English literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism; Great Britain -- Intellectual life -- 19th century
In the ranks of the movement so initiated were included an unusual number
of men who must be classed among the 'might-have-beens' of literature; men
of great reputation eclipsed by premature death, men who never wrote, or
men whose writings disappointed expectation. Nearly all its members had
literary tastes, a fact not surprising when we consider how large a part
imagination played in its start and development. But Hurrell Froude, one
of the most daring-minded men engaged in it, died early, leaving only
inadequate remains as evidence of his great gifts. W. G. Ward lived, but
only to prove by his _Ideal of a Christian Church_ that the power of
writing good English was not among his endowments; and if the poetry of
Keble is only second or even third-rate, that of Isaac Williams, a
versifier of the movement, is of lower grade still. Manning was more the
man of action than the man of letters; while the work of Dean Church and
Canon Liddon, both of whom had marked literary talents, falls principally
outside the limits of this period. There remain two remarkable men, one
the very soul of the movement, the other its greatest recruit, who have
attained, the first a great, the second a respectable place in letters.
These are Cardinal Newman and Pusey, of whom the latter may be considered
the exception to the rule that the Tractarians were by nature and instinct
men of letters. Pusey was not; he was rather the technical theologian with
no direct interest in letters at all.
[Sidenote: John Henry Newman (1801-1890).]
John Henry Newman has been described by J. A. Froude, in language hardly
too strong, as 'the indicating number' of the movement, all the others
being, in comparison with him, but as cyphers. The story of Newman's inner
life has been told with inimitable grace in the _Apologia pro Vita Sua_,
and this is not only his greatest contribution to literature, but the best
document for his life and doctrines. There are few studies more
interesting than the contrast presented by this book on the one side, and
the _Phases of Faith_ by its author's brother, F. W. Newman, on the other.
The younger Newman too has a mind prone to religion, but he decides to
rest in reason, while his brother leans upon authority. Not unnaturally
they drift very far apart; not unnaturally too the author of the _Phases
of Faith_ is amazed that it took his brother ten years to discover whither
he was going.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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