you find such? They will descend rocky mountains at full speed, and
neither trip nor fall; but you must be cautious with the horses of the
Moslems, and treat them with kindness, for the horses of the Moslems are
proud, and they like not being slaves. When they are young and first
mounted, jerk not their mouths with your bit, for be sure if you do,
they will kill you; sooner or later, you will perish beneath their feet.
Good are our horses, and good our riders. Yea, very good are the Moslems
at mounting the horse; who are like them? I once saw a Frank rider
compete with a Moslem on this beach, and at first the Frank rider had it
all his own way and he passed the Moslem, but the course was long, very
long, and the horse of the Frank rider, which was a Frank horse also,
panted; but the horse of the Moslem panted not, for he was a Moslem
also, and the Moslem rider at last gave a cry, and the horse sprang
forward and he overtook the Frank horse, and then the Moslem rider stood
up in his saddle. How did he stand? Truly he stood on his head, and
these eyes saw him; he stood on his head in the saddle as he passed the
Frank rider; and he cried ha! ha! as he passed the Frank rider; and the
Moslem horse cried ha! ha! as he passed the Frank breed, and the Frank
lost by a far distance. Good are the Franks, good their horses; but
better are the Moslems, and better the horses of the Moslems."'
That boy, as he lay curled up in his chair, doting over the enchanted
page, knew full well, else had he been no Christian boy, that it was not
a Sunday book which was making his eyes start out of his head; yet,
reckless, he cried, 'ha! ha!' and read on, and as he read he blessed the
madcap Borrow for having called his romance by the sober-sounding,
propitiatory title of _The Bible in Spain_!
'Creeds pass, rites change, no altar standeth whole.'
In a world of dust and ashes it is a foolish thing to prophesy
immortality, or even a long term of years, for any fellow-mortal. Good
luck does not usually pursue such predictions. England can boast few
keener, better-qualified critics than that admirable woman, Mrs.
Barbauld, or, not to dock her of her accustomed sizings, Mrs. Anna
Lætitia Barbauld. And yet what do we find her saying? 'The young may
melt into tears at _Julia Mandeville_, and _The Man of Feeling_, the
romantic will shudder at _Udolpho_, but those of mature age who know
what human nature is, will take up again and again Dr. Moore's
_Zeluco_.' One hates to contradict a lady like Mrs. Barbauld, or to
speak in terms of depreciation of any work of Mrs. Radcliffe's, whose
name is still as a pleasant savour in the nostrils; therefore I will let
_Udolpho_ alone. As for Henry Mackenzie's _Man of Feeling_, what was
good enough for Sir Walter Scott ought surely to be good enough for us,
most days. I am no longer young, and cannot therefore be expected to
melt into tears at _Julia Mandeville_, but here my toleration is
exhausted. Dr. Moore's _Zeluco_ is too much; maturity has many ills to
bear, but repeated perusals of this work cannot fairly be included
amongst them.
Still, though prediction is to be avoided, it is impossible to feel
otherwise than very cheerful about George Borrow. His is a good life.
Anyhow, he will outlive most people, and that at all events is a
comfort.
CARDINAL NEWMAN
I
There are some men whose names are inseparably and exclusively
associated with movements; there are others who are for ever united in
human memories with places; it is the happy fortune of the distinguished
man whose name is at the top of this page to be able to make good both
titles to an estate in our minds and hearts; for whilst his fierce
intellectual energy made him the leader of a great movement, his rare
and exquisite tenderness has married his name to a lovely place.
Whenever men's thoughts dwell upon the revival of Church authority in
England and America during this century, they will recall the Vicar of
St. Mary's, Oxford, who lived to become a Cardinal of Rome, and whenever
the lover of all things that are quiet, and gentle, and true in life,
and literature, visits Oxford he will find himself wondering whether
snap-dragon still grows outside the windows of the rooms in Trinity,
where once lived the author of the _Apologia_.
The Rev. John Wesley was a distinguished man, if ever there was one, and
his name is associated with a movement certainly as remarkable as, and a
great deal more useful than, the one connected with the name of Newman.
Wesley's great missionary tours in Devon and Cornwall, and the wild,
remote parts of Lancashire, lack no single element of sublimity. To this
day the memories of those apostolic journeys are green and precious, and
a source of strength and joy: the portrait of the eager preacher hangs
up in almost every miner's cottage, whilst his name is pronounced with
reverence by a hundred thousand lips. 'You seem a very temperate people
here,' once observed a thirsty pedestrian (who was, indeed, none other
than the present writer) to a Cornish miner, 'how did it happen?' He
replied solemnly, raising his cap, 'There came a man amongst us once,
and his name was John Wesley.' Wesley was an Oxford man, but he is not
much in men's thoughts as they visit that city of enchantment. Why is
this? It is because, great as Wesley was, he lacked charm. As we read
his diaries and letters, we are interested, we are moved, but we are not
pleased. Now, Oxford pleases and charms. Therefore it is, that when we
allow ourselves a day in her quadrangles we find ourselves thinking of
Dr. Newman, and his Trinity snap-dragon, and how the Rev. William James,
'some time in the year 1823,' taught him the doctrine of Apostolic
Succession in the course of a walk round Christchurch Meadow, rather
than of Wesley and his prayer-meetings at Lincoln, which were proclaimed
by the authorities as savouring of sedition.
A strong personal attachment of the kind which springs up from reading
an author, which is distilled through his pages, and turns his foibles,
even his follies, into pleasant things we would not for the world have
altered, is apt to cause the reader, who is thus affected, to exaggerate
the importance of any intellectual movement with which the author
happened to be associated. There are, I know, people who think this is
notably so in Dr. Newman's case. Crusty men are to be met with, who
rudely say they have heard enough of the Oxford movement, and that the
time is over for penning ecstatic paragraphs about Dr. Newman's personal
appearance in the pulpit at St. Mary's. I think these crusty people are
wrong. The movement was no doubt an odd one in some of its aspects--it
wore a very academic air indeed; and to be academic is to be ridiculous,
in the opinion of many. Our great Northern towns lived their grimy lives
amidst the whirl of their machinery, quite indifferent to the movement.
Our huge Nonconformist bodies knew no more of the University of Oxford
in those days, than they did of the University of Tübingen. This
movement sent no missionaries to the miners, and its tracts were not of
the kind that are served suddenly upon you in the streets like legal
process, but were, in fact, bulky treatises stuffed full of the dead
languages. London, of course, heard about the movement, and, so far as
she was not tickled by the comicality of the notion of anything really
important happening outside her cab-radius, was irritated by it. Mr.
Henry Rogers poked heavy fun at it in the _Edinburgh Review_. Mr. Isaac
Taylor wrote two volumes to prove that ancient Christianity was a
drivelling and childish superstition, and in the opinion of some pious
Churchmen succeeded in doing so. But for the most part people left the
movement alone, unless they happened to be Bishops or very clerically
connected. 'The bishops,' says Dr. Newman, 'began charging against us.'
But bishops' charges are amongst the many seemingly important things
that do not count in England. It is said to be the duty of an archdeacon
to read his bishop's charge, but it is undoubted law that a mandamus
will not be granted to compel him to do so.
But notwithstanding this aspect of the case, it was a genuine
thought-movement in propagating which these long-coated parsons, with
their dry jokes, strange smiles, and queer notions were engaged. They
used to drive about the country in gigs, from one parsonage to another,
and leave their tracts behind them. They were not concerned with the
flocks--their message was to the shepherds. As for the Dissenters, they
had nothing to say to them, except that their very presence in a parish
was a plenary argument for the necessity of the movement.
The Tractarians met with the usual fortune of those who peddle new
ideas. Some rectors did not want to be primitive--more did not know what
it meant; but enough were found pathetically anxious to read a meaning
into their services and offices, to make it plain that the Tracts really
were 'for' and not 'against' the times.
The great plot, plan, or purpose, call it what you will, of the
Tractarian movement was to make Churchmen believe with a personal
conviction that the Church of England was not a mere National
Institution, like the House of Commons or the game of cricket, but a
living branch of that Catholic Church which God had from the beginning,
endowed with sacramental gifts and graces, with a Priesthood
apostolically descended, with a Creed, precise and specific, which it
was the Church's duty to teach, and man's to believe, and with a ritual
and discipline to be practised and maintained, with daily piety and
entire submission.
These were new ideas in 1833. When Dr. Newman was ordained in 1824, he
has told us, he did not look on ordination as a sacramental rite, nor
did he ascribe to baptism any supernatural virtue.
It cannot be denied that the Tractarians had their work before them. But
they had forces on their side.
It is always pleasant to rediscover the meaning of words and forms which
have been dulled by long usage. This is why etymology is so fascinating.
By the natural bent of our minds we are lovers of whatever things are
true and real. We hanker after facts. To get a grip of reality is a
pleasure so keen--most of our faith is so desperate a 'make-believe,'
that it is not to be wondered at that pious folk should have been found
who rejoiced to be told that what they had been saying and doing all the
years of their lives really had a meaning and a history of its own. One
would have to be very unsympathetic not to perceive that the time we are
speaking of must have been a very happy one for many a devout soul. The
dry bones lived--formal devotions were turned into joyous acts of faith
and piety. The Church became a Living Witness to the Truth. She could be
interrogated--she could answer. The old calendar was revived, and
Saint's Day followed Saint's Day, and season season, in the sweet
procession of the Christian Year. Pretty girls got up early, made the
sign of the Cross, and, unscared by devils, tripped across the dewy
meadows to Communion. Grave men read the Fathers, and found themselves
at home in the Fourth Century.
A great writer had, so it appears, all unconsciously prepared the way
for this Neo-Catholicism. Dr. Newman has never forgotten to pay tribute
to Sir Walter Scott.
Sir Walter's work has proved to be of so permanent a character, his
insight into all things Scotch so deep and true, and his human worth and
excellence so rare and noble, that it has hardly been worth while to
remember the froth and effervescence he at first occasioned; but that he
did create a movement in the Oxford direction is certain. He made the
old Catholic times interesting. He was not indeed, like the Tractarians,
a man of 'primitive' mind; but he was romantic, and it all told. For
this we have the evidence not only of Dr. Newman (a very nice
observer), but also of the delightful, the bewitching, the never
sufficiently-to-be-praised George Borrow--Borrow, the Friend of Man, at
whose bidding lassitude and languor strike their tents and flee; and
health and spirits, adventure and human comradeship, take up the reins
of life, whistle to the horses, and away you go!
Borrow has indeed, in the Appendix to the _Romany Rye_, written of Sir
Walter after a fashion for which I hope he has been forgiven. A piece of
invective more terrible, more ungenerous, more savagely and exultingly
cruel, is nowhere to be found. I shudder when I think of it. Had another
written it, nothing he ever wrote should be in the same room with the
_Heart of Midlothian_, _Redgauntlet_, and _The Antiquary_. I am not
going to get angry with George Borrow. I say at once--I cannot afford
it. But neither am I going to quote from the Appendix. God forbid! I can
find elsewhere what will suit my purpose just as well. Readers of
_Lavengro_ will remember the Man in Black. It is hard to forget him, the
scandalous creature, or his story of the ironmonger's daughter at
Birmingham 'who screeches to the piano the Lady of the Lake's hymn to
the Virgin Mary, always weeps when Mary Queen of Scots is mentioned, and
fasts on the anniversary of the death of that very wise martyr, Charles
I. Why, said the Man in Black, I would engage to convert such an idiot
to popery in a week, were it worth my trouble. O Cavaliere Gualtereo,
avete fatto molto in favore della Santa Sede.'
Another precursor was Coleridge, who (amongst other things) called
attention to the writings of the earlier Anglican divines--some of whom
were men of primitive tempers and Catholic aspirations. Andrews and
Laud, Jackson, Bull, Hammond and Thorndyke--sound divines to a
man--found the dust brushed off them. The second-hand booksellers, a
wily and observant race, became alive to the fact that though Paley and
Warburton, Horsley and Hoadley, were not worth the brown paper they came
wrapped up in, seventeenth-century theology would bear being marked
high.
Thus was the long Polar Winter that had befallen Anglican theology
broken up, and the icebergs began moving about after a haphazard and
even dangerous fashion--but motion is always something.
What has come to the Movement? It is hard to say. Its great leader has
written a book of fascinating interest to prove that it was not a
genuine Anglican movement at all; that it was foreign to the National
Church, and that neither was its life derived from, nor was its course
in the direction of, the National Church. But this was after he himself
had joined the Church of Rome. Nobody, however, ventured to contradict
him, nor is this surprising when we remember the profusion of argument
and imagery with which he supported his case.
A point was reached, and then things were allowed to drop. The Church of
Rome received some distinguished converts with her usual well-bred
composure, and gave them little things to do in their new places. The
Tracts for the Times, neatly bound, repose on many shelves. Tract No.
90, that fierce bomb-shell which once scattered confusion through
clerical circles, is perhaps the only bit of Dr. Newman's writing one
does not, on thinking of, wish to sit down at once to re-read. The fact
is that the movement, as a movement with a terminus _ad quem_, was
fairly beaten by a power fit to be matched with Rome herself--John
Bullism. John Bull could not be got to assume a Catholic demeanour. When
his judges denied that the grace of Baptism was a dogma of his faith,
Bull, instead of behaving as did the people of Milan when Ambrose was
persecuted by an Arian Government, was hugely pleased, clapped his
thigh, and exclaimed, through the mouth of Lord John Russell, that the
ruling was 'sure to give general satisfaction,' as indeed it did.
The work of the movement can still be seen in the new spirit that has
descended upon the Church of England and in the general heightening of
Church principles; but the movement itself is no longer to be seen, or
much of the temper or modes of thought of the Tractarians. The High
Church clergyman of to-day is no Theologian--he is an Opportunist. The
Tractarian took his stand upon Antiquity--he laboured his points, he was
always ready to prove his Rule of Faith and to define his position. His
successor, though he has appropriated the results of the struggle, does
not trouble to go on waging it. He is as a rule no great reader--you may
often search his scanty library in vain for the works of Bishop Jackson.
Were you to ask for them, it is quite possible he would not know to what
bishop of that name you were referring. He is as hazy about the
Hypostatic Union as are many laymen about the Pragmatic Sanction. He is
all for the People and for filling his Church. The devouring claims of
the Church of Rome do not disturb his peace of mind. He thinks it very
rude of her to dispute the validity of his orders--but, then, foreigners
are rude! And so he goes on his hard-working way, with his high
doctrines and his early services, and has neither time nor inclination
for those studies that lend support to his priestly pretensions.
This temper of mind has given us peace in our time, and has undoubtedly
promoted the cause of Temperance and other good works; but some day or
another the old questions will have to be gone into again, and the
Anglican claim to be a Church, Visible, Continuous, Catholic, and
Gifted, investigated--probably for the last time.
Cynics may declare that it will be but a storm in a teacup--a dispute in
which none but 'women, priests, and peers' will be called upon to take
part--but it is not an obviously wise policy to be totally indifferent
to what other people are thinking about--simply because your own
thoughts are running in other directions.
But all this is really no concern of mine. My object is to call
attention to Dr. Newman's writings from a purely literary point of view.
The charm of Dr. Newman's style necessarily baffles description: as well
might one seek to analyse the fragrance of a flower, or to expound in
words the jumping of one's heart when a beloved friend unexpectedly
enters the room. It is hard to describe charm. Mr. Matthew Arnold, who
is a poet, gets near it:
'And what but gentleness untired,
And what but noble feeling warm,
Wherever seen, howe'er inspired,
Is grace, is charm?'
One can of course heap on words. Dr. Newman's style is pellucid, it is
animated, it is varied; at times icy cold, it oftener glows with a
fervent heat; it employs as its obedient and well-trained servant, a
vast vocabulary, and it does so always with the ease of the educated
gentleman, who by a sure instinct ever avoids alike the ugly pedantry of
the book-worm, the forbidding accents of the lawyer, and the stiff
conceit of the man of scientific theory. Dr. Newman's sentences
sometimes fall upon the ear like well-considered and final judgments,
each word being weighed and counted out with dignity and precision; but
at other times the demeanour and language of the judge are hastily
abandoned, and, substituted for them, we encounter the impetuous
torrent--the captivating rhetoric, the brilliant imagery, the frequent
examples, the repetition of the same idea in different words, of the
eager and accomplished advocate addressing men of like passions with
himself.
Dr. Newman always aims at effect, and never misses it. He writes as an
orator speaks, straight at you. His object is to convince, and to
convince by engaging your attention, exciting your interest, enlivening
your fancy. It is not his general practice to address the pure reason.
He knows (he well may) how little reason has to do with men's
convictions. 'I do not want,' he says, 'to be converted by a smart
syllogism.' In another place he observes: 'The heart is commonly reached
not through the reason--but through the imagination by means of direct
impressions, by the testimony of facts and events, by history and by
description. Persons influence us, voices melt us, books subdue us,
deeds inflame us.' I have elsewhere ventured upon a comparison between
Burke and Newman. Both men, despite their subtlety and learning and
super-refinement, their love of fine points and their splendid capacity
for stating them in language so apt as to make one's admiration
breathless, took very broad, common-sense, matter-of-fact views of
humanity, and ever had the ordinary man and woman in mind as they spoke
and wrote. Politics and Religion existed in their opinion, for the
benefit of plain folk, for Richard and for Jane, or, in other words, for
living bundles of hopes and fears, doubts and certainties, prejudices
and passions. Anarchy and Atheism are in their opinion the two great
enemies of the Human Race. How are they to be frustrated and confounded,
men and women being what they are? Dr. Newman, recluse though he is, has
always got the world stretched out before him; its unceasing roar sounds
in his ear as does the murmur of ocean in the far inland shell. In one
of his Catholic Sermons, the sixth of his Discourses to Mixed
Congregations, there is a gorgeous piece of rhetoric in which he
describes the people looking in at the shop-windows and reading
advertisements in the newspapers. Many of his pages positively glow with
light and heat and colour. One is at times reminded of Fielding. And all
this comparing, and distinguishing, and illustrating, and appealing, and
describing, is done with the practised hand of a consummate writer and
orator. He is as subtle as Gladstone, and as moving as Erskine; but
whereas Gladstone is occasionally clumsy and Erskine is frequently
crude, Newman is never clumsy, Newman is never crude, but always
graceful, always mellowed.
Humour he possesses in a marked degree. A quiet humour, of course, as
befits his sober profession and the gravity of the subjects on which he
loves to discourse. It is not the humour that is founded on a lively
sense of the incongruous. This kind, though the most delightful of all,
is apt, save in the hands of the great masters, the men whom you can
count upon your fingers, to wear a slightly professional aspect. It
happens unexpectedly, but all the same we expect it to happen, and we
have got our laughter ready. Newman's quiet humour always takes us
unawares, and is accepted gratefully, partly on account of its intrinsic
excellence, and partly because we are glad to find that the
'Pilgrim pale with Paul's sad girdle bound'
has room for mirth in his heart.
In sarcasm Dr. Newman is pre-eminent. Here his extraordinary powers of
compression, which are little short of marvellous in one who has also
such a talent for expansion, come to his aid and enable him to squeeze
into a couple of sentences, pleadings, argument, judgment, and
execution. Had he led the secular life, and adopted a Parliamentary
career, he would have been simply terrific, for his weapons of offence
are both numerous and deadly. His sentences stab--his invective
destroys. The pompous high-placed imbecile mouthing his platitudes, the
wordy sophister with his oven full of half-baked thoughts, the ill-bred
rhetorician with his tawdry aphorisms, the heartless hate-producing
satirist, would have gone down before his sword and spear. But God was
merciful to these sinners: Newman became a Priest and they Privy
Councillors.
And lastly, all these striking qualities and gifts float about in a
pleasant atmosphere. As there are some days even in England when merely
to go out and breathe the common air is joy, and when, in consequence,
that grim tyrant, our bosom's lord
'Sits lightly in his throne,'
so, to take up almost any one of Dr. Newman's books, and they are
happily numerous--between twenty and thirty volumes--is to be led away
from 'evil tongues,' and the 'sneers of selfish men,' from the mud and
the mire, the shoving and pushing that gather and grow round the
pig-troughs of life, into a diviner ether, a purer air, and is to spend
your time in the company of one who, though he may sometimes astonish,
yet never fails to make you feel (to use Carlyle's words about a very
different author), 'that you have passed your evening well and nobly, as
in a temple of wisdom, not ill and disgracefully as in brawling tavern
supper-rooms with fools and noisy persons.'
The tendency to be egotistical noticeable in some persons who are free
from the faintest taint of egotism is a tendency hard to account
for--but delightful to watch.
'Anything,' says glorious John Dryden, 'though ever so little, which a
man speaks of himself--in my opinion, is still too much.' A sound
opinion most surely, and yet how interesting are the personal touches we
find scattered up and down Dryden's noble prefaces. So with Newman--his
dignity, his self-restraint, his taste, are all the greatest stickler
for a stiff upper lip and the consumption of your own smoke could
desire, and yet the personal note is frequently sounded. He is never
afraid to strike it when the perfect harmony that exists between his
character and his style demands its sound, and so it has come about that
we love what he has written because he wrote it, and we love him who
wrote it because of what he has written.
I now approach by far the pleasantest part of my task, namely, the
selection of two or three passages from Dr. Newman's books by way of
illustrating what I have taken the liberty to say are notable
characteristics of his style.