Newman and His Contemporaries

by Edward Short

  The Young Newman (Courtesy of Birmingham Oratory)

  NEWMAN AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES

  EDWARD SHORT

  Published by T&T Clark International

  A Continuum Imprint

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  © Edward Short, 2011

  Edward Short has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the Author of this work.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

  Many illustrations are in the public domain because their copyright has expired. This applies to the United States, Australia, the European Union and those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 70 years.

  British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN13: 978-0-567-65410-6

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

  Typeset by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NN

  For My Mother

  Table of Contents

  Preface

  Introduction

  Chapter 1 John Keble and the Crisis of Tractarianism

  Chapter 2 Staying Put: John Keble After 1845

  Chapter 3 The Anglican Difficulties of Edward Pusey

  Chapter 4 The Certainty of Vocation: Newman and the Froudes

  Chapter 5 A Better Country: Newman’s Idea of Public Life

  Chapter 6 Newman and the Female Faithful

  Chapter 7 Newman and Gladstone

  Chapter 8 Newman, Thackeray and Vanity Fair

  Chapter 9 Newman and the Americans

  Chapter 10 On the Track of Truth: Newman and Richard Holt Hutton

  Chapter 11 Culture and Hollowness: Newman and Matthew Arnold

  Chapter 12 Newman and Arthur Hugh Clough

  Chapter 13 Newman on Newman

  Bibliographical Note

  Select Biographical Index

  Notes

  “I have the responsibility of souls on me to the day of death …”

  John Henry Newman (14 June 1825)

  “… It is my happiness in a matter of Christian duty … to be guided simply by the decision and recommendation of the Holy See, the judge and finisher of all controversies … My sole aspiration—and I cannot have a higher under the heavens—is to be the servant of the Vicar of Christ… . I have one resting point, just one, one plea which serves me in the stead of all direct argument whatever, which hardens me against censure, which encourages me against fear, and to which I shall ever come round, when I hear the question of the practicable and the expedient brought into discussion. After all, Peter has spoken … Peter for eighteen hundred years has lived in the world … If there ever was a power on earth who had an eye for the times, who has confined himself to the practicable, and has been happy in his anticipations … such is the history of ages who sits on from generation to generation in the Chair of the Apostles as the Vicar of Christ and Doctor of his Church.”

  John Henry Newman, Discourses on the Scope and Nature of University Education (1852)

  “… apparent opposites were in [Newman] blended. Thus, while his intellect was preeminently a logical one, and while it seemed to him impossible or immoral to discard the authority of logic, when plainly exercised within her legitimate domain, yet no one felt more deeply that both the heart and the moral sense possess their own secret tribunals in matters of reasoning as well as of sentiment… . The logical faculty was in his case most fortunately supplemented by an expansive imagination, which grasped thoughts immeasurably beyond the range of the mere logician… . Another most remarkable union in Newman of qualities commonly opposed to each other, was that of dauntless courage with profound thoughtfulness. The men of thought and study are often timid men … indolent and averse to action … In Newman there existed the rare union of the contemplative mind and the heroic soul.”

  Aubrey de Vere, Recollections of Aubrey de Vere (1897)

  “I wonder, when the great day comes when all hearts are open, how many souls will have been moulded and saved through your words?”

  Lady Herbert to John Henry Newman (30 June 1874)

  Preface

  In The Roundabout Papers, Thackeray’s exuberant farewell to the periodical essay that he had done so much to enliven, he recalled how:

  Alexandre Dumas describes himself, when inventing the plan of a work, as lying silent on his back for two whole days on the deck of a yacht in a Mediterranean port. At the end of the two days he arose and called for dinner. In those two days he had built his plot. He had moulded a mighty clay, to be cast presently in perennial brass. The chapters, the characters, the incidents, the combinations were all arranged in the artist’s brain ere he had set a pen to paper.1

  Enviable Dumas! If I ever had such a thorough outline in mind it somehow went missing when I put pen to paper. Still, I have tried to be faithful to what prompted my undertaking this project in the first place, and that was to show Newman in relation to his contemporaries in order to show how much his personal influence meant to them, even to such contemporaries as Gladstone, Thackeray and Matthew Arnold, who had no intention of adopting his faith. Too many remain unfamiliar with Newman and I thought, in my missionary way, that if I could show how much he fascinated his own contemporaries, more of my contemporaries might be moved to see for themselves what a good and holy man he was, a man whose “gaiety of heart,” as John Hungerford Pollen once wrote, “shed cheerfulness as a sunbeam sheds light.”2

  The criteria I followed in choosing my contemporaries were straightforward: I wanted contemporaries who were interested in Newman but also of interest in themselves. Of course, I left out hundreds who might have been covered in any book entitled Newman and His Contemporaries, but I had to keep within a reasonable word count and I could scarcely write about all of the contemporaries Newman influenced or by whom he was influenced. To write that book I would have needed several lifetimes. So I chose a limited number of well-known and not so well-known contemporaries, all of whom illustrate the vitality of Newman’s influence.

  Many assisted me with the genesis, research, writing and revising of this book. My father, John Francis Short, introduced me to the works of Cardinal Newman when I was a boy and always spoke of the gift of the Catholic Faith—what Newman called “the pearl of great price” —with useful lucidity. Father Ian Ker, the author of the definitive life and several other good books on Newman, generously read many of the chapters in draft and made comments that were as unsparing as they were helpful, though I cannot be sure that I have managed to amend all that he found amiss. Father Dermot Fenlon also read drafts of certain chapters and made many trenchant comments. Brother Lewis Berry carefully scanned the splendid photograph of Newman by the great photographer Herbert Rose Barraud (1845–1896) that adorns my cover. Henry Carrigan, Jr., now Senior Editor of Northwestern University Press, first contracted with me to write this book when he was North American Publisher at Continuum; I trust what I have done amuses him, if only from afar. Cynthia Read of Oxford University Press was full of support and good counsel. Brother Francis J. McGrath, FMS, the most recent editor of Newman’s Letters and Diaries, as well as his uncollected sermons, gave me vital and generous assistance. Father George Rutler, Pastor of Church
of Our Saviour in New York City, explained to me why Baron von Hügel always found Newman melancholy. Dr. Michael Alexander, the former head of the English Department at St. Andrews, read my chapter on Gladstone and made helpful suggestions. Paul Shrimpton of Magdalen College School, Oxford, gave me the benefit of his insights into book writing. Dr. Colin Barr, Professor of History at Ave Maria University, gave me advice that was at once scholarly and astute. Dr. Tracey Rowland, the author of two brilliant books on Pope Benedict XVI, dissuaded me from changing my name and joining the French Foreign Legion. D. J. Taylor, the biographer of Orwell, Thackeray and the Bright Young Things, advised me on Thackeray and the Garrick Club Affair. Dr. Craig Raine, Fellow of New College, Oxford, gave me kind words of support over that wonderful cider his College serves in their elegant silver drinking cups. Seth Lipsky, Editor-in-Chief of the irreplaceable New York Sun gave much good-hearted support. My dear friends, Jack and Nuala Scarisbrick, listened charitably to my hopes and fears with regard to this long-gestating book and gave reassuring counsel. Dr. Timothy Larsen of Wheaton College generously shared with me his lively views on Pusey’s scholarly interest in the Bible, as well as an excellent essay on Huxley. Donal Fenlon, Librarian of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland gave me kind assistance. Christina Deane of the University of Virginia Library kindly scanned the Vanity Fair prints of Matthew Arnold, Henry Edward Manning and Pius IX included among my illustrations. The New York Public Library offered me efficient assistance with my research into the work of Richard Holt Hutton. Eileen Gunn, Chief Executive of the Royal Literary Fund in Johnson’s Court, gave me kind and effective assistance with the application that Emily Bowles made to the Fund in her impecunious old age. Dr. Arnold Hunt, Curator of Historical Manuscripts at The British Library, generously supplied me with a copy of Miss Bowles’s case file. The Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne gave me the grace of their prayers, as well as stalwart support. Father Aquinas Guilbeau, O.P. gave me the grace of his good company and prayers. Sister Helena Mayer, SHCJ, Archivist of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus, gave me indispensable help, as did Sister Elizabeth Mary Strub, SHCJ, who shared with me her work on Emily Bowles. Kim Levicki at Pro-Quest gave me free access to their Spectator archive, which was crucial for my chapter on Richard Holt Hutton. Philip Terzian, Literary Editor of The Weekly Standard, gave me generous and kind support, as did John Wilson of Books & Culture and Maria McFadden and Anne Conlon of the Human Life Review. James MacGuire of the Portsmouth Institute set me thinking about Newman and the Americans. Robert Crotty and the Guild of Catholic Lawyers showed friendly interest in my lucubrations, as did Frank Nugent of Hatchards. I should also like to express special thanks to Toby Short for his prayers and good wishes. Julieta Schiffino, who shares a birthday with Shakespeare cheered me on when I needed cheering. Stella and Heinz Becker kept me always in their prayers and good wishes, as did Cecilia Hernandez. I am also grateful to Barbara Weston for her generous support. Kim Storry of Fakenham Prepress Solutions in faraway Norfolk gave me admirably serene, efficient assistance. I am also grateful to her colleague David Defew, who kept the whole boiling on schedule. Tom Kraft, Anna Turton, Katie Gallof and Nicole Elliott at Continuum were also wonderfully helpful. Louise Dugdale did a brilliant job designing the book’s cover. Nick Fawcett gave me the benefit of his excellent copy-editing skills. And Susan Tricklebank helped map out the index.

  Lastly, I am grateful to my darling wife Karina, who came to share my love for the wonderful saint who inspired this book. Without her love and faith, her forbearance and encouragement, I should never have been able to begin or finish it. Despite this bountiful help, all errors in what follows, all solecisms and all stupidities, are mine and mine alone.

  Edward Short

  Astoria-Woodside-Astoria

  2004–2010

  Introduction

  The literary critic and biographer Mona Wilson once began an introduction to a selection of Samuel Johnson’s prose and poetry with a memorable disclaimer. “I shall say nothing of Johnson’s life. No one should read even a selection from his writings who is not already familiar with the man. Boswell must come first. This is not to say that he is greater than his writings, or that they are only interesting because he wrote them, but they are the utterances of the whole man: no one else could have written them.”1 This is true of Newman as well. Before reading him, we need to know something of the man himself because his work is the unique expression of a figure of unusual integrity.

  John Henry Newman was born on 21 February 1801 at 80 Old Bond Street in the City of London. A plaque hangs at the Visitor’s Entrance to the London Stock Exchange marking the spot where his birthplace stood. A month and a half after his birth, Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson won the battle of Copenhagen, the hardest fought of all his victories. Later, in 1805, Newman vividly recalled candles burning to celebrate Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar. Newman’s mother was of French Huguenot stock and his father was a banker in the City. He had two brothers and three sisters. As I show in a forthcoming book, Newman and His Family, it was by addressing his siblings’ respective religious difficulties that Newman learned to address those of his contemporaries. In 1808 he attended Ealing School, where he was greatly influenced by the classical master, Walter Mayers (1790–1828), a moderate Evangelical who introduced him to the works of the great biblical commentator Thomas Scott (1747–1821), the deeply practical character of whose writings Newman would emulate in his own writings. Mayers also impressed on Newman one basal aspect of Christianity, and that was the primacy of dogma. “When I was fifteen (in the autumn of 1816),” Newman wrote in the Apologia, “a great change of thought took place in me. I fell under the influence of a definite Creed, and received into my intellect impressions of dogma, which, through God’s mercy, have never been effaced or obscured. Above and beyond the conversations and sermons of the excellent man, the Rev. Walter Mayers, of Pembroke College, Oxford, who was the human means of this beginning of divine faith in me, was the effect of the books which he put into my hands, all of the school of Calvin.”2 In 1817, Newman entered Trinity College, where one of his tutors was the legendary Thomas Short (1789–1879), who lectured in Aristotle’s Rhetoric. After he passed the age at which Aristotle says that man’s powers are at their best, Short amused generations of undergraduates by observing, when he came to the relevant passage, “In those hot climes, you know, people came to their acme much sooner than with us.”3 Despite Newman’s poor showing in his final examination, Short was convinced that he could redeem himself and later recommended that he sit for the Oriel fellowship, to which he was duly elected in 1822. In 1825, Newman was ordained a priest. In 1828, he became Vicar of St. Mary’s, Oxford where he gave the sermons that would stay with those who heard them for the rest of their lives. The discriminating Scot, J. C. Shairp, later the Oxford Professor of Poetry, who would become a good, if critical friend of Clough, left behind a vivid recollection of the sermons.

  Sunday after Sunday, month by month, year by year, they went on, each continuing and deepening the impression the last had made. As the afternoon service at St. Mary’s interfered with the dinner-hour of the colleges, most men preferred a warm dinner without Newman’s sermon to a cold one with it, so the audience was not crowded—the large church little more than half-filled … . About the service, the most remarkable thing was the beauty … of Mr. Newman’s voice, as he read the Lessons. It seemed to bring new meaning out of the familiar words … . Here was no vehemence, no declamation, no show of elaborated argument … .4

  This shunning of all declamatory effect was in keeping with Newman’s humility. Although a brilliant man, he was never a pompous man. Nor was he intent on showing how clever he was. Some have suggested that he was egotistical, but the interest he took in himself was free of vainglory. Before converting, he wrote to his beloved Aunt Elizabeth, after visiting his grandmother’s house in Fulham, where he had spent so many happy days as a child, “Alas my dear Aunt, I am but a sorry bargain, and perhaps if you knew
all about me, you would hardly think me now worth claiming …” By the same token, he was quick to point out, “Whatever good there is in me, I owe, under grace, to the time I spent in that house, and to you and my dear Grandmother, its inhabitants.”5 If Newman was an egotist, he was a peculiarly self-effacing one, knowing as he did that “where the thought of self obscures the thought of God, prayer and praise languish …”6

  As I show in my final chapter, Newman was intent on preserving as full a record of his life as possible to confute those who might try to misrepresent it. Then, again, the historian in him could not fail to see that there was a useful tale in his own persistent resolve to live the devout life, especially for the English people, who had all but lost the sense of what sanctity means. In this respect, it is amusing to read the testimonials of Oratorians in Newman’s Positio, for nearly all of them remark the discomfiture that even the mention of sanctity caused parishioners and Oratorians alike.7 The interest Newman took in his thoughts and feelings, his fortunes and misfortunes, was not egotistical but documentary. He might have been hesitant to draw parallels between his own life and the lives of the saints but they were unavoidable. In a memorandum regarding his Lives of the English Saints, he shed light on what he saw as the uses of documented sanctity. “The saints are the glad and complete specimen of the new creation which our Lord brought into the moral world, and as the ‘the heavens declare the glory of God’ as Creator, so are the Saints proper and true evidence of the God of Christianity, and tell out into all lands the power and grace of Him who made them.” Moreover, Newman saw how documented sanctity could change hearts. “The exhibition of a person, his thoughts, his words, his acts, his trials, his features, his beginnings, his growth, his end, have a charm to every one; and where he is a Saint they have a divine influence and persuasion, a power of exercising and eliciting the latent elements of divine grace in individual readers, as no other reading can have.” Indeed, Newman was convinced that “the Lives of the Saints are one of the main and special instruments, to which, under God, we may look for the conversion of our countrymen at this time.”8 That Newman did not consider himself a saint was emblematic of his humility; in one prayer he cries out, “O my God! what am I but a parcel of dead bones, a feeble, tottering, miserable being, compared with Thee!” Nonetheless, the sanctity he documented in his own long life speaks for itself.9