  Anna Swanwick was one of the most remarkable women of her age—one of the most intellectual, one of the most thoughtful as regards the social educational movements of her time, which was the early part of the last century. Yet there is a passage in a lecture delivered by her at Bedford College which reveals only too clearly the straitened and limited means at the disposal of girls in those days who wished to climb the stairs of that Higher Education so easy to men, but then so very difficult of access for women. She says:— "In my young days, though I attended what was considered the best girls' school in Liverpool, the education there given was so meagre that I felt like the Peri excluded from Paradise, and I often longed to assume the costume of a boy in order to learn Latin, Greek, and mathematics, which were then regarded as essential to a liberal education for boys, but were not thought of for girls. To give some idea of the educational meagreness alluded to above, I may mention the fact that during my schooldays I never remember to have seen a map, while all my knowledge of geography was derived from passages learnt by rote." I quote this from one of the most delightful memoirs I have come across for a long time: Anna Swanwick; a Memoir and Recollections, by Miss Mary Brace. [Footnote: Published by Fisher Unwin.] But no "educational meagreness" can keep the feet of some climbers off the educational ladder. It may be with slow, "sad steps" they "climb the sky" of the higher education. Nevertheless the effort is doggedly made. For in all great men, as in all great women, there is something-call it genius, call it what you like—which forces its way through, be the impediments what they may. Anna Swanwick, to whom the following letters were written at various intervals, was well known for her philanthropic and educational work among the poorer classes, and also for her earnest endeavours for the larger development of women's work and education. A large part of her own education in Greek and Hebrew was carried forward at Berlin. In 1830 Bedford College was opened. Miss Bruce tells us that Francis Newman and Augustus de Morgan, Dr. Carpenter, and other famous lecturers were among the first to lecture there. I imagine it was here that the friendship of forty years between Anna Swanwick and Francis Newman began. The former was specially impressed with Newman's method of teaching mathematics. I quote her words from Miss Bruce's Memoir:— "I remember being particularly impressed by F. W. Newman's teaching of mathematics, including geometry and algebra; he saw at a glance if one of his pupils in algebra was not able to follow his calculations, which were often very elaborate; on such occasions, instead of endeavouring to explain the difficulty to a single pupil, thus keeping the entire class waiting, he would interest them all by placing the subject in an entirely new light, which was possible only to one who had a complete mastery of his subject—one who, looking down from a mental height, could see the various paths by which the higher eminence could be reached." I cannot but mention here the supreme service Anna Swanwick was able to render Newman at the end of his life. It was in the last letter which he wrote to her, when he was ninety-two, that these words occur. After stating that he wished "once again definitely to take the name of Christian," he adds: "I close by my now sufficient definition of a Christian, c one who in heart and steadily is a disciple of Jesus in upholding the prayer called the Lord's Prayer as the highest and purest in any known national religion.' I think J. M. will approve this. [Footnote: James Martineau.] … My new idea is perhaps with you very old…. Asked what is a Christian, I reply, one who earnestly uses in word and substance the traditional Prayer of Jesus, older than any Gospel—this supplants all creeds." This letter was written shortly before his death. Since I have been writing this memoir I had a letter from Mr. William "Not more than three or four years before Dr. Martineau's death I was sitting in an omnibus at Oxford Circus, when Dr. Martineau, accompanied by his daughter, got in, and took seats by my side. After I had expressed my pleasure at seeing them, he said, c I think you ought to know that the other day I had a letter from Frank Newman, saying that when he died he wished it to be known, that he died in the Christian Faith.'" To my mind no memoir would be complete with that knowledge left out— The first letter in the collection before me concerns one of Newman's brothers. Perhaps most of us can count a "Charles Robert" in our environment. Someone whose "worm i' the bud" of their character has so completely spoilt its early flower on account of the "one ruinous vice" of "censoriousness," of perpetual nagging, and fault-finding developed to such a pitch that it has eaten out at last the fair heart of human forbearance and kindness which is the birthright of everyone. Such a person makes the true, free development of others in his proximity a harder task than God intended it to be, for this reason: that the best character cannot do itself justice if it is aware that all its sayings and doings are capped promptly by wrong constructions placed there by "the chiel amang" them "takin'" unfavourable "notes." Such a one was Charles Robert Newman. At the date at which this letter was written his own family had found him so "impossible" that for thirty or forty years no intercourse had taken place between them. To Miss Anna Swanwick from Frank Newman. "45 Bedford Gardens, W. "Tuesday, 4th July, 1871. "My dear Anna, "… I look forward with hope that after my whole life has been a constant preparation for doing—as yet very little—for the good of those who have had fewer advantages than myself, I may perhaps be able in my very ripe years to contribute something more; especially by aid of the noble women who from all quarters spring up to the succour of their own sex and of the public welfare: I trust I shall not permit any literary tastes or fancies to withdraw my energies from this and similar causes…. But every one of us who is to do anything worthy must forget self, and, above all, must not cast self-complacent glances on what he is, or does, or has done; and, in truth, I have so deep a dissatisfaction with what I am and have been, that my poor consolation is to think how much worse I might have been…. I must add you evidently do not know that I have two brothers. The eldest, Dr. J. H. N.; the second, Charles Robert N., three years older than myself, of whom we do not speak, because he is as unfit for society as if insane. He is a Cynic Philosopher in modern dress, having many virtues, but one ruinous vice, that of perpetual censoriousness, by which he alienates every friend as soon as made, or in the making, by which he ejected himself from all posts of usefulness. … He has lived now more than thirty years in retirement and idleness. His moral ruin was from Robert Owen's Socialism and Atheistic Philosophy; but he presently began his rebukes on Robert Owen himself. His sole pleasure in company seems to be in noting down material for ingenious, impertinent, and insolent fault- finding; hence no one can safely admit him. He formally renounced his mother, brothers, and sisters about forty years ago, and wrote to other persons requesting them not to count him a Newman … because we were religious and he was an Atheist. He had all the same dear sweet influences of home as all of us; yet how unamiable and useless has he become! still loving to snarl most at the hands that feed him. Is not this an admonition not to attribute too much to the single cause of home Influences, however precious? I shall be happy to attend to your Aeschylus. Lovingly yours, "F. W. Newman." "Weston-super-Mare, "30th July, 1880. "My dear Anna, "… I am made very melancholy these two days by the news from Afghanistan, not that anything comes to me as new: I have dreaded it all along, ever since I discerned that the Gladstone ministry would not_ act on the moral principles which Mr. Grant Duff definitely professed, which, indeed, Mr. Gladstone so emphatically avowed in his book on Church and State, and in every grave utterance. Ever since Sir Stafford Northcote so boldly taunted the (then) Opposition, in the words: 'You call our policy crime; but will you dare to pledge yourselves to reverse it if you come into power? No, you will not dare.' And none of the Opposition said frankly, 'We will reverse it'; it was clear to me that they had not the moral courage. Accordingly I warned friends who asked my judgment, that it is in the Russo-Turkish affairs the Liberals (so called) would reverse the policy, but in Afghanistan and S. Africa they would act precisely as Lord Beaconsfield would act; would accept the positions which they had condemned; would appear to the natives as continuing the same course of wicked aggression; would do justice only so far as compelled, and no sooner; which is exactly what Lord Beaconsfield was sure to do…. We now see that a new war opens upon us both in Afghanistan and, it is to be feared, from the Basutos with the Liberal party in power, and their great leader to bear the main responsibility!! It is a frightful outlook…. We had only to say frankly to the Afghan chiefs: 'We always opposed the war as unjust: we bitterly lament it: we cannot restore the dead or heal the crippled, but we will repay you whatever sum of money a Russian arbitrator may award to you against us. (!) We will withdraw from your country in peace as fast as we can, and leave you masters in your own land.'" It will be remembered that so far back as 1838, Sir James Outram [Footnote: Named by his great friend, George Giberne (later on Judge in the Bombay Presidency), the "Bayard of India."] did great services in the first Afghan War. It was thought by many that had he remained in the Ghilzee country many of our disasters might not have occurred. But Lord Ellenborough—one of the many mistakes placed by our Government in authority in India during a critical time—never recognized in any way his services. "It is certain they would have seen this to be sincere, and would have been delighted to get rid of us without more bloodshed…. It is pretended that it would be cruel to leave Afghanistan without first securing to it a stable government, when obviously we are without moral power there to add stability. Our presence makes enmity among them…. Alas! once more I find Mr. Gladstone fail of daring to act according to his own moral principles. He ought not to have accepted office…. It makes me very sad for what must come upon England, and perhaps on all English settlers in S. Africa, to say nothing of India and Anglo-Indians. "I am, yours ever affectionately, "F. W. N."The next letter is dated 31st Dec., 1880, and treats mostly of agriculture in the fens, in connection with a writer on the subject in some current paper. "He" (the writer) "says that if a general move were made in the fens to stamp out the weeds (which would require an immense expenditure of money in wages), 'very different results would be obtained from what we now see.' No doubt they would. But what then? The landlord would raise the rent, and the farmers would have spent their capital without remuneration. Nothing but a security against the rise of rent can encourage the farmers to make sacrifices. He justly says … that fruit might be more profitable. But if a farmer plant a fruit tree, it becomes his landlord's property at once, though it may need thirteen or thirty years to come to its fullest value…. The writer treats a lowering of rent as out of the question. Yet from 1847 up to about 1876 it was constantly rising. Now, forsooth! to go back is impossible!!! And why, because recent buyers have bought at so high a price that they only get three per cent. They are to be protected from losing, and that, though many have bought at a fancy price to indulge other tastes than properly agricultural. Mr. Pennington [Footnote: An old friend of Newman's.] told me he had farms under his own management and despaired of not losing by them, unless he could drive down the need of paying wages. This is what the farmers find. Up to 1875 rents kept rising, and wages rose too, yet prices rising, the peasants were not much better off. In 1873 the peasants claimed more still, and the farmers could not give it. They are ground between two millstones—higher rents and higher wages. This seems to me a fundamental refutation of the peculiarly English system. Fixity of rent is the first necessity. The landlord must not pocket the fruit of the tenants' labour." The following letter has to do almost entirely with politics, and with It will be remembered that from 1880, when Gladstone came into office, until 1885, when his Prime Ministership ended, wars were the order of the day constantly—wars in the Transvaal; war in Afghanistan; war in Egypt, and General Gordon left to die in Khartoum. Besides all these, that which came upon us constantly, the care of countries nearer at hand over which we tried experiments. "Weston-super-Mare. "My dear Anna, "Many thanks for your kind interest in the approval of my writings. "I have come to a pause in another matter. My Libyan dictionary is as complete as I can make it…. What next? I ask myself; for to be idle is soon to be miserable. I do not quite say with Clough, 'Qui laborat, orat' No! An eminent vivisector may be immensely laborious. We must choose our labour well, for then it may help us to pray better. But Coleridge is surely nearer the truth: 'He prayeth well who loveth well.' I put it, Qui inferiora recte diligit, Superiorem bene venerabitur. "But I turn to your question, What do I think of the Coercion Bill? It is hard to say little, and painful to speak plainly. I immensely admire very much in Mr. Gladstone; so do you: of possible leaders he is the best—at present! and it is a bitter disappointment to find him a reed that pierces the hand when one leans on it. I fear you will not like me to say, what I say with pain, that only in European affairs do I find him commendable. In regard to our unjust wars he has simply betrayed and deluded the electors who enthusiastically aided him to power…. He has gone wholly wrong towards Ireland, equally as towards Afghanistan, India, and South Africa…. He knows as well as John Bright that Ireland is not only chronically injured by English institutions, but that Ireland has every reason to distrust promises. "Those of William III in the pacification were violated; so were those of Mr. Pitt in 1801…. The very least that could soothe the Irish and give them hope is a clear enunciation what measures of relief Mr. Gladstone is resolved to propose. But he is incurably averse to definite statements, and seems as anxious as a Palmerston might be to reserve a power of shuffling out…. He tells the Boers of the Transvaal that if they will submit unconditionally, they shall meet 'generous' treatment. If the injured Basutos submit, their case will be carefully considered…. Nothing was to me more obvious than that as soon as he saw a beginning of unruly conduct in Ireland, he should have pledged himself to clearly defined measures, and have insisted on the existing law against lawlessness. But 'Boycotting' is not lawlessness. Lynch-law against oppressive landlords or their agents cannot be put down by intensifying national hatred…. Has the Coercion been wisely directed and reasonably guarded from abuse? I am sorry to say, flatly and plainly, No; and that Mr. Gladstone himself, as well as Mr. Forster, seems to have gone more and more to the wrong as the Bill moved on…. Mr. Forster's tone has been simply ferocious, out of Parliament as well as in, and Mr. Gladstone has borrowed a spice of ferocity…. To imprison (for instance) Mr. Parnell, and not tell him why, may cause an exasperation in Ireland, followed by much bloodshed…. Meanwhile, Ireland is made more and more hostile, and foreign nations more and more condemn us…. It seems to be forgotten that we have an army locked up at Candahar. That a severe spring may be its ruin, deficient as it was known to be long ago in fodder and fuel, and lately of provisions also. Cannon are of little use when horses are starved. And what may not happen in India, injured and irritated as it is, if that army were lost!… John Stuart Mill wrote that if we got into civil war with Ireland about Landed Tenure, no Government would pity us, and 'all the Garibaldis in the world' would be against us…. "Your affectionate friend, "F. W. Newman." The following letter concerns the Transvaal war, and is dated March 2nd, 1881:— * * * * * "Since Mr. Gladstone cannot have changed his judgment concerning the Beaconsfield policy in Afghanistan, in India, or in South Africa, the only inference is that (from one reason or other which I may or may not know) he is not strong enough to carry out his own convictions of right. If he was not strong enough to give back the Transvaal to the Boers, though he pronounced the annexation all but insanity, when he entered office, and had a power of stipulating on what terms alone he would be Premier, much less is he strong enough now. Not Tories only, but Whigs (to judge by their past) and the whole mass of our honest fighters, and certainly the Court, will find it an unendurable humiliation to do justice by compulsion of the Boers. Their atrocious doctrine is, that before we confess that we have done them wrong, we must first murder enough of them to show that we are the stronger. It is awful to attribute sentiment so wicked to the Premier, or to John Bright and the rising Radical element of the Ministry; but the melancholy fact is that they act before the public as if this were their doctrine…. The Coercion Bill and its errors are past and irrecoverable…. How will it now aid us to hold up to the public Mr. Gladstone's irrecoverable mistakes? That is what I cannot make out. He has destroyed public confidence in all possible successors to the Premiership, if confidence could be placed in any. I know not one who could be trusted to INSIST on stopping war and wasting no more blood. Yet the longer this war lasts, the greater the danger (1) that all the Dutch in Orange State, in Natal, in Cape Colony will unite against us; (2) that an attack on us in retreat from Candahar, where Mr. Gladstone has 'insanely' continued war, if moderately successful, may make even yet new 'vengeance' of Afghans seem 'necessary to our prestige'—such are the immoral principles dominant among Whigs as well as Tories; (3) any such embroilments may animate Ireland to insurrectionary defiance; (4) further Afghan fighting may lead to Indian revolt…. The nation has found that no possible Ministry will make common justice its rule. Penny newspapers make us widely different now from thirty or forty years ago. The masses abhor war, and will only sanction it when we seem forced to it in defence of public freedom. … The internal quiet of France has stript Republicanism of terrors to our moneyed classes. Not the thing, but the transition to it is feared: with good reason, yet perhaps not rightly in an intelligent people. "Some sudden change of events may put off Republicanism yet for thirty years; but great disasters may precipitate it…. We, the people, can do nothing at present that I see except avow with Lord John Russell (1853-4), 'God prosper the Right' which now means 'May we be defeated whenever we are in the wrong.' This is the only patriotic prayer. "F. W. N."Again, in October, Newman is reviewing Gladstone's political character, and regretting that it has not fulfilled its first high promise. * * * * * "We must make the best we can of all our public men, and eminently of Mr. Gladstone, and be thankful for all we get from him. Yet I cannot help, when I remember his undoubtedly sincere religion and moral professions, expecting from him a higher morality than from Palmerston, Wellington, or Peel. Peel was a valuable minister, and better every five years. I counted and count his loss a great one. Yet his first question in determining action or speech was, "How many votes will support me?" a topic reasonable in all minor questions, but not where essentially Right or Wrong are concerned. I grieve if you rightly attribute to Mr. Gladstone that he would have arrested Mr. Parnell earlier, only that he did not think the English public ripe for approving it. The public is now irritated by Mr. P.'s conduct. If it is against law, he ought to be prosecuted by law, informed of his offence, and allowed to defend himself…. The whole idea of lessening crime by passing an Act to take away the cardinal liberty of speech enjoyed by Englishmen (and M.P.'s) and deprive them not only of Jury, but of Judge and Accuser, while REFUSING to prohibit evictions in the interval between the passing of the Violence Bill (coercive of guilt it is not) and the passing of the Conciliation and Justice Bill, is to me amazing…. I rather believe the fact is that he" (Gladstone) "carried his Coercion Bill against the scruples and grave fears of all the most valuable part of his Cabinet. Instead of earning gratitude from Ireland, he has intensely irritated both the landlords and the opposite party, and certainly has not diminished crime, nor aided towards punishing it. "I attribute it all to the fact that he has not understood that when pressed into the highest post by the enthusiasm of the country, he was bound by honour and common sense to carry out his own avowed policy, not that of weak friends and bitter opponents. The attempt to count votes beforehand is fatal where great moral issues are involved." And again, in November:— "Have we yet the measure of what we are to suffer from the continuance of the Afghan war? I believe a million and a half per month does not exceed the cost—that is, about fourteen millions since Mr. Gladstone came into power; but if the winter continue severe, the whole army may be lost, in spite of our bravery and military science. We seem to forget how the Russian winter ruined Napoleon, and in the case of the Transvaal how much our armies suffered in the war against our American colonists from the vastness of distances, and the skill of shooting almost universal to the colonists. "I regard Mr. Gladstone as the best Premier by far now possible to us…. There is no shadow of responsibility left in a cabinet if we do not impute all its errors to its Head; and I regard it as a terrible fact, pregnant with possible revolution, that he has betrayed the Electors. The country hushed its many and various desires of domestic reform for one overwhelming claim, PEACE. They bore him into power on that firm belief. Instead of peace we have war—war which may spread like a conflagration. His clear duty was (and John Bright's too) to refuse to take office except on the condition of instantly reversing all the wickedness and insanity which he denounced when out of office. He and he only could have stayed these plagues. We are now hated for our acts, and despised for our affectation of Justice and Philanthropy. * * * * * "I am thoroughly aware that my judgment of Mr. Gladstone may be wrong, and to myself it is so painful that I expect a majority of his supporters will differ from it. But when I say he has increased—immensely increased—ALL HIS DIFFICULTIES, I marvel how you can deduce from my judgment that I underrate his difficulties…. If Ireland be in chronic revolt, and India seize the opportunity, few Englishmen are likely to suffer less from it than I. Probably Mr. Gladstone, by the fear lest the Tories now seek to ride back into power on the shoulders of Ireland, will resolutely make household suffrage for the counties his main effort. "But there the Lords can checkmate him." Before quoting from the next letter before me, written to Anna Swanwick in February, 1884, which treats of the best method of teaching languages, ancient and modern, that practice should precede the scientific study in this matter; and that the "popular side should go first," I think a quotation from Newman's article (Miscellanies, Vol. V) on Modern Latin as a Basis of Instruction, would fitly come in here. The article makes a great point of popularizing the study of Latin. That it should practically be made an interesting subject not devoid of romance and imagination. He condemns the old fashion (still, alas! in vogue in many schools) of committing to memory an enormous amount of matter quite unworthy of being retained in the mind. He urges the need of a "Latin novel"—a Latin comedy; one that would set alight the imagination of young scholars. In Miss Bruce's Memoir and Recollections of Anna Swanwick, there is mention of the fact that the latter often mentioned the insight she herself obtained in the intricacies of the Greek language through help given her by Frank Newman. She also quotes his words with regard to geometry, showing that the same need in teaching it prevailed as with the study of Greek. That the imagination must be stimulated. A sense of beauty must be cultivated. That the whole secret lay in the way a thing was presented to the mind of the student. For unless the sense of beauty and symmetry had been aroused in him, he would of necessity find far more difficulty in retaining the, so to speak, statistical Blue-book of the groundwork and rules of any science. Newman himself was an adept at putting a subject in an entirely new light, when some pupil failed, perhaps, to follow his calculations or explanations. In relation to the teaching of Greek, the following words of Miss Swanwick's (in the Memoir to which I have just referred) show how thoroughly she and Newman were in accord. "Deeply interested as I was in the study of Greek, and intense as was the pleasure of its acquisition, I yet hesitate to recommend it as a part of the curriculum of boys and girls, unless it can be taken later, and with more concentrated determination to master the extremely difficult grammar, than is usually given to school lessons…. It is to be remembered, moreover, that in the literature of Greece and Rome there are no words adapted expressly for the young. The ancient classics, written by adults for adults, are beyond the intelligence of immature minds, whilst in regard to the moral lessons to be drawn from them, the superiority, in my opinion, is vastly in favour of more modern writers." Anna Swanwick's original desire to learn Greek was (Miss Bruce tells us in the former's own words) "to be able to read the New Testament in the original." I quote now from Newman's article:— "Children can learn two languages, or even three at once; and this, if these are spoken to them by different individuals, without confusion and without being less able to learn other things. Memory is aided because imagination connects the words with a person, a scene, or events; and, little by little, the utility of speech calls forth active efforts in the learner…. In general the old method was one of repetition: it dealt immensely in committing Latin to memory…. Nothing is easier to boys than such learning, even when the thing learned is uninteresting… yet… means should be taken of making it interesting and instructive and rhythmical…. It seems to me that we want what I may call a Latin novel or romance; that is, a pleasing tale of fiction, which shall convey numerous Latin words, which do not easily find a place in poetry, history, or philosophy…. If anyone had genius to produce, in Terentian style, Latin comedies worthy of engaging the minds and hearts of youth (for I can never read a play of Terence to a young class without the heartache), I should regard this as a valuable contribution." [Footnote: Mr. Darbishire says in a letter to which I have had access: "One of his" (Newman's) "special endeavours was to accustom his students to deal with Greek as a spoken language, as he and we did in reading Greek plays."] To return to the letter. "Weston-super-Mare, "16th Feb., 1884. "My dear Friend, "The late Professor George Long (my predecessor in University College), editor of the Penny Cyclopaedia was originally professor of Greek and a student of Sanskrit. He maintained that German, studied as it ought to be, prepared the mind for other work as effectively as could Greek, and, as Dr. W. B. Hodgson (and I too) independently alleged, that the study of modern languages and learning to talk them ought to precede the study of Greek. To make Greek the basis of an entire school and force it on all is with me cruelty as well as folly. Five out of six women and men would not learn it enough to retain or use it. If you place ancient languages and all that cannot be learned by talking at the END, only those will study who have a special object, and these will duly use them. I think that is the only wise and just way. Further, I think it a grave mistake to teach the scientific side of any language first, and try to proceed through science to practice. The popular side should go first. Greeks talked rightly before Protagoras, but Protagoras first taught that Greek had three genders…. After a full acquaintance with the substance of a language, its laws and relationships come naturally and profitably. In a dead language we are forced to bring on the science earlier: that is the reason for deferring such study till a riper age; and best if delayed until after learning several modern languages (by talking, if possible), the more different from one another the better. English, German or Russian or Latin, and Arabic would be three very different in kind. "Our English Professor Latham used to talk much error, in my judgment, of the supreme value to the intellect of studying FORM. This word was to include the 'accidence' of language with the fewest possible words; algebra with the least possible arithmetic … Logic without real proposition…. Now, in my belief, and that of De Morgan and the late Professor Boole, nothing so ruins the mind as to accustom it to think that it knows something when it can attach no definite ideas to the symbols over which it chatters." To-day, what educational strides should we not make if we could but bring our present systems of teaching into line with these of Newman's! It will be remembered that in March, 1886, Gladstone caused great dissension in his own party by bringing in his measure for giving Ireland a statutory parliament. The bill was rejected at its second reading, and when Gladstone made his appeal to the country, the general election showed he had lost its confidence. He had based his belief that Ireland was ripe for some measure of Home Rule, on account of the fact that the election under the new Reform Bill had proved that out of 103 Irish members 87 were Nationalists. "5th May, 1885 "My dear Anna, * * * * * "The Irish question, as now presented, is in a very sad imbroglio. After our monstrous errors of policy and the infliction on Ireland of miseries and degradation unparalleled in Europe, to expect to bring things right without humiliation and without risks of what cannot be foreseen, seems to me conceit and ignorance. Evildoers must have humiliation, must have risks, when they try to go right. Opponents will always be able to argue, as did Alcibiades to the Athenians: 'We hold our supremacy as a despotism; therefore it is no longer safe for us to play the part of virtue.' In so far, I may seem to favour Mr. Gladstone's move; and I think I do rejoice that it has been made. Probably those are right who say, 'Henceforth it becomes impossible to go back into the old groove.' I do not believe that a Parliament elected on new lines will endure it. "But neither would the Democratic Parliament in any case have endured it. A new civil war against Ireland seems morally impossible. Therefore Mr. Gladstone is ruining a measure which might have been good, by his preposterous dealing with it. Lord Hartington said (as indeed did John Bright) the very truth, that the Liberal Party cannot so disown its own traditions, and its wisest principles, as to allow an individual, however justly honoured, to concoct secretly from his old and trusted comrades, a vast, complicated, and far-reaching settlement and make himself sole initiator of it (as I have kept saying, reduce Parliament to a machine for saying only Yes and No)…. It is a vile degradation of Parliament. But that is only a small part of the infinite blunder. He pretends that everything has been tried and has failed, except what he now proposes…. In 1880 no one forced him to bring in an Irish measure: he chose to do it, and did it in the worst possible way, by treating the Irish members as ENEMIES, and refusing to consult them. [The Scotch members have never been so treated on Scotch questions.] "Down to last September Mr. Gladstone declared that the Irish members were men, who, by a conspiracy of rapine, were seeking to dismember the empire. He carried '(?)' against Ireland during his unparalleled supremacy, acts of despotism unequalled in this country, and that, though they had no tendency to lessen crime; and he joined them with imprisonment against Mr. Parnell. Only his monstrous incompetency to see right and wrong, made his well-intentioned measure all but fruitless. Peel and Wellington did mischief, long since deplored, in teaching the Irish that England cared nothing for justice, but very much indeed for the danger of a new civil war; but now Mr. Gladstone has been teaching them still more effectually. In September last he denounced Parnell and his friends as bent on dismembering the empire, deplored the danger of consulting them, begged for votes to strengthen him against them; but as soon as the country, from various and very just discontent with his WARLIKE POLICY, and his utter neglect of our moral needs, showed in many of the boroughs their deep dissatisfaction, and he found Mr. Parnell twice as strong as in the Old Parliament … he gave notice that he was ready to capitulate to Mr. Parnell. And he did virtually capitulate; Mr. Parnell understood him, and defeated Lord Salisbury, and Mr. Gladstone in accepting the power to which Mr. Parnell invited him, insulted all his trusting comrades by keeping them in total ignorance of his scheme, while he concocted it by consultation with the very men whom just before he had maligned as conspiring to break up the empire. "Such conduct from a Tory minister sounds to me more extreme than anything I ever read of in English history; and from a pretended Liberal leader would have seemed incredible, if predicted. I suppose he was predestined (vir fatalis) to break up his Party. "I shall indeed rejoice and praise God if Mr. Gladstone's wonderful folly do_ break down this … system of legislation.—There's a long yarn for you!! "Ever your affectionate "F. W. Newman." In the next letter, in November of the same year, Newman complains of temporary paralysis in his left-hand fingers and stiffness in that arm "as though it had a muscular twist." The actual putting on of an overcoat now becomes no slight undertaking, and he finds that reading now tires his eyes much more than does writing. He touches on the Burmese war, "which seems likely to be even worse than the Egyptian and Sudanese iniquity in its results to us." And he adds, "We have now without any just cause of war, or even the pretence of any, invaded this province, which is subject and tributary to China, and lawlessly act the marauder upon it, claiming it as ours, and treating the patriots who oppose us as rebels and robbers. The Emperor of China now finds our frontier, if we succeed, pushed up to his own, and, whenever convenient to him, he can send in his armies against us, especially if India were to revolt." In October, 1886, matters in Bulgaria were at their highest tide. At last, after all her efforts, since 1356, at independence from the hated power of Greece, when "Almost" she and Servia were "persuaded" to form a great Slavonic State together, she seemed near attainment of her constantly prolonged efforts. In 1872 the Bulgarian Church was again able to break her fetters, which she abhorred, which bound her to Greece. Then, in 1876, the atrocities committed by the Turkish inhabitants of Bulgaria took place. The Porte, when besought by the Constantinople Conference to make concessions, refused point-blank. Then Russia stepped in and declared war, and proposed themselves to make a Bulgarian State. England and Austria promptly refused to lend themselves to this scheme, and a Berlin Congress was summoned. The Berlin Treaty in 1878 arranged the limits and administrative autonomy of this State, and the Bulgarians chose Prince Alexander of Battenberg, cousin of the Grand Duke of Hesse, and he became in 1879 Alexander I of Bulgaria. Eventually the recognition of him by the Porte as Governor- General of Eastern Roumelia followed. In 1886 Russia made herself felt unexpectedly. Alexander was kidnapped by order of the Czar and carried to Russia. The upshot of it all was that, though he returned to Bulgaria, yet he felt it was in vain to struggle against Russian animosities, and so abdicated. The letter following shows Newman to be in failing health and under doctor's treatment:— "Weston-super-Mare, "7th October, 1886. "My dear Anna, "… My brief London visit which ought to have come off is forbidden positively, and I doubt not wisely, by medical command, not because I am ill, but because I had formidable threatening of illness, like a black cloud which after all does not come down. The threat consisted in my left hand losing all sense and power. This is now the sixth day. On the third I regained power to button, though clumsily, and to use my fork. Of course I am ordered to use my brain as little as possible, and in future to change my habits. I must leave off all letters and other writing much earlier in the evening. But frequent short walks I hold salutary to my brain; and my feet have not failed me. "… You ask what I think of the Bulgarian outrage…. In the present instance the one thing primarily to be desired, and eminently difficult to attain, was cohesion of the little Powers. As of old, Sparta and Athens could not coalesce, and therefore after weakening one another they ill- resisted Philip, and were overpowered by Alexander armed from Macedonia and Thrace, and under-propt by gold from Asia; so now the little States— Servia, Bulgaria, Roumania, Greece—each envied the other, perhaps was ready for hostility, but all looked up to Russia with more than fear. "But this atrocious kidnapping of a reigning Prince has given just the external compression which was wanted to make the little States desire union, and the greater Powers to think that such union is for European benefit. Not only has it reconciled Servia and Bulgaria, late in actual war, but it has elicited public outcry in Roumania for federation with these two States. Whether Greece can lay aside her jealous enmity against Bulgaria is not yet clear. Her ambition is to acquire Macedonia and Constantinople … perhaps … Albania. "… To me it seems a wonder that the Greek statesmen do not see that Constantinople is too critical a spot for the European Powers to yield up to any secondary State. If it is to be under European protection, Greece would find her power in Constantinople merely nominal…. "The brutality of the Czar not only drives the little Powers to desire union, but makes the great Powers ashamed of it, and it seems, though reluctantly, they will oppose him. "This is the first time that a Hungarian statesman has initiated European movement. If in Europe they are forced to displease Russia, so much the more will they wish to keep Russia in better humour by not thwarting her projects in Armenia, which projects I believe to be just, philanthropic, and necessary under the circumstances; since the inability of the Sultan to rescue the Armenians from marauders has been proved, and no Power but Russia can do the needful work…. "It is to be feared that Germany cannot add any real strength to control Russia, while Russia knows that the insane vanity of French politicians is preparing a war of vengeance against Germany. Until the masses of the people have a practical constitutional plebiscite to veto war beforehand, it seems as though horrors which seem dead and obsolete must rise anew. Perhaps this is the lesson which the populations all have to learn. The earliest great triumph which the old plebeians of Rome won was the constitutional principle that wars could not be made without previous sanction of the popular assembly. England, alas! has not yet even demanded this obvious and just veto. The men whose trade is war, whose honours and wealth can only be won by war, will make it by hook or by crook, while their fatal and immoral trade is honoured. "Affectionately yours, "F. W. Newman." In April, 1887, the Irish question was again to the fore, and part of the letter from which I quote shows clearly that Newman was in favour of some form of Local Government for Ireland, though not of the same kind as was being pressed forward by Mr. Parnell, who had urged on his countrymen agrarian agitation and boycotting as the screw which was to force the hand of the Home Government. "My opinion is unchanged (1) that Grattan's Parliament was foolishly, mischievously, and immorally subverted by English double-dealing; (2) that in one hundred years things are so changed in Ireland and in Rome that we cannot go back to that crisis and heal old wounds by reinstating Grattan's work without making new wounds; (3) I deeply blame Orangemen in Belfast as (apparently) bent on promoting animosity, and on convincing us that they will rather rush into civil war than endure a Parliament in Dublin supreme over all Ireland: but however much this may be suspected as the bluster and cunning of a minority in Ulster, to ignore it totally may be unjust as well as unwise. And besides, I think that Ireland needs the practice of Local Government, varying locally, before that of a Central Irish Parliament. This forbids my desiring a complete triumph to Mr. Parnell. "You are aware that I have long desired Provincial Chambers for all three kingdoms, and can see nothing to forbid them now for Ireland if Mr. Gladstone were to take that side. If he did it would be carried against Mr. Parnell by a vast majority of votes. No mere political measure can cure famine and rackrent or insecure tenure; but if the agrarian evil be appeased, no hatred of England on the part of Irish leaders will suffice to make Ireland discontented. If Mr. Gladstone fixedly opposes, if he says 'Honour compels me'—his Midlothian defence of the Egyptian war!—I should not the less say he had made a wrongful treaty. But 'a fac is a fac': someone hitherto makes this settlement impossible. If now the Tories miscarry, apparently Gladstone will come in again, and not Oedipus can tell us whether he will dissolve Parliament. "It is supposed that he will; and Mr. W. S. Caine, whose prediction in this matter I cannot underrate, warns Mr. Gladstone that to dissolve again will bring on him redoubled failure,—an immense lessening of supporters. "The new voters, at the last election, had not had time to learn a thousand things. After such a transformation of the constituencies, I not only expect—I desire—the break-up of the Liberal Party. Little by little they have adopted the Tory idea of 'follow your leader': never think for yourself. In the Parliament, in the Newspapers, in Arguments of Foreign War, at the Hustings, they treat it as 'Treason to the Party' not to do whatever the Premier says they must do, or he will resign and wreck the party…. I see only one sunbeam through the clouds ever since the fatal Egyptian war; and that is the recent Peace-Union of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy. I look on it as the inauguration of the future European Confederacy which is to forbid European wars, and become a forcible mediator. Under its shelter Roumania, Servia, and Bulgaria seem likely to consolidate a union of defence; and as soon as all the Powers understand that the Triple Alliance is based on permanent interests, the Alliance will not need to keep their armaments on foot; to train them, as the generations grow up, will suffice. The royalties everywhere will struggle for actual armies: the burdened peoples will murmur. "Meanwhile we need long patience, I suppose, while Irish rent wastes to smaller and smaller worth; and one new election will suddenly precipitate the struggle. I do not fear that any Irish success will make Irishmen desire the burden of undertaking their own military and naval defence. "Affectionately yours, "F. W. Newman." * * * * * As regards Newman's opinions on one of the national questions which so closely concern us to-day—the Drink Traffic—they are very clearly and definitely stated in an article he wrote in the year 1877, and which appeared in Fraser's Magazine, in re Sir Wilfrid Lawson's Bill. Here again decentralization was the key-note, as he firmly believed, of the remedy. "The palace-like jails which now disgrace our civilization, and cause expenses so vast, are chiefly the fruit of this pernicious trade…. What shadow of reason is there for doubting that such sales as are necessary… will be far more sagaciously managed by a Local Board which the ratepayers elect for this sole purpose, than either by magistrates… or by an irresponsible and multitudinous Committee of Parliament? Finally, a Board elected for this one duty is immeasurably better than the Town Councils, who are distracted by an immensity of other business…. "Such a Board should have full power to frame its own restrictions, so as to prevent the fraud of wine merchants or chemists degenerating into spirit shops…. "To secure sufficient responsibility, no Board should be numerous: five or seven persons may be a full maximum, and no Board should have a vast constituency. Therefore our greatest towns ought to be divided into areas with suitable numbers, and have Boards separately independent. With a few such precautions, the system of elective Licensing Boards, which can impose despotically their own conditions on the licences, but without power to bind their successors in the next year, appears to be a complete solution of the problem…." He adds, that to Sir Wilfrid Lawson "is due more largely than to any other public man the arousing of the nation" in the matter of the Drink Traffic, "To him our thanks and our honour will be equally paid, though the name of another mover be on the victorious Bill"—whatever it may be. "Noble efforts for a good cause are never thrown away, are never ineffectual, even when the success does not come in the exact form for which its champion was contending. It may hereafter be said: 'Other men sowed—we reap the fruit of their labours.'" I quote now from the letter to Anna Swanwick, in which he refers to this question in 1887:— "Unless at a very early day the causes of Un-Employ be removed, we must calculate on frightful disorder. Evidently two measures are indispensable. "1. To stop our land from going out of cultivation. "2. To stop the demoralizing waste of 135 millions per annum on pernicious drink. "Only a most stringent change of law, perhaps very difficult to pass, can effect the former and when passed, the good effect cannot be instantaneous. The second topic has been before the nation for thirty- four years; could be passed, if there were a will in either ministry, in a single fortnight, and when passed, the benefit would be sensible in a single year. Yet these topics are indefinitely postponed. The Tories do not even talk of them. Some 'Liberals' round Mr. Gladstone are eager for the stopping of Drink Bars, but the eloquent leader talks (in general) rightly, but never acts. "Alas! He showed his heart in bringing a Bill to enact that every Railway The final letter from Francis Newman to Anna Swanwick, from the collection so kindly lent me by Miss Bruce, is dated 17th April, 1897, "15 Arundel Crescent, Weston-super-Mare." It is not written by himself. By that time he was too feeble to be able to write, and of course it was only a few months before his death. This letter was written in response to one from Anna Swanwick. To me, I must frankly own, it breathes of the past tragedy, of those doubts and fears by which Newman's religious life had been beset. Even now, notwithstanding his statements to his two lifelong friends, Martineau and Anna Swanwick, that he wished it to be known that he died in the Christian faith, the uncertainty by which, according to the following letter, he was very evidently governed as regards the question of immortality, suggests a submissive mind indeed, but one devoid of the splendid force of conviction as regards his faith in "the life of the world to come." Anna Swanwick always declared, we are told, that his was a "deeply religious nature," yet throughout the greater part of his life he was unable to take hold of the dogmas of Holy Scriptures. He was always trying to make a "new" religion, compounded of all the best parts of the faiths professed in various parts of the world. Yet even were this done it might interest, but could never become, like the Christian Religion, once for all delivered—a faith to be sure of, a faith Divinely inspired, not man-made. "My dear Friend, "I have read your letter this morning with deep interest and thanks. I do not intend to oppose it at all, but to add what it now seems to need. First, that I have always dreaded to involve another mind in my own doubts and uncertainties; only when I saw death not far off I thought it cowardly towards one who has shown me so much love to leave you ignorant of my last creed. For this reason alone did I send you my inability to maintain popular immortality. "Next, it is not amiss to let you know the talk which passed between me and the Rev. James Taylor—Martineau's co-partner. He asked me my own belief concerning known immortality, and I replied that the Most High never asked my consent for bringing me into this world, yet I thanked Him for it, and tried to glorify Him. In like manner He never asked my leave to put me after my death in this world into any new world, and if He thought fit to do it I am not likely to murmur at His will. But not knowing His will, nor what power of resistance He allows me, I do not attempt to foresee the future. I seem to remember J. J. Taylor's remark, that he thought I went as far as anyone could be expected to go. And now, my dear Anna, I still wait to know how far I am straying from the man whom you and I are expecting something from—Dr. Martineau. "Accept this kind remark, and be sure that I can use, and do use, concerning you, what a certain Psalmist says of the Most High: 'I will praise Him as long as I have any power to praise in my soul.' "Yours while I exist "F. W. Newman." One wonders—but that wonder remains unsatisfied—what "that something" was which he and Anna Swanwick were then "expecting" from Martineau. Probably it was some statement as regards religion which Newman longed for from the man who had been permitted to help him now in his old age (when he distrusted more and more his own old judgments and former convictions) once more on to the old paths, led by that "kindly Light amid the encircling gloom," which now was fast closing in upon him. |
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