An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent

IT will be admitted by all Father Newman's readers, that this is the hardest work he has ever written. Hitherto it has been his habit to diversify his treatment of a grave subject by rhetorical and descriptive episodes, which recreate and charm the reader and give him fresh spirit for abstract thought; but in the present work he seems so sensibly influenced by the gravity of the task which he has undertaken, as to be incapable of digression. Then, again, he is proceeding for the most part on ground, which has hitherto been almost untrodden, and on which he does but profess to furnish "aids" towards the formation of "a grammar." And the consequence of all this is, that, notwithstanding the profusion of his exquisite illustrations, and notwithstanding his marvellous command of the English language—which he always indeed moulds to his purpose as though it had been invented for the very end of expressing his thoughts—the present Essay is very hard reading. We think then that F. Newman would have rendered very important service, had he done no more than drawn prominent attention to this noteworthy lacuna. But in fact he has treated the whole subject thus opened out, in a manner which impresses us as being at once strikingly original and at the same time in profound harmony with known truths and facts. No doubt, in several particulars he has contented himself with opening a new vein of thought, without by any means attempting to exhaust it: he has suggested many a principle, which he has left to others to exhibit in its full issue. But this was simply inevitable in so original a work. -Dublin Review, vol. xiv., April, 1870.