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[Letter of Francis William Newman to Dr. Chapman] 10 Circus Road, Dear Sir, I thank you for the second copy of the W.R. which duly arrived. I suppose the former is in some of the offices of the P.D.Cy. I did not know where to inquire, & was too preoccupied. I am still trying to rearrange my books & papers. I only learnt that "a lad in fustian jacket brought a book & took it away again," and am not sure that this was not a gentleman's servant bringing me the Xtian Reformer. As regards the power of Quarterlies to influence pending politics, they seem to me always to come too late. If the two excellent articles on Foreign Politics in the last number of WR could have come out two months earlier, they might have been of much value. I suspect that the Queen has consented to this vexatious Dissolution of Parliament, because Prince Albert tells her it is the only chance for getting efficient support to Austria. He will entangle us on that side, if he can. I thank you for your offer of such book as I might desire among those which are presented to the W.R. The coveting of books is insatiable—I am now coveting Jowett, you see; yet my recent move has reproved me for having so many books more than I ever use or am likely to use. Yet in 3 years I have given away as much as three good sized trunks of books. I hope I shall like my topic (Jowett) the better, the deeper I get into it. Sincerely yours,
P.S. I make no doubt that Mazzini's "criminal attack on the forts of Genoa" was the crisis of his decadence & of the rise of Piedmont; & I thought the writer of the article substantially just, as regards Mazzini's public policy. But when he pointedly imputes to M. the refusing to promote Italian nationality in any but a republican form, he imputes what M. as pointedly & urgently denies, & complains vehemently against the opposite statement as a Piedmontese slander. . . .
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