CURRENT LITERATURE.
Newraanianism. A Preface to the Second Edition of " Philo- raythus," Containing a reply to the Editor of the Spectator, a few words to Mr. Wilfrid Ward, and some remarks on Mr. R. H. Hutton's "Cardinal Newman." By Edwin A. Abbott. (Macmillan and Co.)—Dr. Abbott has written a new preface to "Philomythus," which seems to us very injudicious, and in one or two respects more than injudicious. Into the criticism on the Spectator it is impossible to enter in any adequate way in a newspaper, without claiming far too much space for small details of the kind treated by Dr. Abbott. We are only sorry that our previous impression of his treatment of Newman is not shaken but confirmed. And there we shall leave the matter, as far at least as this journal is concerned. It was not generous in Dr. Abbott to say of a much younger man, "Mr. Ward gives at present few or no signs of being an adequate scholar," without any kind of attempt to justify a sentence which will be taken by all who road it to mean that Mr. Ward has shown himself to be a very inferior scholar. We have no knowledge of the quality of Mr. Ward's general scholarship, but assuredly there ie nothing in the world in any- thing he has written in reply to Dr. Abbott, to prove that he may not be as good a scholar as Dr. Abbott himself. As the Guardian of the 20th inst. recognises, Dr. Abbott has not replied with any effect to Mr. Ward's criticism. It was also not right, we think, and certainly not in conformity with a wise etiquette, to publish the substance of a private note hastily written, and written without the care with which anything in- tended for publication should be written, in order to prove that a literary antagonist was both careless and angry. In the case referred to, Mr. Hutton was certainly careless as to figures, though not so careless as Dr. Abbott makes out, and was also angry, though not with anything that Dr. Abbott had said on the main issue, but at what seemed to him the unreasonableness of asking for the insertion of a second mammoth letter, when at con- siderable inconvenience so huge a letter as his first had been accepted without a single omission or abbreviation. But to make use of a careless, and no doubt somewhat irritable, private note of this kind without asking leave, just for the sake of getting a. petty triumph over a very busy antagonist, seems to us something more than injudicious. For the rest, Dr. Abbott is extremely indignant with Mr. Hutton for not embodying in his second edition of his Cardinal Newman, corrections of which Dr. Abbott had kindly given him notice. But the truth is, that on -writing to the publishers with that view, he was told that it was already too late, and this though the second edition did not actually appear for some months afterwards. For the rest, the most re- markable passage in this new Preface, and almost the only one with the sentiment of which we can heartily agree, except so far as concerns the rather heavy irony against his antagonists in giving them such inappropriate classical names, is the following :—
"At this stage of the controversy a weariness sets in. An in- describable feeling of disgust, partly with others, partly with circumstances, partly with myself, comes creeping over me, and brings with it a half-wish to cancel all that I have written, and to cast Mr. Hutton and Mr. Ward (metaphorically) to the winds, leaving my sincerity, my honesty, and my attempts (inadequate I know) at accurate criticism, to take care of themselves. I hate all this cut-and thrust gladiatorial exhibition, not because I am afraid of Nisus and Euryalus combined. for I flatter myself that my retiarian tactics are sufficient for two such heavy- armed antagonists in their fullest panoply."
We recommend those of our readers who care for the study of Cardinal Newman to read Dr. Abbott's "Philomythus," and also his new Preface, and we shall be surprised if they do not find that he did, not write either the one or the other in the spirit which inspired the above sentences. Newman is not an author to be got up in a hurry. Dr. Abbott has been getting him up in a hurry, and for a controversial purpose.
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