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 NEWMAN

NEWNES

Legion of Honour, and Knight of the Prussian Order Pour le Merite ; and he was at various times President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1877), the American Mathe matical Society (1897-98), and the Astro nomical and Astrophysical Society of America (1899 and 1905). More than three hundred papers and a number of books were written by him. Newcomb was a well-known Eationalist. &quot; It seems difficult,&quot; he said, &quot; to assign any limit in the series at which we can suppose so great a break to have occurred as is implied in the passage from mortality to immortality &quot; (quoted by E. Proctor in Knowledge, Oct. 1, 1888, p. 281). D. July 11, 1909.

NEWMAN, Ernest, musical critic. B. Nov. 30, 1868. Ed. Liverpool College and University. He was intended for the Indian Civil Service, but his health broke down, and he abandoned study and entered business in Liverpool. He devoted himself to musical and literary work in his leisure, and in 1903 joined the staff of the Birmingham Midland Institute. In 1905 he became musical critic of the Manchester Guardian, and since 1906 he has been musical critic of the Birmingham Post. He is also musical critic of the Observer. His works on music are numerous (Gluck and the Opera, 1895 ; E. Strauss, 1908, etc.), and he is a special authority on Wagner. In his Study of Wagner (1899) he dissents from even the sentimental Christianity of the great composer and declares himself a Eationalist (pp. 357-60).

NEWMAN, Professor Francis William,

B.A., writer. B. June 27, 1805. Ed. pri vate school Ealing, and Oxford (Worcester College). At Oxford he began to diverge from his famous elder brother, John Henry, and became rather sceptical about immortality. Their father, a London banker, a great admirer of Franklin and Jefferson, had been a very liberal man, if not a Eationalist. Francis won his degree

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with double first in classics and mathe matics, but he refused to subscribe to the Articles, and so never became M.A. In 1827-28 he was a private tutor in Dublin. After some years travel in the East he became classical tutor at Bristol College, and in 1840 professor of classical literature at Manchester New College, Oxford. At this time he was a liberal Christian, and in his Catholic Union (1844) he appeals for a union of all the sects on an ethical basis. From 1845 to 1869 he was professor of Latin at London University College, and in 1848 he became Principal of University Hall. Newman translated Horace and Homer, and was a fine classical scholar ; but he is best remembered for the literary works in which he discusses religious questions. Mr. Benn regards his Phases of Faith (1850) as &quot; the most formidable direct attack ever made against Christianity in England.&quot; He was a devout Theist. In 1876 he joined the Unitarian Association, and in 1879 he was its Vice-President ; but he came in time entirely to reject the doctrine of immortality, and .was thus a decided non-Christian and dissenter from Unitarianism. Mr. Benn, in his History, shows that in The Soul (1849) Newman was uncertain about it ; in Theism (1858) he accepted it ; and in his Palinodia he firmly rejected it. See also his Mature Thoughts on Christianity (1897) and an article on Newman s religion in the Fort nightly Review, July, 1905. Newman sup ported women suffrage and other reforms of his time, and wrote various literary and social works. His intellect was never clouded by the obscurantism, and his stern character never tainted by the casuistry, which befel his more brilliant brother, the Cardinal. Their younger brother, Charles Eobert, who died in 1884, was an even more advanced Eationalist, but an un fortunate temperament and poor health condemned him to obscurity. Francis Newman died Oct. 4, 1897.

NEWNES, Sir George, Baronet, pub lisher. B. Mar. 13, 1851. Ed. private 552