"Events have proved that Russia, too, painfully knew her own weakness. Probably he" (Louis Napoleon) "already in December knew that she knew it, and the war was far too unpopular with the French to be continued except on a different policy, with new necessities and new prizes to be won. Our policy from March, 1853, to March, 1855, was so hollow and so silly, that no wisdom could afterwards bring things right, or make the results of the war worthy of the cost; but the _comparative_ result in March, 1856, is so vast a gain over what nine out of ten of our statesmen (so called) were projecting to accept in March, 1855, that I cannot open my lips against the peace in itself. I could not in any case wish the war continued, except on new principles for worthier objects. However, Russia has really had a terrible lesson, and a great humiliation. That she could not take Silistria or Kars against Turkish troops, except by the accident of famine, will never be forgotten by German armies or statesmen.... The native Russian peasants and low persons do not _yet_ know that the Czar was beaten; they suppose him to have conquered with immense cost; but the nobility knew the truth, and it will leak through to the lowest people, I expect, in the course of a few years. I think Europe has a respite of a quarter of a century from the incubus of Russia; and _if_ in that interval the Hapsburgs are overthrown, all will yet come right. I fear we are still forced again (in spite of Mazzini and Kossuth) to regard the French as having the initiative of revolutions. I have resolved to give up all extra and needless effort of the brain, until I can really get rid of certain morbid symptoms, quite chronic, which distress me, so that my projected Latin analysis lies in embryo. "... I have had satisfactory approval of my _Iliad_ from my brother, Dr. Newman, a fastidious critic and practical poet, as also from other private quarters which I count much on; but reviews as yet do not notice me.... I have no high expectation of the very existence of the book becoming known, except slowly to many who might perhaps be glad of it if they knew it.... "Ever your faithful friend, "F. W. Newman." In October of the same year he thus speaks of the School of University College:-- "... The School of U.C. is remarkably full of pupils this season. My junior class has unusually _old_ pupils; I do not yet know their quality. One (a Mr. Sassoon, a Jew?) [Footnote: Probably this was the father of the present Sir Edward Sassoon, second Baronet.] I mistook for a German, but he told me he is an Arab of Hindoo birth, and talks a little Arab and Hindostanee, but knows more of English than of any other language. His English is good, though the pronunciation is a little foreign."