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the "Apologia", "Phaethon has got into the chariot
of the sun; we, alas, can only look on, and watch him
down the steep of heaven." In Mark Pattison's
phrase, "the University has been secularized." The
Noetics of Oriel were followed by the Broad Church-
men of Balliol, and these by the agnostics of a more re-
cent period. From Whateley and Arnold, through the
stormy days of "Tract 90" and Ward's "degrada-
tion", we come down to the Roj'al Commission of
1854, which created modern Oxford. Subscription to
the Articles was done away; fellowships ceased to be
what some one has styled "clerical preserves"; there
was an "outbreak of infidelity", says Pattison with a
sneer, and names like Arthur Clough, Matthew Ar-
nold, J. A. Froude, Jowett, and Max Miiller trium-
phantly declare that the Liberals had conquered.
Newman lost the university, but he held it entranced for years by his \isible greatness, by his preaching, and by his friendships. The sermons, of which eight vol- umes are extant, afforded a severe yet most persuasive commentary upon tracts and treatises, in themselves always of large outlook and of nervous though formal style. These, annotated after 1870 from the Catholic point of view, were reprinted in "Via Media", "His- torical Sketches", " Discu.ssions and Arguments", and two volumes of "Essays" (see popular edition of his Works, 1895). Keble republished Hooker as if an Anglo-Catholic Aquinas (finished 1836); and from the chair of poetry were delivered his graceful Latin " Praelections", deeply imbued with the same religious colouring. Hurrell Froude attempted a sketch of his own hero, St. Thomas k Becket, pattern of all anti- Erastians. Bowden compiled the life of Pope Gregory Vn, evidently for the like motive. Nor were poetical manifestos wanting. To the "Lyra Apostolica" we may attribute a strong influence over many who could not grasp the subtle reasoning which filled Newman's "Prophetic Office". Concerning the verses from his pen. A. J. Froude observ'es that, in spite of their some- what rude form, "they had pierced into the heart and mind and there remained". "Lead, Kindly Light", he adds, "is perhaps the most popular hvmn in the language." Here, indeed, "were thoughts like no other man's thoughts, and emotions like no other man's emotions". To the "Lyra" Keble and others also contributed poems. And High Anglican stories began to appear in print.
But inspiration needed a constant power behind it, if the tracts were not to be a flash in the pan. It was given in 1834 and 1835 by the accession to the move- ment of E. B. Pusey, Canon of Christ Church and Hebrew professor. Pusey had enormous erudition, gained in part at German universities; he was of high social standing (always impressive to Englishmen), and revered as a saint for his devout life, his munifi- cence, his gravity. Though a "dull and tedious preacher", most confused and unrhetorical, the weight of his learning was felt. He took the place that Mr. Rose could not have occupied long. At once the world out of doors looked up to him as official head of the movement. It came to be known as "Puseyism" at home and abroad. University wits had jested about "Newmaniacs" and likened the Vicar of St. Mary's to the conforming Jew, Neander; but "Puseyite" was a serious term even in rebuke. The Tractarian leader showed a deference to this "great man" which was al- ways touching ; yet they agreed less than Pusey under- stood. Towards Rome itself the latter felt no draw- ing; Newman's fierceness betrayed the impatience of a thwarted affection. "O that thy creed were sound, thou Church of Rome!" he exclaimed in the bitterness of his heart. Pusey, always mild, had none of that ' ' hysterical passion ' ' . Neither did he regard the j udg- ment of bishops as decisive, nor was he troubled by them if they ran counter to the Fathers' teaching, so intimately known to this unwearied student.
He was "a man of large designs", confident in his
position, "haunted by no intellectual perplexities".
He welcomed responsibility, a little too much some-
times; and now he gave the tracts a more important
character. His own in 1S35 on Holy Baptism was an
elaborate treatise, which led to others on a similar
model. In 1836 he advertised his great project for a
translation or "library" of the Fathers, which was exe-
cuted mainly in conjunction with the pious and eccen-
tric Charles Marriot. The republication of Anglican
divines, from Andrewes onwards, likewise owed its in-
ception to Pusey. The instauratio magna of theology
and devotion, intended to be purely Catholic, thus
made a beginning. It has taken on it since the largest
dimensions, and become not only learned but popular;
Anglican experts have treated the liturgy, church his-
tory, books for guidance in the spiritual life, hymnol-
ogy, architecture, and ritual with a copious knowledge
and remarkable success. Of these enterprises Dr.
Pusey was the source and for many years the standard.
In 1836 Hurrell Froude, returning from Barbadoea in the last stage of weakness, died at his father's house in Devonshire. His "Remains", of which we shall speak presently, were published in 1837. Newman's dearest friend was taken from him just as a fresh scene opened, with alarums and excursions to be repeated during half a century — legal "persecutions", acts of reprisals, fallings away on the right hand and the left. Froude died on 28 Feb., 1836. In May Dr. Hampden — who had been appointed, thanks to Whateley, Re- gius Professor of Divinity on 7 Feb. — was censured by the heads of houses, the governing board of the uni- versity, for the unsound doctrine taught in his " Bamp- ton Lectures". All the Oxford residents at this time, except a handful, were incensed by what they consid- ered the perils to faith which Dr. Hampden's free- thought was provoking. But it was Newman who, by his "Elucidations", pointed the charge, and gave to less learned combatants an excuse for condemning what they had not read. Nemesis lay in wait on his threshold. The Evangelicals who trooped into Con- vocation to vote against Hampden "avowed their desire that the next time they were brought up to Oxford, it might be to put down the Popery of the Movement".
At this date even Pusey celebrated the Reformers as "the founders of our Church"; and that largely fabulous account of the past which Newman calls "the Protestant tradition" was believed on all sides. Im- agine, then, how shocked and alarmed were old-fash- ioned parsons of everj- type when Froude's letters and diaries upset "with amazing audacity" the.se "popu- lar and conventional estimates"; when the Reforma- tion was described as "a limb badly set", its apologist Jewel flung aside as "an irreverent Dis.senter", its reasoning against the CathoUc mysteries denounced as the fruit of a proud spirit which would make short work of Christianity itself. Froude, in his graphic cor- respondence, appeared to be the enfant terrible who had no reserves and no respect for "idols" whether of the market-place or the theatre. Friends were pained, foes exultant; "sermons and newspapers", says Dean Church, "drew attention to Froude's extravagances with horror and disgust". The editors, Keble no less than Newman, had miscalculated the effect, which was widely irritating and which increased the suspi- cion their own writings had excited of some deep-laid plot in favourof Rome (Letter to Faussett, June, 1835). To be at once imprudent and insidious might seem be- yond man's power; but such was the reputation Trac- tarians bore from that day. Froude's outspoken judg- ments, however, marked the turning of the tide in eccle.sia.stical history. " The divines of the Reforma- tion", continues DeanJZJhurch, "never can be again, with their confused Calvinism, with their shifting opin- ions, their extravagant deference to the foreign oracles of Geneva and Zurich, their subservience to bad men in power, the heroes and saints of Churchmen." Since
