FOOTNOTES:
[97] Τόλμα ἀλόγιστος ἀνδρία φιλέταιρος ἐνομίσθη … τὸ δὲ σῶφρον τοῦ ἀνάνδρου πρόσχημα, καὶ τὸ πρὸς ἄπαν ξυνετὸν ἐπὶ πᾶν ἀργόν τὸ δὲ ὲμπλήκτως ὀξὐ ἀνδρὸς μοίρᾳ προσετέθη … καὶ ὁ μὲν χαλεπαίνων πιστὸς ἀεί, ὁ δὲ ἀντιλέγων αὐτῷ ὕποπτος.—Thuc. iii. 82. "Reckless daring was held to be loyal courage; moderation was the disguise of unmanly weakness; to know everything was to do nothing; frantic energy was the true character of a man; the lover of violence was always trusted, and his opponent suspected."—Jowett's translation.
[98] One of the strangest features in the conflict was the entire misconception shown of what Mr. Newman was—the blindness to his real character and objects—the imputation to him not merely of grave faults, but of small and mean ones. His critics could not rise above the poorest measure of his intellect and motives. One of the ablest of them, who had once been his friend, in a farewell letter of kindly remonstrance, specifies certain Roman errors, which he hopes that Mr. Newman will not fall into—adoring images and worshipping saints—as if the pleasure and privilege of worshipping images and saints were to Mr. Newman the inducement to join Rome and break the ties of a lifetime. And so of his moral qualities. A prominent Evangelical leader, Dr. Close of Cheltenham, afterwards Dean of Carlisle, at a complimentary dinner, in which he himself gloried in the "foul, personal abuse to which he had been subjected in his zeal for truth," proceeded to give his judgment on Mr. Newman: "When I first read No. 90, I did not then know the author; but I said then, and I repeat here, not with any personal reference to the author, that I should be sorry to trust the author of that Tract with my purse,"—Report of Speech in Cheltenham Examiner, 1st March 1843.
[99] οὐ γὰρ ἀπόχρη τὸ ἔχειν ἄ δεῖ λέγειν, ἀλλ' ἀνάγκη καὶ ταῦτο ὠς δεῖ είπεῖν.—Arist. Rhet. iii. I.
[100] Dr. Richards, the Rector of Exeter, seems to have stood apart from his brother heads.—Cf. Letters of the Rev. J.B. Mozley, p. 113.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE THREE DEFEATS:
ISAAC WILLIAMS, MACMULLEN, PUSEY
The year 1841, though it had begun in storm, and though signs were not wanting of further disturbance, was at Oxford, outwardly at least, a peaceable one. A great change had happened; but, when the first burst of excitement was over, men settled down to their usual work, their lectures, or their reading, or their parishes, and by Easter things seemed to go on as before. The ordinary habits of University life resumed their course with a curious quietness. There was, no doubt, much trouble brooding underneath. Mr. Ward and others continued a war of pamphlets; and in June Mr. Ward was dismissed from his Mathematical Lectureship at Balliol. But faith in the great leader was still strong. No. 90, if it had shocked or disquieted some, had elicited equally remarkable expressions of confidence and sympathy from others who might have been, at least, silent. The events of the spring had made men conscious of what their leader was, and called forth warm and enthusiastic affection. It was not in vain that, whatever might be thought of the wisdom or the reasonings of No. 90, he had shown the height of his character and the purity and greatness of his religious purpose; and that being what he was, in the eyes of all Oxford, he had been treated with contumely, and had borne it with patience and loyal submission. There were keen observers, to whom that patience told of future dangers; they would have liked him to show more fight. But he gave no signs of defeat, nor, outwardly, of disquiet; he forbore to retaliate at Oxford: and the sermons at St. Mary's continued, penetrating and searching as ever, perhaps with something more pathetic and anxious in their undertone than before.
But if he forbore at Oxford, he did not let things pass outside. Sir Robert Peel, in opening a reading-room at Tamworth, had spoken loosely, in the conventional and pompous way then fashionable, of the all-sufficing and exclusive blessings of knowledge. While Mr. Newman was correcting the proofs of No. 90, he was also writing to the Times the famous letters of Catholicus; a warning to eminent public men of the danger of declaiming on popular commonplaces without due examination of their worth. But all seemed quiet. "In the summer of 1841," we read in the Apologia, "I found myself at Littlemore without any harass or anxiety on my mind. I had determined to put aside all controversy, and set myself down to my translation of St. Athanasius." Outside of Oxford there was a gathering of friends in the summer at the consecration of one of Mr. Keble's district churches, Ampfield—an occasion less common and more noticeable then than now. Again, what was a new thought then, a little band of young Oxford men, ten or twelve, taxed themselves to build a new church, which was ultimately placed at Bussage, in Mr. Thomas Keble's parish. One of Mr. Keble's curates, Mr. Peter Young, had been refused Priest's orders by the Bishop of Winchester, for alleged unsoundness on the doctrine of the Eucharist. Mr. Selwyn, not without misgivings on the part of the Whig powers, had been appointed Bishop of New Zealand. Dr. Arnold had been appointed to the Chair of Modern History at Oxford. In the course of the year there passed away one who had had a very real though unacknowledged influence on much that had happened—Mr. Blanco White. And at the end of the year, 29th October, Mr. Keble gave his last lecture on Poetry, and finished a course the most original and memorable ever delivered from his chair.