uncritical, and much of his theology is founded on his history and his criticism. His Arians and his Via Media, his Anglican Difficulties, even his Grammar of Assent, have mainly a personal interest to commend them.
And yet what literary powers were those that thus seem to have been squandered away on temporary objects! Bizarre as his reasoning seemed to most of us, how subtly he weaved the weft of it! Dealing for the most part with subjects remote from human interest, he would so order his argument that it would have the attraction of a plot for us. Topics that seemed forbidding both for their theological technicalities and their repulse of reason were presented by him with such skill that they appeared as inevitable as Euclid and as attractive as Plato. All the resources of a master of English style—except, perhaps, one, description—were at his command; pure diction, clear arrangement, irony, dignity, a copious command of words combined with a reserve in the use of them—all these qualities went to make up the charm of Newman's style, the finest flower that the earlier system of a purely classical education has produced. It is curious, by the way, that the only two men of our time who have written on theology and possessed a style, Dr. Martineau and Newman, have had
