Newman, FRANCIS WILLIAM

Newman, FRANCIS WILLIAM, brother of the preceding, was born in London in 1805, and educated at a private school at Ealing. Thence he passed to Worcester College, Oxford, where he obtained first-class honours in classics and mathematics in 1826, and, in the same year, a fellowship in Balliol College. This fellowship, however, he resigned; and he withdrew from the university in 1830, at the approach of the time for taking the degree of M.A., declining the subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles, which was required from candidates for the degree. After a three years' stay in the East, he was appointed classical tutor in Bristol College, 1834. In 1840 he accepted a similar professorship in Manchester New College, and in 1846 his reputation led to his being appointed to the chair of Latin in University College, London, which he held till 1863; meanwhile he was an active contributor to numerous literary and scientific periodicals, and to various branches of ancient and modern literature. In controversies on religion he took a part directly opposite to that chosen by his elder brother, being no less eager for a religion in his view more world-wide, and including whatever is best in the historical religions. Phases of Faith is by far the most widely diffused of his works, simply because it was mainly negative; but it was preceded by a book called The Soul (1849), which aimed to show a solid ground for divine aspirations in the human heart. He died at Weston-super-Mare on the 4th of October 1897. Vol. i. of his Miscellanies (1869) was followed by vol. ii., consisting of moral and religious essays, in 1887; vol. iii., Politica, in 1889; and by vol. iv., Economica, in 1890. Other works were a History of the Hebrew Monarchy (1847); a Dictionary of Modern Arabic, in Romanised type (2 vols. 1871); a Handbook of Modern Arabic (1866), giving the dialect now used by literary men in all Arab-speaking regions; and a Libyan Vocabulary (1882), in which, cutting out the Arabic, he tried to reproduce the old Numidian, Mauretanian, and Gætulian. He also published two mathematical volumes, one on Elliptic Integrals (1888-89); and a small book on the earlier life of his brother, Cardinal Newman (1891).