That makes it a stronger case than St. Ambrose against Va-
lentinian or Theodosius ; and I think should be dinned into
people's ears in every safe way.
I like the notion of addresses to the Archbishop, but have
had such ill-luck with the many which I have before now tried
to get up, that I have little heart to originate one. When I
have done my Pastoral Letter, perhaps I may try an appeal
from the new to the old Churchmen, or some such thing,
dwelling especially on the point of supremacy and the Coro-

390 John Henry Newman 1833
nation oath. I should like, too, to try the Excommunicables j
but fear I ought to know my books better.
Perhaps I may run up to Oxford Monday evening, or
Tuesday morning. How I should like to meet Palmer and
you 1
Rev. H. J. Rose to Rev. J. H. Newman.
August 20, 1833.
, Your packet is most acceptable. I shall begin your series
[ [' Church of the Fathers ' ?] in October, and hope and trust
that you may be able and willing to continue it very long. I
deeply regret that I could not have the pleasure of seeing you
at Hadleigh. I am, as you may well suppose, a good deal
shattered and perplexed by the suspense and uncertainty
which hang around my future movements. Rest is the only
thing which I now crave, and for which I anr fit ; but there
seems no prospect of that. . . .
I fervently hope that I may myself be spared from going
to Durham, which under circumstances of health I should
have coveted, as the duties of the Professor will so much lie
in the formation of clergy. Pray forgive all this egotism. I
am hardly equal to anything else.
Rev. R. H. Froude to Rev. J. H. Newman.
August 22.
. . . As to my preaching I have, on the whole, been suc
cessful. ... I have written a sermon on the duty of contem
plating a time when the law of the land shall cease to be
the law of the Church ; and I hope to get it preached by a
friend of mine at the Bishop's visitation. My father thinks
it most temperate and satisfactory. If I had strong lungs I
should go about the country holding forth.
It has lately come into my head that the present state of
things in England makes an opening for reviving the monastic
system. Colleges of unmarried priests would be the cheapest
possible way of providing effectually for the spiritual wants of
a large population.
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. R. H. Froude.
August 22, 1833.
Read the enclosed nonsense ['Home Thoughts Abroad'] and
send it back forthwith. I do not wish you to say it is nonsense,

1833 Letters and Correspondence 391
for I know it ; but whether it is flippant, by which I mean
what Keble blames in Arnold's writings, conversational. You
wUl see there are few enough facts. If I go on there wUl be
a chapter on the Gregorian Chants, if possible ; and on
painting, &c, in which Froude loquitur. Perhaps in another
I may have a dialogue and bring in some good sentiments
a propos of the Telegraph Bill or the Solf atara ; and I want
you to write a chapter on France, or at least to supply an
account of Lamennais' system.
A friend of Mr. Newman's, admitted to the knowledge of
the task imposed on the Editor, thus speaks of the papers
published under the title of 'Home Thoughts Abroad.'
Writing in 1885, he says : —
You should see some papers in the ' British Magazine,'
1835-6 (I should think), entitled (I also think) 'Home
Thoughts Abroad,' which were the first to turn people's
minds from the classical antiquities and fine arts of Rome to
its Christian associations. It was a new idea to me when I
read the paper, and I really think to everybody else. Now
any one would say it never was otherwise ; the fact was,
however, that no one then thought of Rome in connexion
with St. Peter and St. Paul, much less St. Leo and St.
Gregory, or of sumptuous worship as anything but a kind of
theatrical sight. So that the paper had an originality then
which is now eclipsed by satellites of his satellites.1
Rev. C. P. Golightly to Rev. J. H. Newman.
Penshurst : August 22, 1833.
You might safely have assumed that I would most gladly
join your society — what do you call it ? A Conservative
Church Society ? — and urge others to do the same. Of my
neighbours, the Rev. G. B., a sharp inteUigent little man,
1 The paper enclosed to Fronde did not really appear till 1836, after
wards reprinted in * Discussions and Arguments ' published by Dr.
Newman in 1.872. The opening advertisement says of the six portions
of which it (the volume) consists : — ' The first appeared in the British
Magazine in the spring of 1836 under the title of "Home Thoughts
Abroad." ' As that title was intended for a series of papers which weie
never written, and is unsuitable for a single instalment of them, another
heading has been selected for it answering more exactly to the parti
cular subject of which it treats. The present title is, ' How to Accom
plish it.' — Ed.

392 John Henry Newman 1833
has professed his readiness to become a member of it ; and
¦ the Rev. W. G. to circulate its publications. One of your
principles I own I do not like ; you protest 'against doing
anything directly to separate Church and State.' I would
do the same perhaps in ordinary times ; but, when the State
takes upon herself to decide, and that without consulting the
Church, how many bishops are necessary for the superinten
dence of the clergy, and the clergy are cowardly or ignorant
enough to submit to her decisions, it appears to me that the
time for separation is come. Again I am surprised that,
among other views, you have not for your object the revival of
Convocation. Further, I cannot but think that something may
yet be done to rouse the Irish clergy. There are only 2,000 of
them. I have had a letter from my Irish correspondent.
' If the clergy,.' he says, ' will not now make a decided stand,
the Church is gone, both in England and Ireland. I fear
the bishops never will do so ; and if not, we can do nothing.
Though there is a noble spirit in the Church of Ireland, yet
it is not easy to bring a body of men to act in a way that
might interfere with their temporal interests. The step you
mention would subject those engaged in it to a Prcemunire ;
the whole body of bishops and clergy ought to brave it, and
then let Government take their remedy ! '
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. R. H. Froude.
August 23, 1833.
... I have got a most audacious scheme in my mind
about myself, which will not bear to be put on paper ; the
ink would turn red. Perhaps before we meet I shall have
forgotten it. [N.B. — This was to stand for the Moral PhUo-
sophy professorship. — J. H. N.]
Rev. A. J. Trower to Rev. J. H. Newman.
August 26, 1833.
The intelligence you give me about your book [the ' Arians *]
surprised me not a little [that it was rejected as one of the
Theological Library Series. — J. H. N.], as Mr. Rose told me,
when I met with him accidentally nine months ago, how
highly he thought of it, how high an opinion it gave him of
yourself, and that the public were not worthy of it. Your
letter from Naples I received and was much interested in. I
am glad the introductions were of use.

1833 Letters aNd Correspondence 393
I do not deny I look upon you as an ultra. ... I will not
for a moment conceal that I look upon you as very extreme
in your opinions . . . and I should say that I share the
opinions, generally speaking, of those Evangelicals of whom
you ask me whether ' I do not think there is great hope . . .'
Golightly, I beUeve, has told you that my opinions are not
quite 'satisfactory.'
Rev. W. Palmer of Worcester to Rev. J. H. Newman.
August 31, 1833.
I received a letter from Rose to-day, which has given me
great pleasure, as I am sure it will you. But I will copy a bit
of it, written in reply to my letter to him about the Society.
' I have only just received your letter, and in reply can have
no difficulty in saying that I enter warmly into your plan
and feel that, as far as your description goes, no Churchman
can entertain any objection to a Society the object of which
is to disseminate right views as to the Church and the minis
try among our less informed brethren. But I want more dis
tinct accounts of your plans, and, if I had them, should not
despair of getting sanction for them.'
I have written in reply to this, stating again our two
objects of maintaining the doctrine of the Apostolical Suc
cession, and the orthodoxy of the Prayer Book against
Socinian innovations, and have informed him that our plans
are to publish tracts, &c, on these subjects, and make use of
the press, and that we should have a committee to revise,
and pay great attention to the bishops, <fcc. But that on the
details of our plans we wanted advice, and should be happy to
take it. I also mentioned that we had many friends and sup
porters, and that branches could be formed, and begged him
to speak to his friends, and especially to the bishops. I had
a letter from Perceval a day or two ago in reply to one which
I wrote, explaining the principles of the Association. He
desires to be a member — so pray, Mr. Secretary, have the good
ness to put him on your list of candidates.
Rev. J. H. Newman to J. W. Bowden, Esq.
Oriel College : August 31, 1833.
Most probably I shall be in London the second week in
October. It would give me real pleasure to find myself with

394 John Henry Newman 1833
you ; and these are times when one's feelings and principles
are tried so at every turn, that it is particularly needful to
see one's friends often, to be sure how one is going on. I
really often feel frightened at meeting friends after an in
terval, lest I should find they differ from myself about pass
ing events — a judgment about which is no longer a matter of
indifference. Your letter delighted me much ; there is not a
word in it in which I do not quite agree with you, and this
I do think rather wonderful and happy ; since in all political
subjects there is such great room for variation of sentiment.
But I suppose the time is coming when the bulk of serious
persons will be on one side ; and this is a consolation among
many annoyances.
/ As to the state of the Church, I suppose it was in a far
! worse condition in Arian times, except in the one point you
mention — that there was the possibility of true-minded men
becoming bishops, which is now almost out of the question.
If we had one Athanasius or Basil, we could bear with twenty
Eusebius's, though Eusebius was not at all the worst of the
bad. The scandals of Arian times are far worse than any
now. I wish the Archbishop had somewhat of the boldness
of the old Catholic prelates ; no one can doubt he is a man
of the highest principle, and would willingly die a martyr, but
if he had but the little finger of Athanasius, he would do us
all the good in the world. Things have come to a pretty
pass when one must not speak as a Christian minister, for
fear of pulling down the house over our heads. At the same
time, I daresay, were I in high station, I should suddenly get
very cautious from the feeling of responsibility. Well, it is
a lucky thing to be able to talk ; and I think we who can
should make the most of it.
Under this feeling, we are just setting up here Societies
for the Defence of the Church. We do not like our names
known, but we hope the plan will succeed. We have already
got assistants in five, or six counties. Our objects are ' to
rouse the clergy, to inculcate the Apostolical Succession, and
to defend the Liturgy.' We hope to publish tracts, &c.
I shaU take great interest in seeing your Tract about Duel
ling. Do you ever see the ' British Magazine ' ? It is edited
by Rose of Cambridge, and on the whole advocates good prin
ciples. Rose writes very cleverly, and there is a knot of
persons here who support him, — Keble, Miller, Palmer of
Worcester, and others. I have constituted myself editor (with

1833 Letters and Correspondence 395
another man) * of a poetical series which comes out in the
Magazine, and which always contains some good things,
though perhaps you may consider the September number
somewhat violent.
But one gains nothing by sitting still. I am sure the
Apostles did not sit stUl : and agitation is the order of the
day. I do not at all fear for the result, were we thrown on
the people, though for a while many of us would be distressed
in re pecuniaria — not that I fcvould advocate a separation of
Church and State unless the nation does more tyrannical
things against us ; but I do feel I should be glad if it were
done and over, much as the nation would lose by it ; for I fear /
the Church is being corrupted by the union. /
As to poor Whately, it is melancholy. Of course, to know
him now is quite impossible, yet he has so many good qualities
that it is impossible also not to feel for him. I fear his love
of applause, popularity, &c, has been his snare; for a man
more void of, what are commonly called, selfish ends does not
exist. My Mother and sisters desire me to send you their very
kind remembrances. I found them quite well, after having
almost despaired of ever seeing them again. I fell ill at Lyons
again for two days, which frightened me, and made me travel
fast (since I found I could) lest I should be laid up a second
time in a foreign land. I am, thank God, remarkably weU
now.
Rev. J. H. Newman to F. Rogers, Esq.
Oriel College: August 31, 1833.
. . . Thanks for the two letters, and the song, which wUl
be the more acceptable because the present time is evil. A
strange notion yours ! as if we were not disposed more to cling
to what was, on the ground of its being ' fuit.' Do you under
stand ? Charles I. and his line are the more dear on account
of the apostasy of others. Yet, I confess, Tory as I still am,
theoretically and historically, I begin to be a Radical practi
cally. Do not let me misrepresent myself. I, of course, think
that the most natural and becoming state of things is for the
aristocratical power to be the upholder of the Church ; yet I
cannot deny the plain fact that in most ages the latter has
been based on a popular power. It was so in its rise, in the
1 [N.B. This was Richard Hurrell Froude.]

jg6 John Henry Newman 1833
days of Ambrose and in the days of Becket, and it will be so
again. I am preparing myself for such a state of things, and
for this simple reason, because the State has deserted us and
we cannot help ourselves. You must not think, however, that
I myself meant to hasten the downfall of the Monarchy by
word or deed. I trust the Whigs and Radicals will reap their
proper glory, and we but enjoy their fruit without committing
ourselves. On th;s ground, I am against all measures on our
part tending to the separation of Church and State, such as
putting the bishops out of Parliament, &c, though, I confess,
if the destructives go much further in their persecution of us
— e.g. if they made Arnold a bishop — I might consider it
wrong to maintain that position longer, much as I should wish
to do so. Entre nous, we have set up Societies over the king
dom in defence of the Church. Certainly this is, you will say,
a singular confidential communication, being shared by so
many ; but the entre nous relates to we. We do not like our
names known. You may say as much as you wiU to any
one about the fact of the Societies and their object. They
are already started (in germ) in Oxfordshire, Devonshire,
Gloucestei shire, Berks, Suffolk and Kent — the object being
'to make the clergy alive to their situation, to enforce the
Apostolical Succession, and to defend the Liturgy.' We mean
to publish and circulate tracts. I have started with four. We
think of a quarterly magazine. I wish I had more money (a
respectable wish), but I have squandered mine in Sicily. All
this plan of publication will not interfere with Rose's Maga
zine. Everything as yet promises well — but we are merely
talking about it as yet, and have got no rules even. My work
is passing through the press. Do you recollect how I was
fussed about it this time two years, when I had not written a
word ? It has now been done the better part of a year and a
half ! I am somewhat in a stew with all sorts of indefinite
fears — yet I hope I have committed no blunders.
We are bringing out a stinging ' Lyra ' this September —
moderate, well-judging men will be shocked at it. I am pleased
to find we are called enthusiasts— pleased, for when did a
cause which could be so designated fail of success ? I have
been writing a series of papers for Rose, called the ' Church of
the Fathers,' which commences in October ; I began another
work besides, which is not known yet. You will be amused at
this account about myself, but at present I have nothing else
to talk or think about. Everyone is from Oxford, and nothing

1833 Letters and Correspondence 397
going on ; and your letter certainly did not contain materials
for much comment or development. One would think that a
man who uses his eyes and pen but seldom would abound in
deep sayings when he put pen to paper. Every sentence ought
to be a view.
I am surprisingly well, except that my hair has all deserted
me, as is usual after fevers. It seems so astonishing to be in
England after so many sad forebodings : i.e. I could not re
concile my imagination, only my reason, to the notion I should
ever get back. The way seemed so very long. Yet now I am
beginning to get very dissatisfied with not having done more
in Sicily. It was most unlucky to be detained three weeks in
Palermo, when I might have been roving over the island.
How glad I shall be to see you as a Fellow. Everything went
so against me in Sicily that I made up my mind you were un
successful. I am particularly obliged to you for your kind
attentions to my Mother, according to my request. You have
no notion how useful your Tillemont already is. The ' Church
of the Fathers ' is in great measure drawn up from it.
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. R. H. Froude.
September 2, 1833.
... As to your criticism on the doctrine [N.B. of ' Home
Thoughts,' viz. as against the Church of Rome, which I have
said was possessed with the local spirit of Pagan Rome]
absisto totus. I never will cease to maintain that idolatry is
wrong. I have had most favourable answers hitherto, so much so
that I have been obliged to print some tracts in self-defence :
i.e. to save continual letter-writing. I send you two of them.
Keble thinks them pompous, which I do not deny. I have
not heard from Rickards, but hope to establish something in
Suffolk through another. There is a clerical meeting in Berk
shire on the 12th, which Cotton and John Marriott attend.
The latter has taken it up warmly and will introduce the sub
ject. Palmer, who was to have written to Cotton, is so ill as
to have set off to Hastings. I fear Cotton thinks me hot
something. Trower calls me an ultra and you an enthusiast.
Marriott hopes through his uncle to set up a Society in Shrop
shire. Davison has sent his approval to Keble, but is silent
as to his adhesion. Ogilvie approves also ! I walked to the
consecration of Summers Town Chapel the other day with

398 John henry jnewman 1833
Field [now Bishop of Newfoundland]. It is astonishing how
we coalesce. He admitted that he feared the ministry, and I
that bishops were.no good in Parliament, though I would have
nothing to do with removing them, in which he acquiesced.
James Mozley is circulating my tracts in Lincolnshire by
post. I do hold a great deal may be made of this mode of
circulation in the way of agitation. We hope to have a meet
ing here of Golightly, Blencowe, Marriott, and Mozley in a
fortnight. Bramston was converted, i.e. is at present, by
Keble's sermon. I have written to Rogers.
Rev. John Keble to Rev. J. H. Newman.
September 1833.
I send you such as I can [his first tract^' Adherence,' ' &c] :
rudis indigestaque moles it has proved ; but if it, or any part of
it, is worthy of our friend King's press, you are hereby autho
rised to do what you will with it. The more I study your
papers [the first tracts] the better I like them. I see Rose
has taken Durham. Of course the Magazine must change
hands. I quite forgot when I saw you to speak to you about your
kind thought of mentioning me at the beginning of your book
[the ' Arians ']. I really and truly think it had better not be
done, as far as it goes, in respect of the cause. We have seen
how ridiculous the Archbishop of Dublin and his set have
become by their continual puffing and repuffing each other.
It concerns us to avoid the appearance of anything of the sort.
If we were not acting in a kind of set together, the objection
would not be near so strong. Pray consider, and I really
think you will agree with me. At all events, I thank you
with all my heart, and hope by degrees to become more worthy
of the intended compliment.
Rev. S. Rickards to Rev. J. H. Newman.
September 6, 1833.
It vexes me I have not been able to tell you how cordially
I enter into the measure you propose for maintaining our
proper position as Christ's ministers in these evU days. Every
thing ought to be done by us that can be done to show that
1 ' Adherence to Apostolical Succession the safest course.'

1833 Letters and Correspondence 399
we at least are in earnest when aU around us seem in sport.
The point to be maintained as to the Liturgy seems to me to
be to admit of no changes, but such only as are made and
sanctioned by the authority of the Church ; they who are no
Christians themselves must not legislate on matters of religion
for those who are Christians. I would not stand forth and
protest against alterations which were directed and approved
by what might properly be called the same authority by which
the same things have been done before among us.
As far as my opinion goes for anything, I disapprove of
the concealment of names. ' I am small and of no reputation '
is an old plea for shrinking, which the best servants of God
have never liked, and I like it not any better than they did.
The sooner the tracts are begun the better. Be so good as to
advance a subscription for me, according as you may see fit
Rev. J. H. Newman to R. F. Wilson, Esq.
Oriel College: September 8, 1833.
. . . Your fears about my health are, I trust, as ground
less as they are kind. True it is I had a fearful Ulness in
Sicily and escaped as by fire, yet I have quite recovered,
except weakness in my joints, and am now better than I
have ever been these seventeen years — that is, through my
whole Oxford life. Whether the blessing will last is another
question, but there can be no harm in boasting of what is a
fact, and what is a present, though it may be a transient,
good. . . .
If we look into history, whether in the age of the Apostles,
St. Ambrose's, or St. Becket's, still the people were the fulcrum
of the- Church's power. So they may be again. Therefore,
expect on your return to England to see us all cautious, long
headed, unfeeling, unflinching Radicals. We have set up
Church Societies all over the kingdom, or at least mean to do
so. Already the seeds of revolution are planted in Oxford
shire, Berkshire, Devonshire, Gloucestershire, Kent, and Suf
folk. Our object is to maintain the doctrine of the Apostolical
Succession and save the Liturgy from illegal alterations.
Hitherto we have had great success ; Rose and Davison, to
say nothing of others, approve of our plan. And we have
begun to print tracts. We intend to have nothing to do with
party poUtics ; Tros Tyriusque mihi, &c., and self-preserva
tion, as Polignac said, is the first law of nature. ... If we

400 John henry Newman 1S33
succeed, you wiU see the consequences ; if we fail, we shall at
least have the satisfaction of transmitting the sparks of truth,
stUl Uving, to a happier age. It is no slight thing to be made
the instrument of handing down the principles of Laud till
the tune comes. . . .
I was three weeks laid up at Castro Juan (the ancient
Enna) without any proper advice. ... I certainly roughed it ;
not a bad seasoning for the life of a pUgrim at home, if times
become bad, except that I was treated with vast respect as
being an Englishman. The people are most kind ; the little
experience I have had of them makes me quite love them. I
would I could recompense the attentions I had as I lay by the
roadside in a miserable hut. Those I received at Castro Juan
I can acknowledge now I have got safe back ; but the poor
peasants are quite unknown to me by name, though I shall try
to get my frends at Castro Juan to find them out. Sicily is a
superb country. It is not right to put life against any stake,
but, as to my pain and anxiety, it is more than recompensed
by what I saw there.
Rev. R. H. Froude to Rev. J. H. Newman.
September 8, 1833.
... I like your tracts much. My father thinks the
generality of parsons here would not enter into the rj6o<s of ' I
am a Presbyter,' &c. I am astonished to see how much im
pression the march of events has made upon him. He says
they [the Evangelicals] would all be pulling different ways
with mare's-nests of their own. The High Church, he thinks,
generaUy speaking, too apathetic to be worked upon. If we
could get any good addresses to the poor written ... he says
he is sure he could circulate them among all the clergy of his
archdeaconry, and that he could get the Archdeacon of Exeter
to do the same. He has to preach a sermon for the National
Schools at the Cathedral, and intends to speak in very plain
terms about the apostasy, moral as weU as religious, of the
higher orders ; and the necessity of all serious people stirring
themselves, especially with a view to instructing the lower
orders in true Church principles, for that we must look to
them, the poor, for our support.
What would be the effect of Phillpotts [Bishop of Exeter]
bringing forward the Prosmunire ? My father thinks it might
take.

1833 Letters and Correspondence 401
Why should not the Archbishop have Ignatius and Clement
printed, and recommend the clergy to distribute? Ogilvie
ought to be touched up about this. (Without high authority
the country clergy will never give a thought to the Fathers.
They have got it in their heads that such matters are either
out of date or Romish. )
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. R. H. Froude.
September 9, 1833.
Our Conciliabulum [Golightly, Marriott, &c] meets next
Monday, and I want, if possible, the above [' An Association '
and 'Considering, &c.'] printed by that time. No. 2 ['Con
sidering that the only way, &c.'] is Keble's. No. 1 [' An As
sociation has been formed by the friends of the Church, i&c.']
mine. Keble has not seen No. 1. Criticise the whole very
accurately in matter and style, and send it back by return of
post. You see I call the Association ' Friends of the Church,' i.e.
by implication. Next about the Committee [Keble, Palmer,
Newman, Froude, WilUams (I.), Perceval, Prevost, Blencowe,
Marriott, T. Keble]. As the meetings must be in Oxford,
it is no matter what names we put in, yet I can find none but
Oriel men. Nay I, without leave, printed Williams' name.
Copeland I cannot put down without leave. Can you get any
Devonshire names on the Committee ? Keble has made Palmer
and me secretaries. I am going to London in October, and
hope to glean there ; a most intimate friend of mine, a layman.
[N.B. — J. W. Bowden], has taken it up warmly, i.e. as far as
the plan has been laid before him. I shall have a try at
Benson [Preacher of Lincoln's Inn, Master of the Temple] and
Hull [a barrister, W. W. Hull]. Rickards has written a most
warm answer and begs to subscribe. A neighbour of his, an
old contemporary of mine at Trinity, has done the same. . . .
You must at once write a tract on ' the project of shortening
Services.' Your knowledge of the breviary, &c, points you
out as the man. Give a succinct view of the origin of our
Services. Keble is writing two tracts. I have written to Perceval
for another. I have written four. I have proposed to Rick
ards to digest the opinions of Sanderson, Hammond, <fec, on
the Apostolical Succession.
I think I told you Rose joins ; and, if we turn out well,
vol. 1. » D

402 John Henry Newman 1833
will get us high patronage. I am very anxious lest we should
enlarge our basis. Not to get in bishops must we make any
material alteration.
Rev. R. H. Froude to Rev. J. H. Newman.
September 15, 1833.
When I got home last night I found your letter. I should
have had little to offer in the way of criticism. . . . Why
don't you get Rose and Ogilvie to put their names on the
Committee ? M. H. ought to be on, if it was only to give the
thing an unintellectual character. We must not enlarge our
basis even for Bishops. In short, I object to anyone whose
ear we have not secured, so that our opinions may be the
creed of the Association. I am quite surprised to find how
easily I get on with people, now that one throws overboard
the points about which prejudices are encrusted.
As to any conflict between  's views and ours, I appre
hend no evil from him, however painful it may be. Anything
that sets people agog is on our side. I deprecate a calm.
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. R. H. Froude.
September 18, 1833.
I doubt whether you will like the way we are going on. I
myself am disappointed, and wish for your presence here. I
will say a few words.
A difficulty has arisen abput tracts. Your father's criti
cism on mine has been verified in the case of Cotton, who is
offended at it. Then came the question : ' Do the tracts
commit the Society ? ' No ; mine, for example, are designedly
in the first person. Then Palmer says, ' No tracts must be
issued without the Committee's approval, and we must have
on it men of different tastes, &c. (always supposing they adopt
our principles), that we may hit on the right thing for a sickly
clergy, for such is the present generation.'
At present, then, I have agreed with Palmer on the follow
ing basis, which, however, perhaps will be modified : ' That
the Society should put into its Committee men of the highest
rank it can get ; that till it is more settled in its shape it
should pubUsh no tracts at all ; but that any individuals in it
(of course) may publish what tracts they please.'
If, on the other hand, the higher powers wUl not join us,

'833 LETTERS AND CORRESPONDENCE 4O3
we then may without immodesty take a bolder course. I am
not satisfied with all this myself, but I do not see what else I
could have done. I cannot but hope, on the whole, that this
bociety will be the first step towards bringing men of like
minds together. We must not be impatient. Never mind,
though our creed is not stamped on the body ; we may single
out from them those who agree with us, and form a second
society out of the first.
I have many misgivings about the fate of 'Newman on
Ananism.' The adventure with Cotton makes me think 1
shall offend and hurt men I would fain be straight with. Yet
what can one do ? Men are made of glass : the sooner we
break them and get it over the better.
Is not Rose bold in this last number? I quote him
against Palmer, when the latter preaches about moderation,
since he has an especial notion of Rose's prudence.
Your father's question is quite out of my depth at present.
Of late months the idea has broken on me, as it did a little
before on yourself, that the Church is essentially a popular
institution, and the past English union of it with the State
has been a happy anomaly. It is odd this should be a dis
covery ; for Gibbon, to go no further, is ever saying so. The
Fathers seem to keep up as a constant principle the com
munity of goods mentioned in the Acts — that is, a community
as far as food and raiment, &c, go; the Church being the
mere dispenser.
We have had our conference here — Golightly, Marriott,
Stevens, Copeland, and Palmer — and it has been satisfactory.
. . . Palmer is about to make a journey to Hook and others,
and has sounded the Evangelicals of Liverpool.
Rev. J. H. Newman to J. W. Bowden, Esq.
Oriel College: September 23, 1833.
Our plan of a Society goes on hitherto very well, though
of course we hear of objections ; nor do I suppose any pro
ject was ever started against which real objections were not
producible. As to your question of laymen belonging to it,
we hail any co-operation as the greatest benefit to it. I send
you one or two tracts which are not authorised by the Com
mittee, but are written by individuals belonging to it. Indeed,
our views are quite undecided as yet in what way, and with
what degree of responsibility in the Society, we shall circulate
d d2

404 John Henry Newman 1833
them. Davison, Miller, Rose, Ogilvie, the Archbishop's
Chaplain, Keble, Rickards, and others are more or less con
nected with us ; all have given their approbation and names
at least. In the foUowing letter Mr. Newman's publisher writes of
the difficulty of getting tracts, as such, into circulation. This,
as wiU be seen, was a lasting difficulty.
Mr. Turrill to Rev. J. H. Newman.
October 2, 1833.
... It is very difficult to obtain an extensive circulation
for tracts without incurring a very considerable outlay, and,
from the moderate price at which they must be sold, they
rarely repay the capital invested. The best plan to get them
into circulation would be to bring them out as weekly num
bers, under some such title as 'The Churchman's Weekly
Tract Magazine.'
Rev. J. H. Newman to F. Rogers, Esq.
Oriel College: October 2, 1833.
. . . We are getting on famously with our Society, and
are so prudent and temperate that Froude writes up to me
we have made a hash of it, which I account to be praise. As
to Gladstone, perhaps it would be wrong to ask a young man
so to commit himself, but make a fuss we will sooner or
later. . . .
My work is nearly finished, and I begin to get disgusted
with it. I was out of sorts with it on taking it up on my
return.
Rev. Isaac Williams to Rev. J. H. Newman.
October 2, 1833.
I have been considering the subject of the weekly Sacra
ment, as you desired, and thinking over what objections there
might be to it. . . . Likewise I want to say a word about our
Society [N.B. — Association, which was to have accompanied the
tracts]. We thought that it would be very desirable, as you
say, to have a meeting, and some test, as soon as we conveni
ently could ; and' that in the meantime, very desirable as it

1833 Letters and Correspondence 405
would be to set the matter before people, and to win their
favourable hearing and concurrence, yet to be slow in increas
ing the number of our Society, as we very likely might have
the adherence of some who would not like the tests we might
think requisite. For instance, one, which I suppose would be
most necessary, a concurrence with all the doctrines implied
in our Prayer Book, in the most plain and obvious meaning.
A subscription again, would, I suppose, be a great test of
people's real heartiness in the cause. . . . Baptismal Regene
ration seems a doctrine of such great importance, and the
many practical consequences arising from the different ways
of considering it so great, that it seems to me that in the
Evangelicals we may find great impediments to that union
which we must so much desire. But, however, hard times
may do much ; and, nil desperandum.
I am very sorry to hear that you give but a poor account
of Froude. If you hear of a few acres of land to be let at
Littlemore, which would do to let out in small portions to
the poor, I should be glad to rent them for that purpose.
Rev. Wm. Wilson,1 Walthamstow, to Rev. J. H. Newman.
October 3, 1833.
With the general purport of your letter I entirely agree.
It must be beneficial that the attention of members of our
national institutions should be more directly called to the
authority on which the Church is established, and that com
bined effort should be made to preserve in its present form
our truly scriptural Liturgy.
Whether the existence of an Association for the ends which
you propose be desirable, without further information, I am
not able to judge.
With those who sincerely love our Church I should be most
happy to unite in resisting any and every alteration in the
doctrinal and devotional parts of her Services. If we err, it
is not in these respects, but in the want of discipline into which
our National Establishment has fallen. The people have
ceased to feel the value of our institutions, and therefore esti
mate no longer their importance. WUl your Association do
anything towards the renewal of a more efficient discipline ?
Pardon me, my dear sir, if I entreat you not to identify me
in any exclusive manner with the class usually called Evan-
1 [Mild Evangelical.— J. H. N.]

4o6 John Henry Newman 1833
gelical. The duties of a parish containing nearly 5,000 souls
leave me little time and less inclination to seek any association
beyond its limits. I do indeed think that class to which I
refer have been much and undeservedly misconceived. If a
time of trial were to come on the Church of England, the last
who would desert Episcopal order, and the last who would be
faithless to her truly scriptural ordinances, would be the Evan-
geUcal clergy. But, being no Calvinist, I differ from those
among them whose sentiments are extreme ; and I think that
those who are generally termed the High Church, on the other
hand, err in their interpretation of the doctrine of the Sacra
ments, and therefore in their use of those effectual ordinances.

S. F. Wood, Esq., to Rev. J. H. Newman.
Thursday, October 16, 1833.
I did write to you from Leghorn immediately after the
Oriel election. I was sure, for many reasons, you would be
rapturously pleased with the old classic countries ; and I think
your age (though it may seem a paradox) is the true one for
going abroad. Many lose much pleasure by going too young.
I would wiUingly pass over what you say on the subject of
the Church, because I think it almost presumptuous in me to
deliver ah opinion on the subject. But, as one is driven, as it
were, by an external force, to think and judge about it, I wUl
just say that I believe I differ with you a good deal as to the
need the English Church has to be reformed ; and also that I
think it neither has the power nor the inclination to reform
itself. And, therefore, though the spirit with which some
men press on legislative interference is a very wicked one, I
shall stiU rejoice that a furnace has been prepared, even in part
by an enemy's hand, in passing through which the dross may
be purged off. So far as the Society you allude to is a means-
of organising the friends of the Church to repel the organised
assaults of her adversaries, I rejoice at its existence ; so far as
it may obstruct the plans of her friends, either from principle
or custom, I am grieved at it.
In October 1833 Mr. Newman paid a six days' visit to
Mr. Bowden. In the following letter his old friend remarks
how soon his presence became a customary thing — an indirect
testimony to the charm and ease of his society.

1833 Letters and Correspondence 407
J. W. Bowden, Esq., to Rev. J. H. Newman.
October, 1833.
It is absurd, considering the very short time you were with
us, what hold the idea took of both our minds that your
presence with us was a settled customary thing. Yesterday
[Sunday], for instance, it seemed quite odd to go to Mr. B.'s
chapel in the morning, or to Belgrave [Chapel] in the evening
without you. And we felt both some difficulty in admitting
the undeniable fact that you only passed one Sunday with us.
[N.B. — This passage is so characteristic of dear B.'s feelings
towards me. — J. H. N.]
Rev. J. H. Newman to J. W. Bowden, Esq.
Oriel: October 18, 1833.
Your tract on the Church has been revised by Keble and
myself — that is, we have altered half a dozen words. It meets
with great approbation, and we hail you as fellow-labourer with
great satisfaction, especially as being a layman. . . . Rose has
sent me two splendid letters since I saw you. He goes all our
lengths. We talk of getting up at once a Declaration or
address from the clergy to the Archbishop, against material
alterations in doctrine and discipline, and against extra-eccle
siastical interference ; at the same time granting improve
ments, if such, and the completion of our system. We have
also instituted a bureau for newspaper influence. We have
about twelve country newspapers already in our eye, which are
open to our friends, and we hope to introduce tracts into them
by their means. If you can do anything for us in the North
in this way, it will be a service. Our papers are to appear in
the ' British Magazine,' with a notice that all who please may
reprint them cheaply, or have them from us. I have- had a
most interesting letter from Mr. Snow, who entirely agrees
with the tracts, and gives some useful hints. We know Mr.
Randolph only by name, but if you find him apt, we will find
means to enter into correspondence with him : indeed, you can
introduce us.
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. J. Keble.
Between August 5 and November 5, 1833.
... I had a swarm of intruders last week, Mozley,
Golightly, Blencowe, Marriott and Stevens. We are getting

408 John Henry Newman 1833
on very well, but are anxious on the subject of tracts. Thost
hitherto published are not yet acknowledged as ' the Society's.'
For myself, I doubt whether the Society ought to pledge itself
to more than a general approval of the principles of any tracts.
One thing strikes one reader, another another. If you correct
them according to the wishes of a board, you will have nothing
but tame, dull compositions, which will take no one ; there
will be no rhetoric in them, which is necessarily -Trpds nva.
But it is a subject of much difficulty. However, in giving
away either yours or mine you must be cautious (please) not
to involve the Committee. I say this especially about my
own, because Cotton has signified his dissatisfaction with it.
Not that I agree with his criticisms, but still let us make up
our minds before we proceed. Palmer is gone off to exert
himself in Staffordshire, <fcc.
I fear that Calvert, whom you may recollect here, and a
physician now, has pronounced about Froude (not to him) a
judgment so unfavourable that I cannot bear to dwell upon it,
or to tell it. Pray exert your influence to get him sent to the
West Indies. I know he has a great prejudice against it, but
still what other place is hopeful ? They say Madeira is not.
He might take a cargo of books with him. N.B. — Could you
not manage to send Isaac Williams too ?

Rev. John Keble to Rev. J. H. Newman.
October, 1833.
I like the new [Suggestions ?] paper very well, and do not
remember enough of my own to say whether I should have
liked it better. The objection to this is, its being somewhat
vague : nobody, I think, will know what it drives at without
first inquiring the names of those who put it round. But on
that very account I presume it is thought likely to attract
signatures. At any rate, I am quite ready to sign it.
' The successive admission of Dissenters and Roman
Catholics to the power of legislating for the Church' is
mentioned in a way not unlikely to exclude people who, Uke
Davison, are Churchmen on principle, yet concurred in those
measures. And on the first of the three ' objects ' I should
like the word ' Prerogatives ' to be somewhere introduced, as
well as the words ' Order ' and ' Succession.' Also, our friend
[Palmer] must correct the Irishism on ' the objects of the

1833 Letters and Correspondence

409

Association shall be,' &c, unless he wishes everybody to detect
him. . . .
I am grieved to the heart with your account of him
[Froude], and shall try all I can to send him off— perhaps
Brazil might suit him.
[Froude came to Oxford October 5, and remained there till
October 26, 1833. During these weeks the following letters
passed between me and Palmer. — J. H. N.]
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. Wm. Palmer.
October 24, 1833.
I put down my thoughts hastily for you, intending them
rather as notes to remind you of what I mean than anything
else. I do not like the notion of forming a Society, or Associa
tion even, for many reasons.
First, there is an awkwardness in doing so without the
sanction of the Bishops ; and, though it is enough for satisfy
ing our conscience to know that really they are privately with
us, yet the world cannot know this, and it goes out to the
world as a bad precedent, and an inconsistency in the case of
those who have (rightly) made the absence of episcopal sanc
tion an objection to certain Societies hitherto.
2. Again, a Society is a formidable undertaking to start
with. Many of us are inexperienced and have to learn, how
to conduct an important and difficult scheme. It is a danger
ous thing to set up a large system at once. The London
University started with an apparatus of professors, which first
ensured ridicule, and then disappointment. Besides, a pro
fession of something great excites jealousy and suspicion.
There would be the notion abroad that we were taking too
much upon ourselves, whereas no one can complain of indivi
dual exertion.
3. And further, if we profess an Association, we are under
the necessity of bringing into the government of it men who
do not agree with us. We feel our opinions are true ; we are
sure that, few though we be, we shall be able to propagate
them by the force of the truth ; we have no need, rather we
cannot afford, to dilute them, which must be the consequence
of joining those who do not go as far as we do. I am not
denying (far from it) the inexpediency of obtruding at once

410 John Henry Newman 1833
all we really hold ; but I consider it a loss of time and trouble
to unite with those who differ with us — that is, with any who
are not disposed to aim at obtaining the liberty of the Church
and the restoration of discipline. And if any men think these
objects chimerical, then I see no reason for stirring myself
at all. i. Moreover, there is a growing feeling that Societies are
bad things, which is in my mind an objection to any such
project, both as being a true feeling and as being held as true.
The dissensions in the Bible Society and the present state of
the Christian Knowledge Society make people feel that they
are instruments of evil much more than of good ; or at least
of a diluted meagre sort of good.
True it is, the Church is a Society, but it is a Society with
a head ; in all other societies the real movers are secret and
irresponsible ; and thus second-rate men with low views get
the upper hand. Individuals who are seen and heard, who
act and suffer, are the instruments of Providence in all great
successes. Again, there is an awkwardness in tracts coming from a
Society. It is an assumption of teaching. And, further, they
must in consequence be weighed and carefully corrected : and
thus they become cold and formal, and (so to say) impersonal.
An address with much in it which others question, yet coming
from an individual mind, has a life about it which is sure to
make an impression.
Lastly, to form an Association, one ought to have a very
definite object. Practical men shrink from engaging without
knowing what is to be done ; but ' to defend the doctrine and
discipline of the Church ' is very vague ; vague for this reason
—that we are on the defensive, and not knowing when and
how we shall be attacked, we cannot say how we are to act.
For such reasons as these I would advocate a less formal
scheme : not that I am not eventually for an Association, but
not till the Bishop puts himself at our head in this or that
diocese. I would merely exert myself in my own place, and
with my own immediate friends, in declaring and teaching the
half-forgotten truths of Church union and order to all within
my influence. I address friends in other dioceses in turn, and
urge them to do the same — in Keble's words, wishing them
and ourselves to say to each other, ' We pledge ourselves to
each other, reserving our canonical obedience.' We merely
encourage and instruct each other : and, being able to say

1833 Letters and Correspondence 411
that others are doing elsewhere the same as we are, we have
an excuse for being more bold : the circumstance that we have
pledged ourselves allows us to introduce ourselves to strangers,
&c. &c. We print and circulate tracts ; our friends in other
dioceses read them, approve, and partly disapprove. We say,
'Make what use you will of them, and alter them in your own
way : reprint them and circulate them in turn, and send us
yours to do the same with.' We try to get a footing in
our county newspapers ; and recommend our friends elsewhere
to do the same. Thus gradually certain centres, in correspon
dence with each other and of a proselytising nature in their
respective neighbourhoods, are formed.
But you will say that we are moving too slow, while
external events are pressing upon us. ' Parliament will meet
and settle matters while we are but forming.' Well then,
here is a measure which will at once meet the danger and
hasten the formation of the Association. Let us, for example,
draw up a declaration or address to the Archbishop, an
expression of our attachment to the doctrine and discipline
of the Church. Rose recommends it, and it is evidently
natural and seasonable. Let each of our centres, i.e. corre
sponding members, exert himself to get signatures in his own
neighbourhood. This very attempt will lay the rudiments of
a number of associations ; channels of communication will be
opened with a most definite object ; and whether the attempt
succeeds or not, the groundwork of a second future attempt
will be laid, and this without any display of our real object,
i.e. the organisation of the clergy. As this process is repeated
again and again, being called for naturally by external events,
an Association will gradually develop itself ; and when, in the
course of events, the Bishop in this or that place puts himself
at its head, then at length it may be avowed. Thus it will be
formed as a habit by energising.
Another advantage of this plan is, that we need not formally
adjust our opinions with each other. We have the same
general views and aims, but one diocese may be more High
Church than another, may modify the tracts of another, &o.
Do not suppose I am blind to the appearance of fancifulness
and theorising in the above sketch ; but such must all anticipa
tion of the future be. Doubtless many things would modify
the plan in detail, when we came to put it in practice ; but its
great advantage is, that it maybe modified ; whereas, if wesst
up any Association at once, we commit oursslves.

412 John Henry Newman 1833
You will see I am for no committee, secretaries, &c, but
merely for certain individuals in every part of the country in
correspondence with each other, instructing and encouraging
each other, and acting with all their might in their respective
circles. Ever yours,
J. H. N.
[This letter seems to have determined Palmer to commence
the address to the Archbishop, which was so successful. I
say that it determined him ; for, though the notion of an
address was mooted, I think, at a Hadleigh meeting or soon
after (vide Keble's letter of August 8, 1833), yet I don't find
anything done towards it till the very day of the above letter
of mine, viz. on October 24, when Palmer went to town to
prosecute the matter.
It is remarkable that the day of his starting for London,
October 24, is the very day that my long letter above is dated ;
also that I have the very copy I sent to him, with a notice on it
in pencil. This Palmer had, and gave me back.
I infer that I sent up the letter to him to Beaumont Street
in the forenoon ; that he came down to me [and Froude] with
it in his hand, and left it with me after we had a talk, and
according to his prompt habits, started at once for London to
carry out the plan of address, which we had agreed upon.
P.S. — All this is confirmed by the fragmentary diary.
Another explanation is that my letter was a formal letter,
the result of former conversations, which he was to take in his
hand and show people in London ; but it was far too confi
dential for that. And he does not allude to it in the following
letter.— J. H. N.] "
Rev. W. Palmer to Rev. J. H. Newman.
Bath Hotel, Piccadilly: Sunday Evening, October 27, 1833.
I have been so busy since I came, that I have not had a
moment to myself until now. I write this to beg that you will,
without any delay, send up whatever has been drawn up [Qy.
by me and Froude] in the shape of an address to the Arch
bishop. Everyone approves of such an address, and it seems
to be thought that it would strengthen the right cause very
much. I have seen Archdeacons Watson and Bayley (with whom

1833 Letters and Correspondence 413
I have been in continual communication), Mr. Norris and Mr.
Hook ; and on Tuesday I am to dine with Mr. Norris at
Hackney, where there will be men of the right sort collected
from various parts, and I wish I had the address to submit to
their inspection. [Extract from my Private Journal : — ' Oct.
28, wrote sketch of address to Archbishop and sent to Palmer
with 500 "Suggestions."'] Archdeacon Bayleyis most active
in the cause, and has been circulating the prospectus [' Sugges
tions ' ?] largely. Mr. Norris also has been writing to his
friends in all parts. He is about writing to Archdeacon
Froude, and has written to Archdeacon Oldershaw of Norfolk.
I had a letter from Mr. Coddrington containing an accession
of force from Cambridge, including Henry J. Rose, Mr.
Isaacson, Mr. Wilson-Evans, Mr. Temple Chevallier and
others ; and they are going to work. In short, we are getting
on at a tremendous rate. I wish you would send up 400 or
500 copies of the ' Suggestions ' (or more, if you can spare
them), by the same conveyance as the address comes by.
Perceval wants them, so does Mr. Norris, and the Cambridge
men, and Archdeacon Bayley.
I should tell you that this latter clergyman is a most lead
ing man among the Church party, and in the closest communi
cation with the highest dignitaries ; and will take care that we
do not give offence where we mean to support, and to express
our sentiments of respect and approbation.
As far as I can see, it does not seem to be considered at all
necessary that there should be at present anything of a more
formal organisation, but probably by-and-bye we must have
one committee in Oxford and another in London.
I am sorry to find the London clergy are generally quite of
the Liberal school, and all under the Bishop of London. But
the country clergy, I hope, are sound.
I wish you, and Froude, and Keble could have heard the
Bishop of Limerick [Jebb] and Mr. Forster yesterday, talking
of Church matters ; it would have done your heart good.
Archdeacon Bayley is at the head of a clerical association
in Hampshire, which he engages to aid us ; and he has requested
me to go to their meeting on Novembei 21 to establish a com
munication. Mr. Hook will come over to Oxford towards the end of the
term, I believe.
I shall do what I can to get some good tracts written at
Cambridge, or by Perceval and Hook.

4J4 John Henry ivewman r»33
I must now make an end ; and really, my dear Newman,
I am so hurried, and such a number of things have occurred,
that I have had no time for arranging my thoughts, but have
just written what occurred to me. You must therefore make
allowance for this.
Will you, then, send up, without any delay, the address and
the ' Suggestions,' and if you can spare some tracts, especially
that on the Liturgy, so much the better 1 — Ever yours, &c.
P.S. — I intend to be in Oxford Wednesday afternoon. Will
you send 100 prospectuses by the bearer, and the tracts ? If
you can spare any more of the former it would be a good
opportunity, as I shall probably see Norris, &c. Will you also
make a list of your friends and correspondents in different
counties as they occur to you, and as full as you can, that I
may have my credentials complete, and be able to show our
strength to our friends in London ?
Rev. J. H. Newman to J. W. Bowden, Esq.
October 31, 1833.
As to the depdt in town, I can scarcely do anything till
Palmer returns. You do not know the plague that attends
having to consult many persons, yet having all the execution
upon myself. I have to write, correct press, distribute all the
tracts. No one can help me : first, because one is apt to
think no one can do so well as oneself ; secondly, because my
friends are scattered, Palmer in town, Froude x gone to Bar-
badoes, Rogers's eyes bad, &c. Then, besides, I am Dean, and
have a parish. As the man says in ' Ivanhoe,' ' a man cannot
do more than he can.' I can only say I am busy from morn
ing till night.
You shall hear more about our centres of communication,
that is, living depfits, soon. They will print and reprint in their
neighbourhoods. I wish H. Wilberforce could have called. I
know he wished it particularly. But my friends are so stupidly
bashful. Palmer is another of the same kind.
Rev. R. H. Froude to Rev. J. H. Newman.
October, 1833.
Tony Buller was here [Dartington] yesterday. He is a
capital fellow, and is anxious to assist us with trouble and
1 Froude had left Oxford for Barbadoes, but was still in England,
He did not sail till the end of November.

1833 Letters and Correspondence 415
money in any way he can. I told him it was better not to
say anything about money till we had given people a longer
trial of us.
Rev. T. Mozley to Rev. J. H. Newman.
November 1, 1833.
I and my brother James have had a long talk this morn
ing with Smith and Bailey [of Edgcott]. Bailey has consented
to send a circular to all the clergy within eight or nine miles,
requesting them to meet at his house to consider the address
to the Archbishop. He is anxious that you should come. He
also wishes much for Lancaster's sanction and attendance.
It occurs to me that you may feel some unpleasantness at
coming over, from being the writer of this address, but
Palmer or anyone would do as well. ... It might be as well,
perhaps, to send copies [of the address] round in the circular.
Of course you will refer this to C. Marriott, who, I understand,
is Registrar, &c, to the Society.
Some of the tracts I have given to Mrs. H., my new novel-
writing neighbour, who has taken them to London, where
they are to be exhibited in some literary soirees. . . .
The difficulty of getting the tracts into circulation — of
selling them to those who wanted to buy them — was a standing
one so long as they kept their original leaflet bulk, so great in
fact as to make it hard to account for the noise they at once
made. But the first idea was to distrubute ; to sell became an
after necessary consideration. Mr. Bowden is the first friend
and ally to press this difficulty on the writers. In the ' Chrono
logical Notes' there is this entry : 'November 1, 1833. — Sent
parcels to Rickards, R. Wilberforce, Golightly, and Pope.
[This is how we began scattering the tracts.]'
A few days after Mr. Bowden writes : —
J. W. Bowden, Esq., to Rev. J. H. Newman.
November 4, 1833.
I long to get your things in a distributable shape ; which
in London is only to be done by selling them. Any tracts, of
which you may send me a few copies, in a vendible shape, and
with a local reference, I will push.

416 John Henry Newman 1833
Those to whom I have shown the ' Suggestions ' say, ' But
where are the names ? Who are they ? Where are they ? '
For even the word Oxford does not appear thereon. For aught
the ' Suggestions ' say, the founders of the scheme might belong
to the operative classes of Society, and their head-quarters
might be in some alley in London. The year, too, should be
put ; a reader might, if he found a dirty copy, suppose the
whole scheme ten years old.
Rev. John Keble to Rev. J. H. Newman.
November 5, 1833.
With Mount I had a long conference ; he willingly con
sented to be the agent for Bath ; but as yet I have heard no
more of him. I have had two long and sensible letters from
Dr. Spry, who will be glad of some sets of the papers [tracts]
... I conclude I am right in telling people that we are not
so much forming one grand Association as little associations
in various parts. Spry says he shall get Molesworth, Davison's
old enemy, to act at Canterbury, and doubts not he will be a
vigorous agent. But he (Spry) hopes you will (1) look very
much to the position and probable wish of the Bishops ;
(2) admit and encourage the Laity as much as possible ;
(3) keep in view the formation of a grand Society out of the
little ones.
Also I humbly suggest, that there is no need to let quite
everybody make quite every alteration they please in our
papers ; and if any more of mine are printed, I shall bargain
for the following words being added to the licence at the top :
viz. 'it being, of course, understood that such alterations be
not inconsistent with the general spirit and design of the
papers.' Now as to my memorial paper ; I was rather daunted
about it by Froude's criticisms, which I fancied convicted me
of bad logic in it ; so I have not yet revised it, but will try as
soon as I have finished the Latin. However, I have good hope
that John Miller is about it. I went down with Froude as
far as Bath, put him into the coach in good plight on Tuesday
morning last (Oct. 29) and proceeded to call on Mount.
Miller is full of ' cholers and tremplings of mind,' and
seems to think he has committed himself farther than he
thought. There is a sad hitch with him about the Athanasian
Creed [the Anathema], but I will bring you his letters, and

1833 Letters and Correspondence 417
I think you will say that such doubts as his are more profit
able than a thousand unreflecting adherences.
Edward James, Prebendary of Winton, desires to have
some papers sent to him, and says, 'Enroll me.' I will ex
plain to him what 'enroll' means. If you have any new
light to throw on the meaning of the word you will let me
know. There is a very nice person near here [Fairford],
Barton by name, of B. N. C, who called on me the other day
and professed himself a hearty convert. He has sent to
Ottley. Wlien I come up I hope to bring you some prose and verse,
but you see I am growing old and stupid.
I want very much tracts for the poor now. The Layman's
address is excellent, but hardly plain enough. It will do
capitally for the middle classes.
I see by the ' British Magazine ' that the clergy of Dromore
and Carlow are making a stand, and calling on us for aid.
Don't let us lose sight of that.
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. J. Keble.
Oriel: November, 1833.
I have heard so much criticism on my tracts that it is
comfortable to have heard one or two things of a more plea
sant kind : first, what you and Spry say ; next, that the Bishop
of London has asked to see them. The principal thing I fear
is their being neglected, but if Bishops prick up their ears and
D.D.s and Poetry Professors encourage, I care for nothing
more. As to my anxiety for many tracts, it is simply on this
account, because there are various classes to be addressed.
We have scarcely any for the poor, and not many for the
clergy; or (again) the middle classes.
Besides, one improves by writing : one hits off the thing
better, and, at least, one offers a selection of styles to the
reader, and tastes differ, so that this is no slight advantage.
I have heard almost all of them abused, and again praised, by
different readers. At the same time I fully agree with [John]
Miller that we should not keep driving on one or two subjects,
and that we should not press them on men. My notion was,
when once we had done enough to make them known, to send
merely one or two of each fresh tract to friends as a specimen
and to refer them to Turrill's (where we have opened a dep6t)
for them.
vol. i. e e

418 John Henry Newman 1833
It must be recollected, too, that it is quite necessary to go
more into detail; our present tracts are vague and general,
and too much in the way of hints, as you yourself observed.
We have heard, on good authority from London, that the
Marriage Service is to be altered to please the Dissenters.
What this means I know not, but it is quite certain you must
forthwith write a tract on that service. Do pray set Miller
on some of his subjects. You must recollect there is another
benefit of tracts ; it engages staunch men in active warfare.
Miller will kindle when he begins to write ; and only think
what authority it will bring to the cause and to the tracts to
have his marked co-operation. Could you not set Spry to
write ? Finally, who knows we may have time to work six
weeks hence ? Let us write while we can.
Spry's letter is extremely valuable and encouraging. I am
glad he approves of our doings as a whole. However, we must
let no one control us. You shall be censor of the tracts, by
your office as a University judge of compositions, prose as well
as verse. But we will obey no one else, however thankful for
suggestions from anyone. I will take down Mount's sugges
tions. I have heard from dear Froude, who is certainly downcast.
He left home to-day, and was to be with Canon Rogers till
Saturday, when the packet sails. He is full of disappointment
at the address ; but then, say I, it effects two things — first, it
addresses the Archbishop as the head of the anti- innovators,
and it addresses him and not the King or Parliament ; which
has a doctrinal meaning and is a good precedent. However,
Froude caUs me names, and bids me stir you up into a fury if
I can.
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. R. H. Froude.
November 7, 1833.
I miss you very much. You will be glad to hear that your
articles on the Praemunire, <fec, have done much good. Palmer
brought word from town that you had effectually stopped the
probability of certain promotions ; in fact, that the Arch
bishop would be afraid to consecrate obnoxious persons ; and
at least you have given him a good pretence for refusing, as
it was known that there was a party in the Church, 'and they
not weak in talent,' &c. [Rose's words, in the 'British Maga
zine '], who would go all lengths rather than submit to State

1833 Letters and Correspondence 419
tyranny. Palmer is also delighted with your Hooker article
111 the last No.
The tracts are spreading and the Evangelicals of Chelten
ham join us, but deprecate them. I received this morning
§01. from Thornton's brother [was not this ultimately paid
back i].1 Golightly has promised 501. [he gave it and had it
back ultimately], and lOZ.'s, beginning with Rogers, are flowing
in. Both Greswells (C. C. C. and Worcester) have joined.
Pusey2 circulates tracts, Harrison exerts influence. The Pro
vost listens ! Mr. Jeune of Pembroke joins heartily ; he has
been converted by Jeremy Taylor on Episcopacy. The
Archdeacon [Clarke] joins ; and recognises a plan of his own
in our notion of an address to the Archbishop. You know
Archdeacon Sheepshanks has joined ? They say the Bishop
[Blomfield] of London has a snug plan for reforming the
Liturgy in preparation. I have left off being anti-aristo-
cratical. I do not feel the time has come, in spite of your
being right about the Praemunire. H. Wilberforce has been
back here and working most vigorously ; wherever he is he
talks and distributes tracts with all his might.
November 8. — The address is done to-day. Such a com
position I never saw ; we have re-written each other's (Lon
don and Oxford) three times ; but now we have made a few
alterations nostro periculo and have printed it off. The word
' Bishops ' at the close has been put in here and taken out there
five times sub silentio. Dr. Spry has been the best London
artist. ' We the undersigned,' &c.
' At a time when events,' &c.
'And while we most earnestly deprecate, <fec. . . . Your
Grace may rely upon the cheerful co-operation and dutiful sup
port of the clergy in carrying into effect any measures that
may tend to revive the discipline of ancient times ; to
strengthen the connexion between the bishops, clergy and
people, and to promote the purity, the efficiency and the unity
of the Church.' Southey is circulating the 'Suggestions' in
Cumberland. Mr. Charnock, at Ripon, is reprinting our
tracts. We are opening a depdt at Turrill's.
1 Finally it was given to Cholderton Church, when in the course of
building. 2 First mention of Pusey's name in association with the Movement.

I E 2

420 John Henry Newman 1833
Rev. H. W. Wilberforce to Rev. J. H. Newman.
Farnham Castle: November 10, 1833.
I have brought with me a few copies of the tracts to show
my Lord. . . . Sam proposes on his return [to the Island] to
send round copies to the clergy, and ask them to express
their notions thereon, that thus we may know how far we can
reckon on their agreement with our principles.
I have shown the tracts to my Lord — that is, the ' Episco
pal Church Apostolical,' the ' Primitive Practice,' the 'Liturgy,'
and ' Shortening the Services.' He showed much more Church
notions than I knew him to have. He approved all highly
except the ' Sin of the Church,' and did not violently object to
that; he -particularly liked the 'Liturgy' and 'Episcopal
Church Apostolical.' To sum up the whole, he said, 'Well, I
think a copious and general distribution of these will do great.
good ' ; he then said, ' Why do they confine themselves so much
to the one subject of the Apostolical commission ? I wish they
would treat other subjects.' I asked of what kind ? ' Why,
for example, Baptism. I think much too little is generally
thought about it,' and from what he said more I think he
quite agrees with us on that subject. He said that a private
communication is always made to the Archbishop when it is
contemplated to place any man on the bench, and if the
Archbishop remonstrated, he has no doubt it would be
dropped. But he approves the idea of petitioning the Arch
bishop if any man who seemed to the clergy very unfit was
appointed. He spoke of Archdeacon Glover. He quite feels
the want of intercourse among the clergy, and the good likely
to arise from it.
I attacked Arnold. He had not seen his postscript, &c.
I repeated the part about Ordination. And he seemed much
shocked and immediately said, ' What can he make of the
Ordination Service, " Receive the Holy Ghost," &c. ? ' This
shows the sense in which he holds these words. I am sure
you would like him if you knew his views and feelings.
Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. R. H. Froude.
November 13, 1833.
I am in the midst of troubles and no one but such oiriSavol
[this is ironical] as Rogers to consult with. Palmer musters

1833 Letters and Correspondence 421
the Z.'s [Establishment men] in great force against the tracts,
and some Evangelicals. He presses, and I am quite ready to
admit, a disclaimer (in the shape of a circular) of the tracts.
But he goes further, and wishes us to stop them. In these
cases, success is the test of sagacity or rashness. The said
tracts give offence, I know ; but they also do good ; and, I
maintain, will strengthen the Association, by enabling it to take
high ground, yet seem in the mean [uio-ov]. I suggested to him
that we were only doing here what Rose is doing elsewhere,
who nevertheless is a member of the grand scheme. He said
Rose was known as the editor of the Magazine. And so, I
replied, I suppose Keble would have no objection to give his
name to the tracts.
What will be done I know not ; but I want advice sadly.
I have no confidence in anyone. If I could be sure of five
or six vigorous co-operators in various parts, I would laugh at
opposition ; but I fear being beaten from the field. Keble
says we must be read, unless we grow stupid ; but I am not
over-sure of our fertUity even.
The tracts are certainly liked in many places ; among
other persons,, by the Bishop of Winchester. O that he would
take us up ! I would go to the length of my tether to meet him.
Henry Wilberforce is now there. I wonder whether, if one
knew him, one might exert any influence over him. Evangeli
cals, as I anticipated, are struck with the ' Law of Liberty '
and the ' Sin of the Church.' The subject of Discipline, too
(I cannot doubt), will take them. Surely my game Ues among
them. I can make no hand of the Z.'s.
I am half out of spirits : but how one outgrows tenderness !
Several years back, to have known that half or all Oxford
shook their heads at what I was doing (e.g. in the case of the
Church Missionary Society) would have hurt me much, but
somehow now I manage to exist. Do give me some advice
and encouragement.
I do think our tracts, if we persist, will catch all the
enthusiastic people among the Associated ; which will be
wretched for the Z.'s.
One proposition is that we should cease the issue of the
tracts till the address is happily got over ; but I say,
' Palmer, you delayed us five weeks with your scruples, which
you yourself got over at last ; and now you are playing the
same game again.' Yet I should shrink from spoUing the
address, and I do not know what to do.

422 John Henry Newman 1833
Tyler has at last plucked me, and sent back the sermons.
He is dying for love of the Church, and most seraphic. I will
give you the conclusion of his letter. I cannot find it.
' Salvam fac ecclesiam tuam, Domine,' is one of his suspiria.
He gives no reason for not taking my sermons.
My dear Froude, — I do so fear I may be self-willed in this
matter of the tracts. Pray do advise me according to your
light. P.S. — I have written to Palmer to say I will join his open
Association if he wishes it, in spite of my dislike to it ; but I
will not cease my issue of tracts.
At Christmas I hope to make a missionary tour to Derby,
Leicester, Huntingdonshire, Suffolk, Northamptonshire, <fcc.
Shuttleworth has, I believe, brought before the Hebdomadal
Board the expediency of removing the Subscription to the
Articles at entrance.
Rev. R. II. Froude to Rev J. H. Newman.
November 14, 1833.
'ApyeiW ox apiore, i.e. have you not been a spoon ? to
allow the Petition to have nothing about the 'system pre
supposed in the Rubrics,' and to leave out your key-words
' completing ' and ' extra ecclesiastical ' ? The last word I would
introduce thus : ' They take this opportunity of expressing their
conviction that the powers with which God has entrusted the
Spiritual Rulers of the Church are sufficient for its spiritual
government, and that all extra-ecclesiastical interference in its
spiritual concerns is both unnecessary and presumptuous.' My
father is annoyed at its being such milk and water ; do make
a row about it.
I see already that I shall find in your book [the 'Arians ']
sentences which I am sure stood when they were first written
after some other sentence than that which affects to introduce
them now, and seem conscious of being in the neighbourhood
of a stranger — ' buts ' where there should have been ' ands '
&c. — of which I shall make a catalogue and pay you off for
all the workings you have given me before now. However, it
looks very pretty ; and when I puff it, and people turn over
the pages, they have a very imposing effect. People say ' Ah I
I dare say a very interesting work.'
In this correspondence R. H. Froude appears more as
critic than originator or author. His more intimate friends

1833 Letters and Correspondence 423
required his criticisms and rested on his judgment. In his
own person this faculty acted mainly as a check. He often
speaks of trial and failure in his own attempts to bring out
what was working in his mind, as, for instance : ' I have tried
to write a criticism on the Apollo [Belvedere], but cannot bring
out my meaning, which is abstruse and metaphysico-poetical.
I always get bombastic, and am forced to scratch out.' His
critical faculty was too masterful to be practised upon himself,
but when exercised for the benefit of friends to whom he
looked up, he could give free licence to a pungent pen, and
yet leave the reader to understand how anxious those friends
might well be to secure his comments as long as they were
attainable. Keble, in his own simple way, sends his papers to
his old pupil to be overlooked by him, and Mr. Newman was
more at ease with Froude's imprimatur. Thus he sends him
draughts of papers ; for example : ' No. 2 Keble,' ' No. 1 mine,'
with the order, ' criticise the whole very accurately in matter
and style, and send it back by return of post.' Of course the
state of Froude's health made criticism more possible than
authorship, but also different intellectual powers and functions
are called into play.
Rev. R. D. Hampden, Principal op St. Mary Hall,
to Rev. J. H. Newman. November 15, 1833.
I am sorry to say that I have not had time as yet to give
due consideration to the proposed Address from the Clergy,
which you have been so kind as to send me. There are so
many things before me just at present, which I am forced to
attend to, that I readily pass over what is not equally im
perative. I trust, therefore, that you will excuse my only
acknowledging it with my thanks.
Rev. J. H. Newman to J. W. Bowden, Esq.
November 13, 1833.
We are full of difficulties. I have been strongly against
an Association because it was awkward having one without
Bishops, and because the High and Low Church parties would
come into collision, and because it could hardly be . responsible

424 ' John henry Newman 1833
for tracts. You will see my scheme in the letter . . . how
ever, I fear I shall be beaten. The consequence is, our tracts
must be immediately disowned, as far as the responsibility of
any Association is concerned. So circulars (I believe) are to
be issued disclaiming them. We shall go on printing and cir
culating, however, through our own friends ; though the High
Church party wish us to stop them altogether. By ' we ' I
mean Keble, myself, Froude, and ' our friends ' who are more
or less the following (though not associated or bound together
by any law ; i.e. many people like naturally- their own way) :
Pusey and Harrison, Ch. Ch. (they must not be mentioned as
of our party), Williams of Trinity ; Christie, Rogers, Mozley
and the Wilbnrforces, Oriel ; T. Keble, Prevost, Rickards,
Sale, of Magdalen ; Rose, Perceval, Golightly, Dyson, &c. I
am writing this in great confidence ; to say these were with
us would be quite unwarrantable, nor have we any wish to
form a party, but I think they are persons who feel keenly,
and would circulate our tracts.
On the other hand Palmer, backed by Mr. Norris, &c. &c,
is afraid of the tracts, and wishes them stopped, and is aiming
at an Association. I say, let everyone employ his talent in
his own way. Let there be an Association, if they can do it,
and we will be members of it, to avoid appearance of schism :
though I confess I do not like joining in anything the Bishops
have not publicly sanctioned. Still, nevertheless, why may
we not go on with our tracts ? Unless I see reason, I must.
Perhaps we shall proclaim Keble editor, but this is uncertain.
We are very strong (I hope) in Leicestershire, Cheshire,
Hants, Oxford, and Northamptonshire ; but we may miscal
culate our force here and there. Men fall off when they come\
to the scratch. The Duke of Newcastle has joined us ' in life
and death, so that we are true to ourselves,' and Lord Arden,
Lord Kenyon, Sir W. Heathcote, Joshua Watson, the Bishop
of Winchester (I hope), Gladstone, <fcc. But I suppose these
names must not be mentioned by anyone. Of course, there is
much coldness and opposition here, for this is a criticising
place ; but never mind, we will beat thein.
I will consider your objection about the leave to alter the
tracts. Keble agrees with you. but I do not myself see the
difficulty. Would a person go to the expense of reprinting a
tract which he has made nonsense by inserting ' not,' &c,
when he might write and print one of his own ? I am very
sleepy, so must leave off.

1833 Letters and Correspondence 425
u.I>'8,7We nave no regular committee, but suppose we shall
ultimately have one in Oxford or London. At present we
aim at an indefinite number of local associations. For names
of leaders take Rose, Archdeacon Bayley, Norris, Keble,
Palmer, Hook, Rickards, Dean of Ripon, Archdeacon Froude,
the WUberforces, Greswell of C. C. C, author of the ' Harmony,'
Lancaster, Miller, &c. We have agreed to make Turrill's
house our dep6t. I am the ' Churchman ' of the ' Record.' I
hope I have omitted no question of yours. Thanks for your
criticisms, they are always valuable.
Rev. J. H. Newman to J. W. Bowden, Esq.
November 17, 1833.
. . . As to the indirect inculcation of the Apostolical
doctrines, we have begun the records of the Church with that ,
view. We are printing extracts from Eusebius, he, giving I
little stories of the Apostles, Fathers, &c, to familiarise the (
imagination of the reader to an Apostolical state of the
Church. It was with the same view that we projected our
ballads. I had not forgotten Arius's, but his was the abuse
of a lawful expedient. What is the ' Lyra ApostoUca ' but a
ballad ? It was undertaken with a view of catching people
when unguarded. Besides, there is every difference between
the especially sacred subject which Arius treated in a popular
way and ours. However, I do not think you need be alarmed ;
probably the series will turn out to be composed of such
passages as Dryden's (Chaucer's) description of a good parson,
parts of Herbert's ' Country Parson.' . . .
Whenever you talk of the tracts, mind and persist they
are not connected with the Association, but the production of
' Residents in Oxford.' I wish them called the ' Oxford
Tracts,' but I cannot myself so call them, for modesty's sake.
So I think that soon I shall advertise them as ' Tracts for the
Times, by Residents in Oxford,' which, of course, will soon be
corrupted into Oxford Tracts.
If you had read the dissertations on Becket in the
' British,' you would be somewhat prepared for the kind of
system we suppose Hildebrand to have set up. Now our
notion is that things are returning so fast to a state of dis
solution, that we ought to be prepared, and to prepare the
public mind, for a restoration of the old Apostolic system.

426 John Henry Newman 1833
The question of the Papal Apostasy is a long one. As to
Prophecy, ought it to be the rule of our judgment about exist
ing institutions ? I am not quite clear.
Rev. R. H. Froude to Rev. J. H. Newman
November 17, 1833.
. . . As to giving up the tracts, the notion is odious.
Norris writes to my father to announce that the tract system
was (he was happy to say) abandoned. We must throw the
Z.'s overboard ; they are a small, and, as my father says,
daily diminishing party. He is much inclined to them him
self, but will take trouble to circulate the tracts. ... I wish
you could get to know something of S. and W., and unprotes-
tantise and un-Miltonise them. I think they are our sort,
enthusiasts of a sort there are not many of. A real genuine
enthusiast is the rarest thing going ; yet on Trower's autho
rity we may aspire to that rank. . . . Do keep writing to
Keble and stirring his rage ; he is my fire, but I may be his
poker. ... I conclude with the emphatic words of Martinus
Scriblerus : ' Ye Gods, annihilate both space and time,' and
bring me back again with copious notes in my pocket on ' State
of Religion in the United States.'
Rev. John Keble to Rev. J. H. Newman.
November 19, 1833.
Spry's and MUler's letters put together seem to point out
a definite mode of proceeding, which may be useful. Spry,
you see, wants an Association, quatenus an avowal of prin
ciple, not quatenus tracts. Miller approves of our present
notions, but wants some business-like statement to give effect
to them in other quarters. I think it will be very hard to
get anything like a distinct declaration, such as Spry wants,
numerously signed enough ; qy. whether the address will not
answer the purpose sufficiently ? If Mr. Norris, or any other
weighty person or persons from afar, would meet my weighty
self at Oxford next week, we might all lay our heads to
gether to some purpose. Palmer wiU probably be back from
Winton. You wUl see in Miller's a hint touching the multiplication
of tracts, which a. little comforted me for having said what I
afterwards feared might check or damp you in that line ; you

1833 Letters and Correspondence 427
see what we mean— not to make things too cheap. The sooner
we can set John MUler down to some of the tracts which
he has got m his head, the better, don't you think ?
I like your papers better and better, and so does my sister.
Transubstantiation and all [this is a week-day lecture].
Rev. Samuel Rickards to Rev. J. H. Newman.
November 20, 1833.
I cannot let the day go by without doing what I can
through you to enter my protest against the tract under the
title ' Heads of a Week-day Lecture.' I do not dwell so much
upon the points, which yet I think are objectionable, that it
makes too rapid an advance upon events which may or may
not be coming on, and that it is calculated to bring on the
evUs it alludes to rather than avert them ; but what I most
deplore is the language in which it speaks of some of the gifts
bestowed upon the ministers of Christ, and especially the
expression ' as intrusted with the awful and mysterious gift of
making the bread and wine, Christ's Body and Blood.'
Of course I do not quarrel with the expression when I
meet with it in writers who lived before the controversies
introduced into the world upon the subject, through the errors
of the Church of Rome ; but to use it now, and moreover to
use it in a set of tracts which at any rate will be read at first
with a good deal of suspicion, and in most instances with a
view to ascertain what sort of men write them, and what the
real objects of the Association are, appears to me to be nothing
less than tossing firebrands into our own work.
I do not at all like the supposition which this tract and
some others also, too much encourage, that hitherto a very
large share of the respect paid to clergymen has been because
they were of the rank of gentlemen, &c. To my mind these
aUusions betray a soreness upon these matters much below
and utterly unworthy of the parson of a parish ; who, wher
ever he is really respected, stands upon ground quite his own,
and with which his happening to be a gentleman has hardly
anything to do.
I find great fault, also, that in an Association composed
partly, and probably to a good extent, of persons who think
that the point to be maintained is that no alteration should
be mnrffi in t.bfi T,itnr£rv. (Ysrnpnt, unrlfir the enmnp.tfint aiithoritv

428 John Henry Newman is 33
take the higher station, and maintain that no changes should
be so much as listened to — a line of proceeding which seems
to me to betray an unwarrantable distrust of our bishops, as
well as to treat the whole affair in the most provoking manner
to those who are seeking for change.
There are other matters I could mention if I saw you, but
I will not trouble you with more in writing ; but this in
honesty I must add, that if the tracts are to be written in
the same irritated and irritating spirit in which several of
them have been written, I will belong to the Association no
longer. The ' Short Address ' by a layman, and ' The Gospel a Law
of Liberty,' appear to me to be models for our work, and cal
culated to do the greatest service to the cause. Indeed, there
is not one of the whole set which does not please me a hundred
times as much as it displeases me ; but there are ugly sentences
in some of them. In my zeal for my own thoughts and feel
ings, and my efforts to blurt them out at all hazards, I have
hardly left myself room to send my thanks for your book
[the 'Arians']. I feel this is in appearance a very unkindly
letter, and almost a fierce one, but it was never meant so.
[N.B. — Rickards would have liked tracts written in the
style of Richard Hooker or Isaac Walton. They would have
been classical, but would have failed of their purpose. As to
the ' Short Address,' which is Bowden's, I remark that, suited
as it is to minds like Rickards', it has by others been thought
not only, on the one hand, heavy, but, on the other hand, 'pro
voking and irritating' As to its heaviness, Keble says (Nov. 5,
'33), 'The layman's address is excellent, but hardly plain
enough,' and I suspect that ' Richard Nelson ' was written to
do what the layman did not do. And, as to his style being
irritating and provoking, I find from one of R. F. Wilson's
letters, September 2, 1834, that Bowden's tract on Christian
Liberty (No. 29) raised quite a storm at Booking, and (I think)
caused refusal of a church rate. — J. H. N.]
Mr. Rickards's pen was a rougher weapon than his tongue.
In conversation with Mr. Newman his disagreement with the
tract in question would have been perhaps as real, but personal
contact would have softened, brightened, cleared the atmo
sphere. Mr. Rickards could not have spoken as he wrote, or
if he had, it would not have sounded quite the same. It would
have been Mr. Rickards's way. Under his singular conversa-

1833 Letters and Correspondence 429
tional gifts his censure would have fitted in with a certain
quaintness of expression which gave character to all he said.
Mr. Newman answered this attack the next day. His
letter has recently come into the Editor's hands (in 1889), being
found in a packet of Mr. Newman's letters to Mr. Rickards,
sent by his widow, many years after, to Mrs. J. Mozley. The
letter told very strongly upon Mr. Newman's memory.
If Mr. Rickards's letter may be considered characteristic
of its writer, the answer to it will be felt by the reader to be
instinct with the spirit of the Movement and with Newman
as its leader.

Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. S. Rickards.
Oriel College: November 22, 1833.
Your letters are always acceptable ; and do not fancy one
is less so which happens to be objurgatory. Faithful are the
blows of a friend, and surely I may be antecedently sure that
I require them in many respects. As to our present doings,
we are set off, and with God's speed we will go forward,
through evil report and good report, through real and supposed
blunders. We are as men climbing a rock, who tear clothes
and flesh, and slip now and then, and yet make progress (so
be it !), and are careless that bystanders criticise, so that their
cause gains while they lose. We are set out, and we have
funds for the present ; we, like the widow's cruse, shall not fail.
This then is our position : connected with no association,
answerable to no one except God and His Church, committing
no one, bearing the blame, doing the work. I trust I speak
sincerely in saying, I am willing that it be said I go too far, so
that I push on the cause of truth some little way. Surely it is
energy that gives edge to any undertaking, and energy is ever
incautious and exaggerated. I do not say this to excuse such
defects, or as conscious of having them myself, but as a con
solation and explanation to those who love me, but are sorry
at some things I do. Be it so ; it is well to fall if you kill your
adversary. Nor can I wish anyone a happier lot than to be
himself unfortunate, yet to urge on a triumphant cause ; like
Laud and Ken in their day, who left a name which after ages
censure or pity, but whose works do follow them. Let it be

43° John Henry Newman 1833
succeeding generation, or to be altogether forgotten, while they
have helped forward the truth.
As to your particular criticisms, I have been so busy that
I have failed to let my correspondence keep pace with work.
The Association has nothing to do with the tracts. The latter
are the work of Oxford men ; Keble, myself, and others are
answerable for them. This removes, I conceive, part of your
objection. It would be highly indecorous in an association or
man in office, or of name, to contemplate the downfall of the
clergy ; but the very use and meaning of anonymousness is
that you say things worth saying in themselves, but not fit for
you to say. Surely it is highly desirable that this topic should
be present among other topics to the minds of the Church, as
an element of bringing about certain results. I mean, stirring
up the clergy ; and if you say this is addressed not to the
clergy, but to the people, I admit — but it was said at the clergy,
and perhaps could not be decently addressed to them. The
notion of the tract was to set the clergy upon preaching to
their flocks ; it only professes to be heads of a lecture, and the
passage you object to was in matter of fact not delivered in
the harsh form in which it stands. These remarks will explain,
at least, that we do not act without thought and design, though
of course you are quite at liberty to think that we err in
judgment. The truth is there is an extreme difficulty in
hitting the exact thing that will do. It is only attained by a
series of experiments. Nor is it fair to look at each tract by
itself : each is part of a whole intended to effect one or two
great ends. Hence the different tone of them (which you
notice), and which, be assured, does not arise from difference in
the writers, but the same writer aiming (whether or not from
error of judgment) at the same end in a different way. It is
necessary to wake the clergy ; if you get them even to criticise,
it is no slight thing. Willingly would I (if I) be said to write
in an irritating and irritated way, if in that way I rouse
people. I maintain (whether rightly or wrongly, but I main
tain) that by ways such as these alone can one move them.
As to the resisting alterations, I am amused, though instructed,
at the variety of opinions, as of criticisms (e.g. there is hardly
one tract which in its turn has not been the best). Now it
happens that, against my own judgment, I have been urged to
drop the question of the ' Competent Authority ' for altering
the Liturgy (though it is noticed in some of the tracts), under
the notion that people are not ripe for it (and it is matter of

1833 Letters and Correspondence 431
fact that the tract on alterations in the Liturgy has been more
approved generally than any other), but all the while I quite
agree with you it is a point to press ; and in matter of fact for
the last six weeks a friend of mine has had a pamphlet on
hand at my suggestion about it. I inserted a clause against
.' extra-ecclesiastical alterations,' both in the ' Suggestions '
and the 'Address,' but each time it was cut out. Lastly, I «
must just touch upon the notice of the Lord's Supper. In
confidence to a friend, I can only admit it was imprudent, for
I do think we have most of us dreadfully low notions of the
Blessed Sacrament. I expect to be called a Papist when my
opinions are known. But (please God) I shall lead persons on
a little way, while they fancy th«v are only taking the mean,
and denounce me as the extreme. Thus all good is done (I do
not say kept up) by going before people, and letting them
fancy they are striking a balance. Let others be doctors of
the Church. I do not aim at being such (though I think my
self right) ; let me be thought extravagant, and yet be copied.
Here you have a sketch of views and feelings which, had^
I the happiness to be often with you, you at least would be
more able to do justice to, as hearing them viva voce. We will
take advice and thank you ; we will thank you for cuffs ; but
we will take our own line according to the light given us by
Almighty God and His Holy Church. We trust to be inde
pendent of all men, and to be liable to be stopped by none,
and it is a weakness to be pained, which I hope to get over.
Time was when to know the greater part of Oxford was against
me would have saddened me. That I have got over, I think ;
but still I suffer when criticised by friends. Never suppose I
shall be ' over-praised.' I hear but the faults of what I do.
It is good for me I should do so, but sometimes I am apt to
despair, and with difficulty am kept up to my work. Nay, I
am apt to go into the other extreme, and peevishly fancy men
my enemies, as anticipating opposition as a matter of course.
But enough of this.
The address goes on splendidly. Already we have two
thousand clergy who will sign it. You do not state your view
of it. Its object entre nous is threefold ; to rouse the clergy
to think and combine, to strengthen the Archbishop against
Whately, and to strengthen the Church as an independent
power against the liberalisers in and out of Parliament. . . .
Send me word if you will co-operate about the address, and I
will tell vou what to do.

432 John Henry Newman 1833
Here this correspondence on the tracts appears to have
ended. Letters continued to pass between the friends, as will
be seen, showing kindly interchange of thought, but the con
duct of the Movement does not seem to have been touched
upon again. As time goes on, Mr. Newman confides to Mr.
Rickards some doubts that pressed upon him, but there is no
return to that happy freedom of intercourse on the subject
that engrossed Mr. Newman's mind, which marks their early
correspondence. '
Rev. R. H. Froude to Rev. J. H. Newman.
Pierce's Hotel, Falmouth: November 20, 1833.
The box we dined in last year with all the tricolours and
trophies of the three days, but no Pedroites.
Friday. — I am to start to-morrow. I am at Archdeacon
Sheepshanks'. First let me congratulate you on your letter
1 It may be said that opinions, once formed deliberately, did seem
with Mr. Eickards incapable of change, modification, or softening. His
feelings towards the Church of Rome were such that nothing could pre
pare him, in the case of anyone he had once regarded with affection, for
an actual conversion to her communion. These feelings were so well
known to his friends that, as years passed by, they shrank from paining
him by the reports that were familiar to the Oxford world, and were
more than reports to those connected with Mr. Newman. It thus hap
pened that in 1845, when at a social gathering of almost a public
nature, the fact of Mr. Newman's reception into the Roman Church was
spoken of as imminent, if not already accomplished, Mr. Rickards stood
up and contradicted it. It was a blow that ought to have been spared
him. A friend writing in 1878 described, or rather intimated, this
scene to Dr. Newman. He wrote in answer : ' You could not have done
a kinder thing to me than to tell me about Rickards. For it seemed to
account for the conduct towards me of one whom I ever loved and
whom in memory I ever look back upon with affection. No house was
ever pleasanter to me than his, and I have him and Mrs. Rickards as in
1826, 1827 and 1832 vividly before me. But the tracts divided us from
the very first. He protested against the earliest of them, and wrote
me what he himself called a fierce letter. He made attempts to soften
his words, but the " ugly passages " which he wished to cut out were
¦just those which alone in my eyes were of any value. He wrote me a
kind, or rather beautiful, letter after No. 90, and called once with Mrs.
R. on me at Littlemore.'
Mr. Newman goes on to explain that he had wished those who knew
his course of thought should report it to all friends who had, as he
might suppose, a right to know. And when the act of separation from
Ihe Church of England came, he seems to have not been able to under
stand how any should be unprepared.

1833 Letters and Correspondence 433
of yesterday. You have done it in style. [N.B.— I have not
the letter ; it contained the correspondence between Arnold
and me.J Polonius would give you most credit for the word
•respond.' ' Which of course has its praise ' is capital.
This correspondence with Arnold is not in any of the papers
that have been placed before the Editor.
Ven. Archdeacon Froude to Rev. J. H. Newman.
November 25, 1833.
I had intended to have written to you this very day before
Mr. Palmer's circular and your accompaniment were received.
The address certainly is in itself a most unmeaning affair, but
people who desire a movement will possibly give it some im
portance as a first step.
The fact may be that the great body of the clergy know so
little of the actual state of things that they would hardly
believe the near approach of an important crisis. ... In this
way I reconcile myself to the milk-and-water production that
must go to Lambeth. Besides, a signature is looked upon as
a sort of smart-money that in most cases will be acknowledged
as a regular enlistment for future service. I can scarcely fix on
an individual in my archdeaconry who is likely to make an ob
jection ; but as the thing brings publicity, I dare say the Whigs
will use all their influence to defeat us. My brother Arch
deacons, Stephens and Barnes, are quite alive to the mischief
that is brewing. They differ about the propriety of signing an
address to our own Bishop. I think it had better be omitted ;
for besides, as between a Bishop and his own clergy such a
compliment goes for little, I should be sorry to have the
main object mixed up with another measure. . . . Do desire
Mr. S. Wilberforce to write to Mr. Lyte. My neighbour will
be glad to find what his friend's views are. He is a capital
speaker, very generally liked, and in times of difficulty will be
sure to act an important part.
By the beginning of the year we shall be ripe for associa
tions. Is it not advisable that you should be prepared to
assist your country friends with forms, regulations, &c. . . .
The Rev. Saml. Rowe of Stonehouse will be a useful corre
spondent ; he is methodical, diligent, and right-minded, and
has much influence with a respectable part of the yeomanry
in the neighbourhood of Plymouth, as well as among a large

434 John Henry Newman J833

J. W. Bowden, Esq., to Rev. J. H. Newman.
Capheaton: November 25, 1833.
With regard to the Chancellorship ' I should be much
obliged by a single line, as soon as the day of election is fixed.
Why is not the Archbishop to be chosen ? Mind and let me
know whom you and yours support, and, if there is any danger
of a sharp contest, I will move southwards to be at my post.
Were the Archbishop put up I would certainly come. I should
Uke to see him returned by a sweeping majority, both with
regard to its effect upon the country and on his own future
conduct. It might tend to athenaize him.2 But this, I am
afraid, is a dream. I see the distinction you make between
the apostasy of a Church and an apostasy in a Church ; but, as
you say, the question is a long one.
I have heard of your correspondence with Arnold from
Rogers. I shall make you show me, in confidence, the docu
ments. I am getting out of the world of news. From some
sneers which I saw in the ' Globe ' against McGhee and others,
I suppose that there have been some Apostolical proceedings
in Ireland. I have got nearly half-way through the ' Arians,'
which is what I expected it to be. I fear, though, that it is
too good for extensive circulation at the present day ; but you
do not write for the day.
I have never asked what Ogle thought of what was going on,
partly, I believe, from a lurking fear that he was not with us.
The following letter shows that the Movement was begin
ning to tell and make a stir :
Rev. J. A. Stephenson to Rev. J. H. Newman.
Lympsham, Somerset: November 25, 1833.
Your name having been mentioned as that of an influen
tial member of the Church Conservative Society at Oxford, I
am requested by a society of clerical friends in this neigh
bourhood to solicit your kind attention and advice.
We have been informed on episcopal authority ' that the
1 Chancellorship of the University of Oxford vacant by the death of
Lord Grenville.
2 Compare Justin Martyr, Quaist. Gentil. ad Christianos (III. ii.
850, ed. Otto) : rbv irdXcu ^Q-rji/at^ovTa tpi\6trocpov TlAdrwya.

1833 Letters and Correspondence 435
ministerial plan of ecclesiastical and liturgical reform is in-
:®nc^d to surprise the world by its extensiveness as much as
the Commons Reform Bill did,' that it is designed to leave out
of the amended Prayer Book everything that gives any offence
to anybody, and that the Bishop of London and the Archbishop
of Dublin have already ' come over ' to the support of the
alteration. Under these circumstances we are fearful of the concession
implied in the last paragraph of the now circulating address
to the Archbishop of Canterbury being taken advantage of,
and the condition attached to it being overlooked. We are
fearful of the word ' correction ' being construed as applied to
the Liturgy.
The assault on that grand bastion, the Athanasian Creed
(long since left out of the American Episcopal Liturgy), has
been already opened by Canon Woodhouse. Feeling ourselves
the inestimable value of that Creed, not only on account of its
lucid, cautious, and most instructive explanations of the grand
subjects of the Christian faith, but also on account of its
forming, together with the Commination Service, the only
remaining displays of the power of the Church to pronounce
those excluded from its Communion, who do not adhere to its
doctrines and its duties, we think that a determined stand
should be made for its reservation.
Would it do to promote an address to the King or to the
Bench of Bishops or to the two Houses of Convocation now
adjourned, but not dissolved, to the following purpose ?
We the undersigned. . . . beg to express our confidence in
.... for the prevention of any alteration whatever affect
ing, directly or indirectly, the invaluable doctrines of the
Church of England, or in any degree superseding the existing
use of any of the three Creeds, the Hymn of Glory to the
Father, &c, or any other standing formula of the faith. We
are. . . . ifec.
Lastly, if the idea met your approbation, would you origi
nate it at Alma Mater ? ' Dominus ' est adhuc ' illuminatio'
ejus. And from her the Light, scattering these dark clouds,
ought, as in many former instances, first to radiate. God
grant it may shine forth more and more brilliantly. We have
no real reason for apprehension.
With much respect and gratitude for the exertions, of
¦which some information has reached us, I am, &c. cfco.

4J6 John Henry Newman 1833
Rev. Thos. Mozley to Revs J. H. Newman.
November 27, 1833.
You have had so many rubs and buffets that one looks on
you as a person made to receive such things, with robur et
oss triplex to bear any amount of vexation and annoyance
one may inflict. Mr. S. has come to a complete standstUl.
He has been into Northampton, and among others seen a
Mr. B., who entirely approved of the address, and was prepared
to go any lengths ; but, glancing his eye on the sheet, to his
horror he found no printer's name, and immediately cast it
away from him as a venomous thing. . . .
Now for your tracts. The one which has made you so
very interesting a man to some of your readers — that is, ' The
Gospel a Law of Liberty ' — has not had the same effect here.
Mr. Lloyd Crawley takes great exception to one or two
passages : he underscores the little express command for public
worship, and refers to Matthew xvni. 20 ; and having been
engaged in various tithe suits and arguments with Quakers, in
which he has always spoken of tithes as any other property,
the result of individual grants, he is frightened at your
founding the payment of tithes on imitation of the patriarchal
and Jewish rule.
Rev. E. B. Pusey, D.D., -vo Rev. J. H. Newman.
*•¦¦
Monday evening : November 1833.
I shall have much pleasure in signing the address to the
Archbishop, but I think it would be a great object not to make
it the work of the Association, unless it were meant to express
its loyalty and suboidination. Many, I should think, would be
glad to sign the address who would doubt about the conse
quences of an Association.
[N.B. —This was before Pusey had joined the Movement.
Indeed, he was too UI to take part in it. — J. H. N.T

END OP THE FIRST VOLUME

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