Chapter 10

LETTERS TO DR. NICHOLSON

In 1860 Sardinia, because it happened to possess the clever, far-seeing Count Cavour, had "dreamed against a distant goal"--the goal when his king should be made King of Italy, instead of only Sardinia. He only had to wait one year before his wish was attained. Victor Emmanuel, son of Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, was in 1861 proclaimed King of Italy, and nine years later he was head of the whole united nation. This is briefly touched on in Newman's first letter to Dr. Nicholson in January, 1860. He also spoke in strong praise of a book of Mrs. Beecher Stowe which he and his wife (then staying at Hastings to see the new year in, as they did the year before as well) were reading together. Mrs. Beecher Stowe was, of course, best known by her _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, perhaps the most popular American novel ever written. _The Minister's Wooing_ was published in 1859.

[Illustrations: 20 WHITE ROCK PLACE, HASTINGS 1A CARLISLE PARADE, HASTINGS WHERE FRANCIS NEWMAN OFTEN STAYED, IN 1860 AND EARLIER From Photos taken in 1909 by Valentine Edgar Sieveking]

"1A Carlisle Parade, Hastings, _4th Jan_., 1860.

"My dear Nicholson,

"A Happy New Year to you all! We are here, in the same lodgings as a year ago, having begun and ended the year in them. We have begun this year with hopes for the future brightly contrasted to anything for ten years back. For this, among men, I thank, first of all, Cavour and Victor Emmanuel, and secondly, Louis Napoleon. The hatred which the last incurs with the Austrian party and the Ultramontanists is, I think, a fair measure of his services and tendencies.

* * * * *

"I cannot get any solution from any of my books of certain difficulties in the Arabic phraseology of _Robinson Crusoe_, [Footnote: Hiawatha and Robinson Crusoe were very much used for Latin translations at the college by Newman.] and I want to ask your help; but I do not like to do so until I learn that it would not encroach too much on your leisure.

* * * * *

"We have been here reading aloud Mrs. Beecher Stowe's new tale, _The Minister's Wooing_ with very great pleasure. I regard her as a real 'prophetess,' and am delighted at the enormous circulation of her works. I have been stimulated to try my hand at translating into Latin five of the most eloquent passages in the book, as a trial of the possibility of putting such things into that language. I am pleased with the result, although it is clear to me that without a development of the Latin vocabulary far beyond Cicero, Livy, Tacitus, and Seneca no one could ever be _fluent_ and free to speak on modern subjects. One has to paraphrase and go round instead of speaking outright. I am thinking I ought to know something more about Arnobius and Lactantius, and see what sort of _development_ they effected; and the resolution rises in my mind that I will look to this, being hitherto quite ignorant of them.... I suppose the 'Volunteer Rifles' are talked of at Penrith as elsewhere. I regard it as a breach of faith to transform these Volunteers into Light Infantry, which seems to be the darling idea of military men."

Later on, in February, there is another letter relating to Newman's Latin _Robinson Crusoe_ and his own difficulties as to how to find out when are the times of spring and autumn in an equinoctial climate.

"I have been (as many others) a sufferer by the weather from slight bronchitis, exasperated by the coughs and noseblowings of the students, and by an ill-arrangement of the class-rooms. I had nothing serious, but enough to force me to spend my evenings in bed, from seven o'clock almost, and keep me three entire days away from college. I have been ... busy ... with a Latin _Robinson Crusoe_, rewritten quite freely (not a translation), that I have not been able to get back just now to Arabic; and have buried your letter in papers so deep that I lost much time the other day in a vain search for it.... In writing on Robinson's island I found my botany sadly at a loss, and have hunted the _Penny Cyclopaedia_ diligently and uselessly to learn the simplest things, such as: To an equinoctial climate, when is the spring and when the autumn? Do the leaves fall twice, or not at all? When is the chief cold? Is it when the sun is lowest, or when the clouds are thickest? Or does it depend on hail and electric phenomena, or on local relation to great mountains?"

It will be remembered that in 1859 the outbreak of the war of the Italian liberation took place. Garibaldi--the Knight of the Red Shirt--though he had settled down as a farmer on the island of Caprera, was summoned by Cavour to fight for Victor Emmanuel. He and his _Chasseurs des Alpes_ went into Central Italy as chief in command, and helped to complete the annexation of the Sardinian territories. It was in August, 1860, that he made his military promenade through Naples. During the next few years he was longing to march on Rome, but he also wished to foment the rebellion in Hungary, and not to let it come to nothing.

"10 Circus Road, St. John's Wood, "London, N.W. "_10th Nov._, 1860.

"My dear Nicholson,

"I believe I have never so much as written from Wales or Clifton to you, to denote that I was not killed on the rail. In old days I suppose that every distant journey demanded this kind of 'receipt' from a traveller; but we now travel too much to make it natural. I am reading the Book of Proverbs in Arabic, in order to work myself up in the vocabulary of morals, and am pleased to find that I know nearly all the words, although the exact _form_ of some is new to me.

* * * * *

"We may now congratulate one another on the 'definitive' fact of a constitutional King of United Italy. Louis Napoleon, in consenting to it, appears to me to have surpassed the limits not only of ordinary kings, but of ordinary statesmen. I find that even able and temperate French writers, such as Eugene Forçat, are shocked at it.... Louis Napoleon's ... enemies outside have been Germany, Spain, Russia, Austria, Naples, and the Papacy, and inside, all the Catholic clergy and the politicians.... Do you see Garibaldi's renewed solemn promise that his flag shall be joined to the Hungarian in effecting their liberation from Austria? What I hear and _know_ of Lord Palmerston's intrigues against Hungary and _threats to Sardinia_ if she dares to assist Hungary ... fills me with indignation and no small alarm. No doubt all that intrigue can do is now employed to induce Austria to _sell_ Venetia, not in order to benefit Italy (though to this they have no objection), but in gratuitous enmity to Hungary, which (Lord Palmerston says) the English Government _will not permit_ to be separated from Austria. This I _know_ he avowed to the Sardinian Ambassador, and sent the English fleet into the Adriatic as a demonstration. Happily the war is now likely to be deferred till Parliament meets, and our ministry may be severely checked in time. I trust we are only at the beginning of magnificent results in Europe and in North America....

"Your true friend,

"Francis W. Newman."

1861 was a great year for the fortunes of America. Then it was that the Civil War between the North and South (United States) first began. The question seemed to be, how far the United States might really interfere with the doings of any particular State of the Union. The North determined that they would not allow the Union to be broken up, and so they fought. But really the true point at issue was a far bigger question than that, for it turned out that the real dispute had to do with whether slavery was to be allowed to continue, or whether it should be put an end to for good and all.

The North said it must cease, and after a war lasting five-years, this was the final decision upon which peace was made. England very nearly was brought into this war against her colonies, but happily not quite. It was probably due to Abraham Lincoln (who was most wise in his Presidentship) that this war was averted.

"_14th June_, 1861.

"The interest of American affairs almost swallows up with me those of Italy, Poland, Hungary; though I am on the whole in decided good heart as to them all, i.e. as to everything but India. Everywhere else the tide seems to me to have turned for the better; but in India that is by no means clear to me. I hope our Government has discovered its error as regards America.... The glorious patriotism and unanimity of the North none could absolutely foresee; but that the attempt to break up the Union would goad the pro-slavery faction of the North into intense hostility of feeling to the South, appeared to me so clear and certain that I predicted it in print. That their backers and merchants should so lavish their private fortunes for the war was more than I dared to hope. I think the Union gets a new heart from this time."

"10 Circus Road, London, N.W.

"My dear Nicholson,

"I hope that the capture of New Orleans, now fully attested, pretty well tranquillizes your mind, and justifies us in believing that we see the beginning of the end.

* * * * *

"Events have not even yet taken the scale from the eyes of deluded people here. I still hear on all sides the doleful lament that 'the successes of the North are much to be regretted, since they _can only prolong the war_.' Mr. Gladstone [Footnote: Then Chancellor of the Exchequer.] has just printed his recent Manchester speech, in which he sympathizes with the South, because he does not trust the soundness of the North in the cause of freedom!... I am calmly told that it is not for the _interest of England_ that America should be so strong, and it is better for herself, and for us, that she break up! England may have all India, but the United States may not have one Mississippi, or keep the mouth of her own river. I have never felt so unutterably ashamed for my own country, for it affects public men and the press of London _on all sides_, with exceptions which may be easily counted. Are you not delighted with the progress of India for the better? It appears in the public news in many ways; but besides, I have papers from Oudh and Calcutta which interest me extremely, and give me the most cheerful hopes of the future. The change introduced by the extinction of the Company's rule is prodigiously beyond what I ever dared to expect in so short a time. I am beginning to print (for very limited circulation!) a Latin _Robinson Crusoe_--chiefly to please a lady-teacher, my favourite pupil. It is not a translation, but an imitation. My wife is just returned from Brighton, where I spent Easter--but did _not_ go to the rifle review. I feel unable to take interest in it, until Secret Diplomacy is abolished. At this moment there is no security that Lord Russell is not intriguing against Hungary, while possessing liberal views for Italy."

It is necessary here, I think, to add that the Hon. East India Company had, so long ago as 1833, been deprived of its commercial privileges; but still its directors practically ruled India under the Board of Control, which Pitt originated. Later, in 1858, Lord Palmerston brought in a bill which was its death-blow. The Company was to be abolished, and the Home Government reigned in its stead in India.

In July, 1863, Newman severed his long connection with University College, and evidently looked forward with great pleasure to uninterrupted time for writing and studying.

"I am finally severed from University College, but do not as yet know how much difference that means, since this is my natural vacation. I suppose that next October I shall begin to realize the greatness of the change for good or evil. (The enclosed photogram makes my face dirty, and one eye too dark; yet seen through a magnifier it is really good.) I seem to have an Augean stable to cleanse in reducing my papers to simplicity, and burning accumulations of thirty years. I am not likely to write less, but perhaps more, in anonymous ways, which impedes one's concentrating oneself on one subject, if that be desirable: as to which I cannot make up my mind. The danger of overworking the brain I see to be extreme if one has one subject and that all paper work and private work.

"I have now got my house, to keep on with right to leave at a quarter of a year's notice."

As the following letters make much mention of the struggle through which the United States was passing, it is perhaps as well to give, briefly, a few details of the happenings which were then taking place.

In 1856, when the Republican army was first started to put an end to the extension of slavery, Lincoln, who was the most prominent man against the pro-slavery party, took the lead as the most active servant of the cause. But there was another, working perhaps more quietly, but quite as resolutely against slavery, whose name should never be forgotten. William Lloyd Garrison--a man of the same age as Newman--started in 1831 a paper called _The Liberator_, with no capital or subscriptions. This paper he carried on for thirty-five years until slavery was abolished in the United States, although he received constantly letters threatening his assassination. He came to England in 1833, and on his return he started the American Anti-Slavery Society. Before that was accomplished, however, in every way possible he had spread over the whole of the States pamphlets etc., urging on his people the pressing need of the abolition of the slave trade. Then in 1863 (July) General Grant's success in capturing Vicksburg gave back to the Union the full control of the Mississippi river. By 1864 Grant was in full command of the Union Army. But _the_ aim of the Abolitionists had been triumphantly attained before then, for on 1st Jan., 1863, President Lincoln declared that all slaves in the States then in a state of rebellion should be free. Only two years later this man, who had done so much to rid his country of a degrading trade, was assassinated.

The following letter is dated 4th Aug., 1863:--

"... I hope that you now, with me, believe that the era of Southern 'successes' (i.e. hard and HOPEFUL _resistance_) is finally past. I believe nothing now remains but the resistance of despair, which cannot long animate the masses. Hatred of the free negro may awhile move them. But, the Mississippi once open, the N.W. has no longer a party favourable to the South; and the exhaustion of the South is so marked and undeniable that the real end may be much earlier than the people think.... General Neal Dow (now a prisoner at Richmond) in his last letter to England observed that the moral end served by the prolongation of the war had notoriously been the immediate legal emancipation of the negroes in the Gulf States; but the further prolongation of it is to determine the future internal government and possession of landed property in these States as the guarantee for the future. But it is a hard wrench on the politicians of the North to consent to this. Lincoln and Blair evidently would still much rather export the negroes _if they could_. Lincoln will not do anything against the will of the blacks; but it is evidently his weak point to deprecate them as equal citizens."

In September, 1863, Newman and his wife were spending their holiday at Windermere. From there he writes:--

"I fear that the projects of Louis Napoleon in Mexico, and the consequent sympathies of the United States with Russia against Poland and France, make an imbroglio fatal to Poland. Now that, if the Russian Empire were organized into States possessed of substantive interior nationality (as the French plan is), this would seem to be a very lamentable result. The two Western Cabinets have so acted as to ensure that Russia and the United States shall each desire the aggrandizement of the other; and if Russia take a lesson of imperial liberality from America, her empire may terrify our grandchildren with excellent reason. But I believe that the interest of the nations, of the true people everywhere, will prevail over Cabinet ambitions as soon as slavery is effectually uprooted in America."

Never do the words "a" and "the" light up so vividly the significant gulf which lies between the absence and the presence of Fame than when the first qualifies in the first instance the name of some man at a time when he is not specially distinguished; and then, much later on, the second prefaces it as the mouthpiece of Fame. In 1863 Newman's mention of "_a_ Mr. Grace, the _recent_ celebrated victorious cricketer," proved that his world-wide fame had but then been in its initial stage.

Newman's counsel to Dr. Nicholson in _re_ cigars as injurious to appetite and inflaming to the eyes, reminds one that though, as I have shown by his speech to Mr. Butler's family, he was "anti-everything," including smoke, yet he mentions constantly in his _Personal Narrative_ that in Syria during his missionary journey there in 1830-3, the fact was that he himself smoked in the fashion of the country, and by no means disliked it in his own young manhood. He begins on the Temperance and Teetotal question thus:--

"Llandudno, "_17th Sept._, 1863.

* * * * *

"I am reminded of it, by seeing to-day a statement made concerning cricketers, that no first-rate cricketer takes beer, ale, or spirits, which (it is said by the enthusiastic narrator) inevitably 'jaundice the eye,' nor tobacco in any form, (!) which induces a kind of stupefaction or negligence. The recent celebrated victorious cricketer, a Mr. Grace, it is said, will not take even _tea_; but prefers water. (I hope the water is better than that of Windermere!) Two months ago I was reading from a sporting newspaper about a rowing match on the Thames, and there learnt that if a rower is known to take beer or ale, it lowers the bets in his favour. In fact, no habitual drinker, though he drink _only_ for health and strength (as he thinks), is regarded to have a chance of the highest prize.

"I cannot help thinking that both wine and alcohol and tobacco lower the vital powers, and that men are strong _in spite_ of them, not by reason of them.

"Will you forgive me for suspecting that cigars lessen your appetite (which is less keen surely than it ought to be), as well as inflame your eye?"

Newman goes, in his next letter, to a much more intricate subject: i.e. cuneiform inscriptions.

He had been studying them for two months. Emanuel Deutsch, one of the great authorities on cuneiform inscriptions, gives us the following information as regards them:--

The writing itself resembles a wedge, and it has been proved that it was used by the ancient peoples of Babylonia, Assyria, Armenia, and Persia, as well as by other nations. It was inscribed on stone, iron, bronze, glass, or clay. The stylus which impressed the inscriptions on them was pointed, and had three unequal facets, of which the smallest made the fine wedge of the cuneiform signs. The first cuneiform writing of which we know dates from about 3800 B.C.

It was used first in Mesopotamia, and then in Persia, and the districts north of Nineveh. When it became extinct, for nearly sixteen hundred years, its very existence was absolutely forgotten. It was not until the year 1618 that Garcia de Sylva Figuëroa, ambassador of Philip III of Spain, on seeing them, felt convinced that these inscriptions, in a writing to which no one in the wide world possessed a key, must mean something. Therefore he had a line of them copied. In 1693 they were supposed to be "the ancient writings of the Gaures." Hyde, in 1700, trifled with them, and gave them credit for being nothing more than the architect's fancies. Witte saw in them nothing but the disfigurations of many generations of worms. Others had their own speculations as to their meaning. But Karsten Niebuhr took a big step higher and nearer to their real meaning. He made out that there were three cuneiform alphabets, because of the threefold inscriptions at Persepolis.

In 1802 Grotefend, of Hanover, put before the Academy of Göttingen the first cuneiform alphabet. Then, among other great investigators, followed Rawlinson.

The first of these alphabets is Persian; the second the Median; the third the Babylonian.

Deutsch tells us that, originally, the cuneiform signs were pictures of objects drawn in outline on a vegetable substance, known by the native name of _likhusi_. He thinks it probable that the supply of this was not equal to the demand, for early in the Babylonish history clay was used instead of _likhusi_.

(This letter is undated.)

"My dear Nicholson,

"I cannot remember the longitude or latitude of my hearing from you or writing to you, and do not know whether I have to apologize for neglecting you, so absorbed (it seems) have I been. I cannot even tell whether I told you of my two months' devotion to Cuneiformism, and my study of the Medo- Persian and Scythian inscriptions as _promeletemata_ of an article in the November _Fraser's Magazine_.

"I found the Assyrian useless to dabble in: it is so vast, so fragmentary, so embarrassed by dogmatic hypotheses and assertions, and deterring complications, that one must give oneself _wholly_ to it for any chance of getting to its foundations. But I feel on perfectly solid ground in Medo- Persian or Scythian. Difficulties in them are like difficulties in Greek or Sanscrit: that is all. In the Assyrian, I do not yet know whether to believe at least half of the characters, and many fundamental alleged principles; and I get no satisfaction in what I read....

"The eight millions in the U.S. who are to be educated, stimulate me. I am dying to get into relations with some who will be practically engaged in it.... I was very gloomy about American affairs four or six weeks ago. The President seemed running fast to ruin. But his plans have happily broken down so early and so decidedly, that he is probably himself ashamed of them, and the people have rallied to oppose them. I now trust that all will come right."

"Benner, Dolgelley, "_20th Aug._, 1864.

"My dear Nicholson,

"I dare say you duly received a copy of my Iguvine Inscriptions [Footnote: There is a town in Central Italy, Gubbio, which was anciently known as Iguvium or Eugubium, which possessed many medieval palaces (the Brancaleoni), and well-known Eugubine Tables.] which I directed to be sent to you. For the first time in my life I have published with the secret hope of what some call 'fame,' i.e. with the desire of gaining 'credit,' because such 'credit' is of first importance to aid me in pushing on my schemes in regard to modern Arabic literature in European type.... To put forward an Easy Instructor in modern Arabic and an Anglo-Arabic Dictionary, in European type, _with advantage_, I should greatly wish another journey to Turkey, but as I have no children to leave with my wife, and she would be killed with ennui if I took her, and would more than double the expense, I have not seen how to do it. Besides, I want money to publish my books.... General Grant's position between Petersburg and Richmond is become terribly anxious (my last news was his loss of six thousand men in attacking the fortresses behind the one which he blew up), and unless ultimately successful, the longer he tarries, the more complete will be his disaster.... I have always been despondent as to the Northern scheme for forcing its way through Eastern Virginia; and am not the better reconciled to it by Grant's campaign. There is no sound success for the North now, unless they put the 'coloured' race politically on equal terms with the 'whites,' and not to do so when 'colour' is legally undefinable, and when the only loyal citizens in loyal provinces are 'coloured,' is an alarming infatuation. I suppose they must suffer more and more, until they resolve that the slave owners of Kentucky, and the colour bigots of Illinois and Pennsylvania, shall be forced to yield to patriotic necessities. Perhaps until they put down Slavery and serfdom within their own limits, they are not to be allowed success against the rebels. Mr. Lincoln's gratuitous establishment of serfdom in Louisiana, and recognition of the pardoned rebels, as the only citizens worthy to hold power, has filled me with despair of him. It is now clear from his own avowals, that he will do no more justice to the coloured race than he is _forced_ to do."

In a letter dated 24th November, 1864, he says:--

* * * * *

"I much rejoice that the Americans have made the Presidential election a trial of principles, not of persons. Such a victory as 213 to 21 seems to imply that the old 'democratic' party is henceforth killed, while the Abolitionists, who have voted for Lincoln and Johnson, are left quite free not to attack the Government as severely as they pleased for any shortcomings. I hope you have seen, or will see, the speech of Andrew Johnson at Nashville, proclaiming liberty 'full, broad, and unconditional' to every person in Tennessee. It is in so hearty and outspoken a tone as to double its value. '_Loyal_ men alone, _whether white or black_, shall rule the destiny of Tennessee.' 'All men who are _for equal rights_ are his friends.' Now that he is Vice-President-elect I cannot but hope a great change for the better in Mr. Lincoln's policy towards the free and freed negroes, for Johnson and Lincoln have been in intimate relations from the beginning.... Have you read details about the U.S. Sanitary Commission? It is a magnificent development of high historical importance to the future of wars, carrying out Florence Nightingale's ideas and wishes on to the vastest scale, and adding to it the tending of sick and wounded enemies."

Newman's next communication to his friend alludes to the Permissive Bill, and assures him that there is no fear that it can ever "hinder _legal_ methods of getting liquor (for medicine, for chemistry, for art)." He adds: "The sole question is, whether by an agent of the public authority, who makes no gain by an increased sale (which we think the sound mode), or by a trafficker who gains by pushing the sale."

As regards America: "I now understand that the darkest moment for the North--the repulse of Burnside at Fredericsburgh--was the _only_ thing that at last decided Mr. Lincoln to issue his proclamation of freedom.... He has been born and bred under a slave-owner's interpretation of the Constitution and of the negro-temperament, and ... seems to persist in his publicly avowed preference of _gradual_ abolition. Could he have had his way, I predicted, and would still predict, twenty years of misery, confusion, with probably new war unfavourable to the North. Garrison has done his worst to aid the President, but Sumner and Wendell Phillips have (as I now take courage to believe) checkmated him. He will NEVER get his Louisiana and Arkansas reconstruction approved by Congress, and _colour- legislation_ will be declared to be a violation of 'Republicanism.'... Yet Mr. Lincoln is a better President every half-year, and I fully count will at last give way to truth and necessity with a good grace.

"I have been actively working up my _Handbook_ of Arabic. I also design a _skeleton_ dictionary of Arabic-English. I have got a valuable book from Algiers (if it had but vowel points!). But I cannot publish until I have money to spare. Meanwhile I work hard to mature and perfect."

Late in September, 1864, he is again writing on American turmoils:--

"_Next June_, 1865, the debt of the U.S. will be about 400 million sterling, only half of what England had at the end of the great French War, when her population was not two-thirds nor her means one-fifth of the U.S., who (if once freedom and order is established over the whole Union) will be a focus of immigration three times as attractive as ever, with wealth multiplying twice as rapidly as ever.... I have no anxiety about anything _but the policy which is to prevail in victory_.... It is frightful to me to hear President Lincoln avow that (against the morality of his heart) his official duty is to do nothing for the coloured race except under compulsion and to save the whole Republic from foundering. He knows they are subjects of the Union, and _owe allegiance_ to it, to the point of laying down their lives for it; yet he does not know that those who owe allegiance have an indefeasible right to protection. He is conquering rebellious States, and does not know that the conqueror is thenceforward RESPONSIBLE for the institutions which he permits in those States, and believes it to be his official duty to respect the old institutions however inhuman, however against Republican Constitutionalism, and even when a violation of a treaty with France.... It is too clear that Lincoln will be a great drag upon everything decisive in policy, and especially where decision is most necessary, i.e. in vesting in the coloured race _power to defend their own rights_. When the war ends, it will be very difficult to hinder the Northern enthusiasm from collapsing and foolish statesmen from doing necessary work by halves."

In May, 1865, Newman writes these strong words: "President Lincoln was dead against the confiscation of estates, and bent upon restoring a powerful landed aristocracy, with a wretched dependent peasantry free in name only.... A far sterner nature than his was wanted, which understands that Justice to the oppressed must go before Mercy to the guilty; and I believe they have got the right man in Andrew Johnson."

In February of the year 1866, a great trouble and anxiety fell upon Newman while he and his wife were staying at Hastings. For nine or ten days she seemed to be dying. "We got her through the acute crisis.... I resigned her a full month ago, and have since not dared to hope that she can do anything but linger. Nevertheless her life is less distressing and more worth having than it was. She moves from her bed into an arm-chair; sits at table for dinner.... She talks cheerfully, and can enjoy seeing her sisters. When I look at her I fancy she is pretty well;... yet I feel that she might be carried off very suddenly. Indeed, this was her mother's case, who had the very same combination of disease, and retained much muscular strength to the last. We had two physicians at Hastings, and here she is under Dr. Garth Wilkinson. I have no complaint against any of the physicians: they seem to me all to have done all they could; but nothing that anyone has done has been of any use. It was by nursing, not by medicine, that she was saved through critical days and nights. The physician said she could not live forty-eight hours, and so we believed: and at her request I sent him away.... I have written so many letters that I forget to whom I have written: and it was indeed a tumultuous existence at Hastings. I have now a good night nurse and cannot say that I want anything; but a great shadow overspreads me."

The Doctor had evidently miscalculated Mrs. Newman's strength and recuperative power, however, for in June of the same year:--

"I am happy to say that she" (Mrs. Newman) "now looks very like herself, though feebler and liable (I fear) to relapse. But she is not only in comparative health, but gives a hope of acquiring more soundness in the next three months. I give up this house" (10 Circus Road, N.W.) "in a very few days, and have taken a house in Clifton--1 Dover Place--but it will not be ready for us until 1st August."

Nearly three months later, he writes:--

"I am at last in my new home, which is very pretty, very pleasant, with delightful prospect, and _perhaps_ may suit me well; but I have sad trouble with a drunken house owner, who kept me twenty-three days out later than his contract,... and has given me roof and pipes either out of repair or insufficient, rat holes very troublesome,... cisterns and taps all in unsatisfactory state. Last night, for the third time in ten days, I have been inundated through two floors." But he adds more hopefully than the case seems to warrant," If I can get these matters right my house is very promising. ... After a few weeks here my wife's strength has increased notably, by no other doctor than a donkey chaise, and she now seems just what she was last summer....

"I have had a letter from Pulszky (to whom I had not written on this subject) telling me he is convinced that Bismarck put on a mask of fanatical reactionarism in order to win the confidence of the _King of Prussia!_ ... It seemed to me certain, that when new States had to be incorporated with Prussia, despotic reaction would be _impossible_, much more if a German Parliament were summoned. And now the King himself proposes Universal Suffrage for all men above twenty-five and of unblemished character! This seems to make any English Reform Bill impossible, which is not far more democratic than any practical statesman here has yet imagined. Nevertheless, I am increasingly gloomy as to the near future of the English Empire. The Radicals seem perfectly blind as to its centres of danger, and the amount of foreign sympathy which insurrection in India or Ireland will now have. Andrew Johnson seems destined to involve the U.S. in new civil war. I grieve deeply for it."

The next letter shows Newman settled in at "1 Dover Place, Clifton." His Anglo-Arabic dictionary is finished, though revisions are to be added later. At the end of the letter he gives the names of those who, he hopes, may some day form a Ministry under Gladstone.

"_12th March_, 1867.

"My dear Nicholson,

"Our correspondence is so slack that I cannot tell what or on what I last wrote, nor where to lay hands on your last.... We have had severe weather all this month, and the snow continues all day since last night; but I am happy to say my dear wife is not the worse.... I remember vividly the spring of 1836, the first year of our marriage: the season from December to May was the severest that I take note of since the great historical winter of 1813 (1812?). This begins to remind me of 1836.... I had hoped that continued work at Arabic would explain to me certain fixed difficulties in the documents which I have studied; but a number of them, even where the printed text is quite clear, remain unsolved. I venture to trouble you with the only words which embarrass me in a rather long and complete narrative of the burial of Abd el Mejied and the ceremonial of installing his brother as his successor. If you can translate the line or half-line I shall be benefited.

"I finished my Anglo-Arabic dictionary three or four weeks ago, but I hope to enrich and revise it. Perhaps the course of public events surprises you as much as me. As the Whigs cannot afford to be outrun by the Tories, it appeared to me at first that I had been wrong in expecting a tough and lingering struggle. Yet it seems to me, in revising details, morally impossible for either Tories or a _Russell_ Ministry to do enough to stop and satisfy the outdoors Reform movement. If _Russell_ would retire, or were forced to retire, and Gladstone had courage and resolution to make a Radical Ministry, including Bright and Mill, Stansfeld, Forster, Milnes, Gibson, etc. (to which the Duke of Argyle would adhere), and were to dissolve Parliament if necessary--even so it would be hard to pass through the Lords a measure adequate to stop the clamour for more, and active agitation. I begin to relapse into my belief that there _must_ be long conflict. Nothing seems to me worth a national Convulsion which does not give us new principles and new persons in the Executive Government. I incline to believe that we shall live to see Radicalism (of a grade far beyond what is popularly so named) in high office and carrying out its principles with energy."

It will be remembered that Lord John Russell had long tried to reform Parliament. In 1866 he had brought a bill for the purpose before the House of Commons. It was rejected, and with it the Ministry went out. Then, when Lord Derby became Prime Minister, with Disraeli as leader of the House, he found he could do nothing but introduce in 1867 a Reform Bill of a far more marked and definite character than the one which had "gone under" during the last year. This bill, however, passed in August, 1867, showing how the country in the meantime had become more and more ready for such a measure. Its conditions were that borough franchise was given to all rate- payers, and lodgers who used rooms of the annual value of ten pounds. But perhaps a great deal of the driving power came from the large numbers of the working-classes which were now added to the constituencies. In 1868 Disraeli, who had now become Prime Minister, retired when he found that the Liberal majority reached to over a hundred through the new elections. Then came the man of the hour, whom Newman had longed to see in that place--Gladstone, who took the office vacated by Disraeli. At once it was seen how far stronger was this new Ministry than the last, or, indeed, one might perhaps say than many "lasts." One of its first measures was the always-to-be-regretted one of the disendowment of the Irish Church. Disestablishment, which of course preceded disendowment, was in many respects a gain. The Land Bill followed in 1870, and the next year abolition of religious tests for admission to degrees and offices in the Universities.

"_15th April_, 1867.

"My dear Nicholson,

"I would not have you take any particular trouble about it, but if in your Turkish Dictionary you find (this) to mean _tax_, at your entire leisure (no hurry at all) I should be glad to learn how to pronounce the word.

"I received on Saturday from Washington a newspaper which contains very interesting news from North Carolina and Alabama. N. C. comes out 'square' for the Republican party, and Alabama avows Republican sentiments. Both accept negro suffrage and absolute equality of the races. _Coloured orators are prominent and acceptable_.

"I also have a very interesting letter from a coloured gentleman from New Orleans, saying that the last acts of Congress have quite quelled the reign of terror, and brought out the White Unionists, who did not dare to speak before; and they are much more numerous than he had believed. Although Congress has been pusillanimous in the extreme, and always deficient, both as to time and substance, and although the danger of reaction is not past, still everything is turning for the better since the last act of the thirty-ninth Congress and first of the fortieth, and I think we may now hope that the Unionists of the South, white and black, will be able to fight their own battles. In England I do not think _our_ agitation can be appeased by the Reform Bill of this Parliament....

"Ever yours cordially,

"F. W. Newman."

The following letter concerns Vaccination almost entirely. Newman's views with respect to vaccination were very clearly set forth in Vol. III of his _Miscellanies_. They come under the heading of an article called "Barbarisms of Civilisation." [Footnote: Published in the _Contemporary Review_ of June, 1879.] Newman owns to having no medical knowledge of the risks or non-risks of vaccination, but from what he considers to be the rational point of view he objects to it most strongly. He protests that Government Vaccinators have "for many years obtained a large part of what they called _lymph_ ... (_pus_, or matter, is the only right word) by inoculating calves or bullocks with small-pox. The result in the animals they are pleased to call _cow-pox_, and when the poisonous matter is transferred back to human infants they assume that it will not produce small-pox! But while the doctrine is orthodox in London, the Local Government in Dublin allows no such dealing."

He adds: "Unless the _causes_ of small-pox be removed (generally some impurity in the air or in the food), those causes will work mischief somehow. throw an eruptive disease back into the system is proverbially dangerous.... Moreover, what right has any physician to neglect the cures of small-pox, by which herbalists, hydropaths, and Turkish-bath keepers find it a most tractable disease?"

In a letter called "Compulsory Vaccination," published in 1884, he says: "To obviate it" (small-pox) "by extirpating its causes is good sense; to infuse a new disease without caring to extirpate the causes of the existing disease is a want of common sense." In the letter following, the "Harry" (Dr. Henry) is the boy who boarded with the Newmans, and left snail-shells stuck on a board when he left! He was well known in the world of science as Professor H. Alleyne Nicholson, of Aberdeen.

There is no date or address on this letter.

"My dear Nicholson,

"I have been pressed to make some reply to Dr. Henry's Vaccination pamphlet; but excused myself on the ground that it was not pleasant to me to be in public opposition to him, for he was son of an intimate friend of mine;... I have no special knowledge. I look on it from outside the medical art....

"Now in the contents of the pamphlet I read: 'Small-pox--never produced at present _de novo_.'...

"I make sure that it never _could_ have spread, unless the conditions had in all the other places been highly congenial.... Predisposing causes cannot long accumulate and fester, without curdling into vital action. The _provisional assumption_ with me concerning smallpox, is, that wherever its predisposing causes exist, there the disease will not long be absent. In new foci it may meet new influences which modify its aspect, so that medical men do not recognize it; but that signifies not....

"Now, what is Dr. Henry's proof?...

"Is there so much as one disease, the origin of which has been recorded scientifically? What he calls 'the primitive origin' of small-pox has not been recorded to us scientifically: yet he does not on that account doubt that it did once arise 'spontaneously.' I judge just in the same way, when it breaks out now in an English country village. What does the 'scientific record' mean? We cannot have a medical man in every room of every house at every moment examining what is under the shirt and shift, with microscope in hand, to see the disease come of _itself_,... Dr. Henry goes on to say, 'and it APPEARS to have spread solely by infection or contagion.' It _appears!_ This is so modest, that the reader fancies he may grant it. But the next words are: 'TWO CONCLUSIONS FOLLOW from this,' etc. etc. In short, he has forgotten that it is only 'it appears,' and fancies that it was c indisputably certain and manifest.' ... After all; if unhealthy conditions are among the prerequisites of small-pox, we have only to remove the unhealthy conditions, and shall not need vaccination (if it were ever so safe): and if you do not remove unhealthy conditions, you are sure of other diseases quite as bad however you may modify the name."

_Letters from_ 1872 to 1882 (_to Dr Nicholson_).

The first letter of this series is dated 26th December, 1872, from Weston- super-Mare, and is concerned chiefly with his wife's terrible fall, and also with the movement of the peasants under the initiative of Joseph Arch.

The name of Joseph Arch is too well known to need more than a few words in explanation of the reason why he came to help forward this movement as he