196 



The Review of Reviews. 



Newman was passionately fond of music. He 

 was an accomplished violinist. His favourite com- 

 ])i!Sf'r was Beethoven, whom he called '' the gigantic 

 nightingale." He was disappointed in Men- 

 delssohn's Elijah, but was fa.scinated 'by Cheru- 

 bini's First Requiem in C Minor. His favourite 

 Fathers were St. John Chrysostom and Tertullian. 

 Second to them were St. Basil, the two Gregories 

 and St. Anthanasius. He admired Byron, did not 

 like \\'ordsworth, was \'ery fond of Crabbe, and he 

 adored Southey. Of classical poetry he preferred 

 the Odyssey, the Georgics and the Prometheus of 

 -F.schvlus. He preferred Euripides to Sophocles. 

 Of the moderns he delighted in Scott, Thackerav, 

 Trollope and Mrs. Gaskell. He did not care for 

 (■eorge Eliot, .but he was \erv fond of Fouque's 

 ■■ L'ndine " and " Sintram." 



"lead, kindly light.'' 

 Mr. Ward does not tell us much about "Lead, 

 Kindlv Light,'' which, he says, is perhaps the most 

 popular modern hymn in the language. But he tells 

 us that the hymn was con.stantly on his lips dur'mg 

 the " encircling gloom " of the years immediately 

 before he received the Cardinal's hat : — 



The Oratorian Fathers who remember that time 

 -speak of the years between 1875 and 1879 as very 

 .sad ones for Newman. His silence and depression 

 were very noticeable to those who lived with him. 

 'I'll' solemn conviction that he must think no more 

 of an earthly future, bnt prepare to follow his friends 

 who had gone, was never absent from his mind. Yet 

 what he had done as a Catholic seemed as yet so frag- 

 mentary, so incomplete, accompanied with ^o nnich 

 of failure ! During all these years he had ever repeated 

 " Lead. Kindlv Light, amid the encircling gloom." 

 He had hoped to see a path of useful work open out 

 from the .surrounding obscurity. " Have patience 

 and the meaning of trial will be made clear " was the 

 assin-ance which h(> constantly preached to himself. 

 Xow. however, he was nearer eighty than seventy, 

 •■Mid the inexorable march of time seemed to bid him 

 liiially to put away fui'ther hope .so far as this world 

 was concerned. His life had had its .successes, and, 

 in later years especially, its lieavy trials. The cloud 

 which seeim'd to hang over him, the evil report in 

 many Catholic circles of his falling short of wliole- 

 li"arted loyalty to the Church, because his duty to 

 truth had held him back from the extravagant lan- 

 guage which was demand("d by so many as the watch- 

 word of orthodoxy, must be accepted as an irreversible 

 fact. His companions felt that these were years of 

 depression if of resignation. (Vol. II.. p. 1.31.') 



THE ROAD TO ROMil. 



Writing to William Fronde in 1879 Newman thus 

 sums up " the rnurse of thought " h\ whii~h he was 

 l.nnded in f'athulirity : — 



It consists in three propositions; th;it there has 

 been or will be a R<:'velation : that Christianity is 

 that Revelation : and that Catholicity i<i its legitimate 

 expression ; and that these i)roposilions n.itnrally 

 strengthen the force of each. Hut this is only how it 

 should sum up. in order to give (Uitstanders an idea 

 of my line of argument, not as myself havinji been 

 immediatelv convinced by abstiact propositions. — 

 (Vel II., p. .-,89.) 



But he repudiates the theory that having gone to 

 Rome he is Ixjund to sacriliee the right of his con- 

 science or his rea.son. The following passage is 

 worth remembering : — 



To none indeed of the opinions of the schools, nor 

 to the reasonings even of the. Councils and Popes 

 are we bound; none are dv fidi- ; none bnt may be 

 chaiige<l. 1 think there was a day when the whole 

 liodv of divines was opposed to the doctrine of the 

 Inn'nacuhite Conception. Two great men. St. Bernard 

 and .St. Thomas, threw back the reception of it six 

 hundred years. The Jesuits have reversed the long 

 dominant' opinion of St. Augustine of absolute pre- 

 destination, and have been confirmed by two saints. 

 St. Francis de Sales and St. Alfon.so. On the other 

 liand, sometimes a diictrine of the schools ha.s been 

 nuule a dogma : that is. has been pnnnuuiced a portion 

 of the luiginal revelation ; but this, when it has oc- 

 curred, has been no sudden extempore procedure, but 

 the issue of long examination and the cinitroversy of 

 centuries. --(Vol. II.. p. 591.) 



MISCELLANEA. 



It is startling to come upon a pas.sage like this in 

 the letters of so con.ser\ative a thinker. Discussing 

 the claims of various saints to be regarded as 

 Doctors of the Church, Xewman says : — 



I do not even clearly .see why a woman has never 

 been pronounced a Doctor, for though St. Paul says 

 they are to keep silence in the Clinrclu's he is ,sj)eak- 

 ing of ecclesiastical and formal teaching, not of the 

 supernatural gifts and great works (if St. Catherine 

 of Sienna.— (Vol. II., p, .574.) 



Newman's style has so frequentK been praised 

 that it is interesting to learn that he wrote 

 laboriously. He was even fidgety. He could not 

 write with a bad pen, and he hated steel pens. The 

 following were the notes which he drew up for his 

 own guidance when composing sermons : — 



1. A man should be in earnest, by \vhicli I mean he 

 should write, not for the .sake of writing, but to bring 

 out his thoughts. 



2. He .should lU'ver aim at being eldquent. 



3. He should keej) his idea in view, and should 

 write sentences over and over again till he has ex- 

 pressed his meaning accurately, forcilily and in Sew 

 words. 



4. He should aim at being understood by his hearens 

 or readers. 



.5. He shiuihl use words whii-h arc likely to be 

 understood. Ornament and amplification will come 

 spontaneously in due time, but he should never seek 

 them. 



(i. Ilv must creep before he can tly ; by which I 

 mean that humility, which is a j;reat Cliristian virtue, 

 has a place in literai-y eompositicui. 



7. He who ivs amiiitions will never write well; but 

 he who tries to say simiily what he feels . . will 



be eloquent without inti'iiding it, and will write letter 

 Knglish than if he m:ide a study of Knglish literature. 



THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS. 



His " Dream of Gerontius," which General 

 Gordon read and reread during the last tragic days 

 at Khartoum, was written when Xewyiian believed 

 he was at the point of death : — 



