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Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman by Giberne Sieveking

G >> Giberne Sieveking >> Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman



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MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF FRANCIS W. NEWMAN




[Illustration: FROM A DAGUERREOTYPE OF 1851. PHOTO BY JOHN DAVIES,
WESTON-SUPER-MARE
Frontispiece]




MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF FRANCIS W. NEWMAN

BY
I. GIBERNE SIEVEKING

_outos ge axios estin epainesthai ostis an tois hetairois os teleion ti on
protithae to eu neoterizein taen ton pollon katastasin_



THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO MY MOTHER




CONTENTS

TO THE READER WHO UNDERSTANDS.

I. FRANCIS NEWMAN'S ANCESTORS.

II. THE TWO BROTHERS--SCHOOL AND COLLEGE DAYS.

III. FRANCIS NEWMAN'S MISSIONARY JOURNEY TO THE EAST.

IV. HIS MARRIAGE: HIS MOTHER'S DEATH: HIS CLASSICAL TUTORSHIP AT
BRISTOL IN 1834.

V. FRIENDSHIP WITH DR. MARTINEAU.

VI. FRANCIS NEWMAN AS A TEACHER.

VII. LETTERS TO ONE OF HIS GREATEST FRIENDS, DR. NICHOLSON.

VIII. LETTERS TO DR. NICHOLSON FROM NEWMAN DURING THE FOLLOWING YEARS:
1850 TO 1859.

IX. LETTERS TO DR. NICHOLSON: CONTINUED.

X. LETTERS WRITTEN TO MISS ANNA SWANWICK BETWEEN 1871 AND 1887.

XI. THE STORY OF TWO PATRIOTS.

XII. FOUR BARBARISMS OF CIVILIZATION.

XIII. SOME LEGISLATIVE REFORMS SUGGESTED BY LECTURE AND ARTICLE

XIV. DECENTRALIZATION AND LAND REFORM

XV. VEGETARIANISM

XVI. NATIVE REPRESENTATION IN INDIAN GOVERNMENT

XVII. VOTES FOR WOMEN

XVIII. FRANCIS NEWMAN AND HIS RELIGION

XIX. LAST YEARS, CHARACTERISTICS, AND SOME LETTERS RELATING TO THE
"EARLY LIFE OF THE CARDINAL"

XX. TOULMIN SMITH: AUTHOR, ANTIQUARIAN STUDENT, AND POLITICAL REFORMER

XXI. LANDOWNERS AND WAGE RECEIVERS

XXII. THE RIGHT AND DUTY OF EVERY STATE TO ENFORCE SOBRIETY ON ITS
CITIZENS




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


PHOTO OF FRANCIS NEWMAN
From a Daguerreotype of 1851. Photo by Mr. John Davies, Weston-super-Mare.

JOHN NEWMAN
Father of Cardinal Newman and Francis Newman. From an old portrait. By
kind permission of Mr. J. R. Mozley.

SEALE'S COFFEE HOUSE, OXFORD
Now demolished. Done from an old drawing in the year when Francis Newman
and John Henry Newman stayed there with Blanco White.

WORCESTER COLLEGE, OXFORD
Specially photographed for this Memoir.

WORTON CHURCH, OXFORDSHIRE
From an old print. By kind permission of Rev. W. H. Langhorne.

HOLY TRINITY CHURCH, WEST END, OVER WORTON
By kind permission of Rev. W. H. Langhorne, present Rector of Worton.

OVER WORTON RECTORY, OXFORDSHIRE
By kind permission of Rev. W. H. Langhorne, present Rector of Worton.

PHOTO FROM SKETCH OF THE NEWMAN FAMILY
By Maria Rosina Giberne. By kind permission of Mr. J. R. Mozley.

MARIA ROSINA GIBERNE
From a painting by herself.

PHOTO OF LORD CONGLETON
Leader of Syrian Missionary Journey. From his _Life_ by Groves.

DR. CRONIN
One of those who went to Syria with Francis Newman in 1830. From a photo
by Messrs. Webster, Clapham Common. By kind permission of Mrs. Cronin.

PERSIAN LADY AND PERSIAN SMOKING, DATE 1827
From _Persia_ in "Modern Traveller" series, 1830.

MARIA KENNAWAY
Francis Newman's first wife. From a miniature. Photo by Messrs. Webster,
Clapham Common. By kind permission of Sir John Kennaway.

DR. MARTINEAU
From the painting by A. E. Elmslie.

FRANCIS NEWMAN
In middle age. From photo by John Davies, Weston-super-Mare.

PHOTO OF BRONZE BUST OF FRANCIS NEWMAN
Emeritus Professor of London University. By Mrs. Georgina Bainsmith,
sculptor, of St. Ives, Cornwall. The bust is now in University College,
London.

ANOTHER VIEW OF THE BUST IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE (OF FRANCIS NEWMAN), ON ITS
PLINTH
By Mrs. Georgina Bainsmith, sculptor, of St. Ives, Cornwall. This
reproduction is by Mr. J. C. Douglas, of St. Ives, Cornwall, and was
photographed from the clay before it was cast.

DR. NICHOLSON
From a photo taken at Gottingen between 1855 and 1860. By kind permission
of Miss Nicholson, Penrith.

FACSIMILE OF LETTER FROM FRANCIS NEWMAN, DECEMBER, 1855
20 WHITE ROCK PLACE, AND 1A CARLISLE PARADE, HASTINGS
From photos taken in 1909 by Valentine Edgar Sieveking.

ANNA SWANWICK
From a portrait painted by Miss V. Bruce.

LOUIS KOSSUTH

CERTIFICATE OF HUNGARIAN FUND

FACSIMILE OF LETTER FROM KOSSUTH TO MESSRS. SIEVEKING, JANUARY, 1854

TOULMIN SMITH
Enlargement from a photo. By kind permission of Miss Toulmin Smith.

CARDINAL NEWMAN
From an oil painting by Miss Deane, of Bath. Photo by Messrs. Webster,
Clapham Common.




TO THE READER WHO UNDERSTANDS


MY DEAR READER,

Rightly understood, the two points of view, as regards Religion, of the
brothers, Cardinal Newman and Francis Newman, which most separated them,
would, together, have approached the realization of a great conception.

For the Cardinal, Authority was the _sine qua non_ without which there
could be no real faith. Authority was the pilot, without whose steering he
could not feel secure in his personal ship. But with Authority at the
helm, his fears dispersed, his doubts removed.

"I was not ever thus.....
I loved to choose and see my path, but now
Lead Thou me on!"

Over Francis Newman, dogma and the authority of the Church had no sway. He
dimly discerned a religion which should move forward with men's advance in
knowledge. He imagined an unformalized inward revelation which should
reveal new truths to those who passionately desired Truth above all
things. And when all is said, the union of Authority given in the past,
with the very real mental development which makes for spiritual progress
in the present, is not antagonistic to a wise, strong breadth of view in
the conception of a perfect Church.

But in both points of view, carried to extremes, there are grave perils to
the man who thinks. And I find it impossible to avoid saying here that
Francis Newman did not realize this risk when he refused to "ask for the
old paths," and determined to "see and choose his path" alone and unaided.
We know what the endeavour to found a new church in Syria ended in. We
know how, later, he wrote, held back by no reverence for revealed
religion, no reverence for other men's belief in it. Many of his writings
therefore are painful reading. Though from very early boyhood he had been
really a keen seeker after true religion, an earnest student of the Holy
Scriptures, and a deep thinker, yet, very soon after he had reached young
manhood, it began to be realized by all who knew him that he was very
evidently breaking away from all definite dogmatic faith. He was bent, so
to speak, on inventing a new religion for himself.

Gradually every year made the spiritual breach wider between him and those
who held the Christian Faith. Soon he did not hesitate to say out, in very
unguarded language, what he really thought of doctrines which he knew were
precious to them. Sometimes to-day, indeed, in reading his books, one
comes across some statement in letter, article, or lecture flung out
almost venomously; and one steps back mentally as if a spiritual hiss had
whipped the air from some inimical sentence which had suddenly lifted its
heretical head from amongst an otherwise quiet group of words.

At the end of life it is said that he showed signs of some return to the
early faith of his boyhood. That he said, just before his death, to Rev.
Temperley Grey, who was visiting him in his last illness, "I feel Paul is
less and less to me; and Christ is more and more."

And those who knew that side of him which was splendid in its untiring
effort for the betterment of mankind--for the righting of wrongs to women,
and others unable to achieve it for themselves--cannot but hope that the
faith of earlier days was his once more, before he passed into the silence
that lies--as far as we are concerned in this world--at the back of Death.

I remember being told once, that of Stanley it was said by someone who
knew him well, that she had always felt that "he believed more than he
knew he did."

And when one thinks how Francis Newman looked up in faith--even though it
was an absolutely undogmatic, formless faith--to a God who watched over
mankind, one may hope that he too "believed more than he knew he did."

This life is only a short chapter in our existence. Personality is in its
essence immortal, though not unchanging in its presentment. Some of us
have many "phases of faith" even in this short existence. Some of us, like
St. Paul, only two. The first, fiery in its denunciations, and
persecutions and uncompromising attitude towards all who differed from him
as regards the Faith which afterwards, "when the scales had fallen from
his eyes," he was to champion. The second, just as splendid in its
enthusiasm for the doctrine he had formerly abused. Just as passionate in
righting the wrongs of the people, as once in his first phase of faith he
had been in enforcing persecution and injustice upon them. By now, Newman
may have gained _his_ second sight. Whatever was the shortsightedness of
Francis Newman's spiritual focus, there can be no manner of doubt that
_he_ was an earnest seeker after Truth, though his methods of search were
sorely to be regretted, in so far as doctrinal theory was concerned, as in
his judgments on his brother's career.

According to his lights he lived his life. It was a life spent always in
untiring, unselfish effort for the good of his fellows. He was always in
the forefront of Social Reform, of social high principle and justice. He
was, at any rate, one with St. Paul--that champion of Christian Socialism
--in his attitude towards that larger half of mankind whose wrongs need
righting. He, too, practically said by his life, "Who is weak, and _I_ am
not weak? Who is afflicted, and I _burn_ not?" to avenge the injustice.

To-day, if more of Francis Newman's social views were voiced again,
England might take a glad step forward. For, undoubtedly, he _had_ a
message to deliver. And, equally undoubtedly, he delivered it to his
generation.

This message of Social Reform sounded in men's ears fifty years ago.

In his memoir it sounds again to-day.

My very hearty thanks are due to the following persons who have most
kindly helped me in this "Memoir," by lending me letters and photographs;
by writing reminiscences, and giving information, etc.: Sir John Kennaway,
Bart., Sir Alfred Wills, Sir Edward Fry, Mr. William de Morgan, Father
Bacchus, Mr. Talfourd Ely, Mr. Winterbotham, the present Rector of Worton,
Mr. Norris Mathews, Mr. George Hare Leonard, Mr. George Pearson, Miss
Humphreys, Miss Nicholson, Mrs. Heather (_nee_ Wilson), Miss Bruce, Miss
Toulmin Smith, Miss Gertrude Martineau, Miss Elizabeth Pearson, Mrs.
Georgina Bainsmith, sculptor, Rev. Thomas Smith, Mrs. Kingsley Tarpey, Dr.
Makalua, and many others.

I. GIBERNE SIEVEKING.
1 EXMOUTH PLACE, HASTINGS.




MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF FRANCIS W. NEWMAN




CHAPTER I

HIS ANCESTORS


Of all the influences which have most to do in the making of an
individual, heredity is perhaps the greatest. It is the crucible in which
the gold and dross of many generations of his ancestors are melted down
and remixed in the man, who is, indeed, "a part of all" from whom he
claims descent.

There is no more engrossing study than to trace back through many a
century of ancestors, the various--often conflicting--elements which go to
make up the character of someone whose life (without the clue given by the
history of his forbears) is often a strange contradiction. Unable to
understand some disability which spoils an otherwise fine personality, one
looks back and there is the explanation. One's finger rests on the _raison
d'etre_ of this disability. Long since it had its birth, its inauguration,
in the squeeze, so to speak, into that strange crucible, of the taint, the
essence, of some ancestor's moral lapses, or of the effect of his moral,
mental, or physical ill-health.

Dr. Maudsley says very definitely that the faults, the disabilities, of
men and women of to-day, are sometimes an undesirable inheritance. "Mental
derangement in one generation is sometimes the cause of an innate
deficiency, or absence of the moral sense in the succeeding generation."

I remember once hearing a London doctor strongly emphasize the need for
every family to keep a careful, conscientious family record book, which
from generation to generation should act as a _vade mecum_--showing what
failings must be fought at all costs, and what connections avoided, if we
would not perpetuate disease. Such a thing, if done universally, might
check many national evils in our midst to-day.

But even with no definite aim of this kind, the study of a long chain of
ancestors of some great man cannot fail to be of special interest. And
those of the subject of this memoir contain among their number many
honourable names--names of those who have done real and unforgettable
service to their country.

* * * * *

Francis Newman's father, John Newman, is said to have belonged to a family
of small landed proprietors in Cambridgeshire, who originally came from
Holland--the name having been formerly spelt "Newmann." Thus it will be
seen, as I shall shortly show, that Francis Newman had Dutch blood in his
veins, both on his father's and mother's side.

[Illustration: JOHN NEWMAN
FATHER OF CARDINAL NEWMAN AND FRANCIS NEWMAN
FROM AN OLD PORTRAIT. BY KIND PERMISSION OF MR. J. R. MOZLEY]

John Newman was the only son of John Newman of Lombard Street, London, and
of Elizabeth Good, his wife. The arms granted the family on 15th Feb.,
1663-4, were _Or, fers dancettee between 3 hearts gules_. John Newman, the
father of Francis Newman, was partner in the banking house of Ramsbottom,
Newman and Co. He married Jemima Fourdrinier, 29th Oct., 1799, at St.
Mary's, Lambeth. [Footnote: She died at Littlemore, Oxon, at the age of
sixty-two.] In the portrait of him, which is shown in this memoir, there
is a strong resemblance to his son Francis.

By this marriage there were seven children. John Henry (the future
Cardinal), was the eldest. He was born 21st Feb., 1801. Charles Robert was
the second son; and Francis William, the third son, was born 27th June,
1805. Harriette Elizabeth was the eldest daughter, Jemima Charlotte the
second, and Mary Sophia, who was born in 1809, only lived to the age of
nineteen.

Francis Newman's ancestry, on his mother's side, is proved to have reached
back as far as 1575; of this one can be reasonably certain. It was then,
that Henri Fourdrinier was born at Caen, in Normandy. He was made Admiral
of France in later life, and crested Viscount. ARMS: _per bend argent and
sable, two anchors, the upper one reversed, counterchanged._ His son was
also Henri Fourdrinier. Indeed, the name "Henri" seemed like some rare
jewel which was bequeathed from father to son in never-failing regularity,
for there was always a "Henri" among the Fourdriniers from 1575 until
1766.

It was during the lifetime of this Henri Fourdrinier, the son of Admiral
Fourdrinier, that the family fled from France to Groningen, in Holland. In
all probability this flitting took place during those endless civil wars
which disturbed France at that time. Possibly at the time when the heavy
taxes imposed on the people made it almost impossible to live. The
"Fronde" was ravaging the country too, in 1648, and for four years later.
Of course it is possible that he did not leave France until 1685, when the
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes took place. But at whatever date he
actually went, his reasons for going were certainly no small ones. For
more than a hundred years the Huguenots--and the Fourdriniers were noted
Huguenots--had found France more and more an impossible country to live
in. Persecutions, massacres, torturings pursued them relentlessly.
Thousands of French Huguenots emigrated to England, Holland, and Germany.
And great was the loss which their emigration caused to France. For they
were the most intelligent and hardworking part of the French population,
so that when Louis XIV drove them away, he found out, only too surely, the
truth of the old proverb, that "Curses come home to roost." Trade slowly
but surely forsook France. The emigrants taught their arts and
manufactures to the countries where they had taken refuge; and gradually
trade guided its ships in their direction, and changed their course from
France to Holland and Germany.

The next entry [Footnote: I quote from a copy I had made from _Miscellanea
Genealogica et Heraldica_, N.S. III, 385.--_Pedigree of Fourdrinier and
Grolleau_, by Rev. Dr. Lee, Vicar of All Saints, Lambeth.] is dated from
Groningen, and concerns the birth of Paul Fourdrinier, 20th Dec., 1698.
Now in the _Dict. Nat. Biography_ there occurs the name of Peter
Fourdrinier, of whom no mention at all is made in the _Miscellanea
Genealogica et Heraldica_, amongst the record of the other Fourdriniers.
It is therefore not very clear to what branch of the family he belonged.
But as far as I can make out, he and Paul Fourdrinier seem to have come to
England about 1720. Certainly, in October, 1721, the latter's marriage
with Susanna Grolleau took place, as far as one can discover, in or near
Wandsworth. Susanna Grolleau died in 1766, and was buried at Wandsworth.
Here, I think, a few words with regard to the Grolleau family seem to be
called for.

Louis Grolleau, early in the seventeenth century, lived at Caen; and later
emigrated to Groningen. To me, everything seems to point to the fact that
the Fourdriniers and Grolleaus were in some way connected, either in
friendship or relationship. First, we find them resident at Caen: later,
at Groningen; and then again, later on still, members of both families
marry at Wandsworth, and there both Paul Fourdrinier's wife and her
sister, who married the son of a Captain Lloyd, are buried.

This Peter Fourdrinier mentioned by the _Dict. Nat. Biography_ seems to
have been pupil to Bernard Picart, at Amsterdam, for six years. By
profession he was an engraver of portraits and book illustrations. I
believe there are portraits extant engraved by him of Cardinal Wolsey and
Bishop Tonstall, amongst others. There is certainly an engraving of his
called _The Four Ages of Man_, after Laucret.

Some authorities believe him to have been identical with the Pierre
Fourdrinier who married, in 1689, Marthe Theroude. But if this was the
case, then he was not the Peter Fourdrinier who accompanied Paul to
England in 1720. Other authorities, again, attribute the engravings I have
just mentioned as having been the work of Paul Fourdrinier. At any rate,
it is certain that Paul Fourdrinier belonged to the parish of St.
Martin's-in-the-Fields. He died in February, 1758, and was buried at
Wandsworth.

His son Henry--by now the English spelling of the name is adopted--was
born February, 1730. He married Jemima White, and died in 1799. Apparently
now for the first time the interest in the town of Wandsworth ceased, for
the records show that both Henry and his wife were buried in St. Mary
Woolnoth. And now we come to the direct ancestors of Francis Newman, for
Henry Fourdrinier and Jemima White, his wife, were the parents of Jemima,
who married at St. Mary's, Lambeth, in 1799, John Newman of the firm of
Ramsbottom, Newman & Co., and gave birth in 1801 to John Henry, the future
Cardinal, and in 1805 to the subject of this memoir, Francis William.

* * * * *

In _Civil Architecture_, by Chambers, it is mentioned that the plates were
engraved by "old Rooker, old Fourdrinier, and others," thus seeming to
imply that there was more than one Fourdrinier then in England.

Perhaps the most interesting of all the Fourdrinier family was the Henry
Fourdrinier, the eldest brother to the mother of Francis Newman. He was
born in 1766 at Burston Hall, Staffordshire, and lived until 1854. His
father was a paper-maker, and both he and his brother Sealey (born 1747,
and married Harriett, daughter of James Pownall, of Wilmslow) gave up
their time almost entirely to the invention of paper machinery. This
invention was finished in 18O7, [Footnote: _Dict. Nat. Biog._ Vol. XX.]
and then misfortune fell upon them: the misfortune that so often descends
like the "black bat night" upon those who have spent all their money,
thought, and labour on the effort to launch their self-designed ship upon
the uncertain sea of trade.

The Fourdrinier brothers had spent L60,000 upon this venture, and the
immediate result of the finished invention was bankruptcy to the
unfortunate inventors. Then, in 1814, the Emperor Alexander of Russia
promised to pay them L700 per annum during the space of ten years if he
could use two of their paper-making machines. Of this sum they saw not a
penny.

In 1840, Parliament voted the sum of L7000 to the Fourdriniers as a tardy
recognition of the great service they had rendered their adopted country
by their invention. The descendant of these gifted men showed no special
taste for invention along the lines taken by his ancestors, it is true;
but his brilliant intellect, no doubt, owed many of its qualities to their
inventive force and power. Where they made paper and spent their whole
energies in inventing machines for making it quicker, Francis Newman wrote
on it--used it as a medium for spreading far and wide his own splendid
aims and purposes for the betterment of existing social conditions. Before
all things, Newman was a Social Reformer. There was no possible doubt
that, as far as that question went, he left his country further forward on
the road to real progress as regarded conditions of life for her citizens,
and higher, broader ideas of her duty to other nations. As far as all
these questions went he did not live in vain, for to-day we are learning
the wisdom of his views for justice for the oppressed and for "the cause
that needs assistance."

He was essentially one of those rare men who _prefer_ to be on the weaker
side, and whose sword is ever ready for its defence and championship.




CHAPTER II

THE TWO BROTHERS--SCHOOL AND COLLEGE DAYS


Francis William Newman was born at 17 Southampton Street, Bloomsbury
Square, on 27th June, 1805. His father was a London banker. Rev. T.
Mozley, in his _Reminiscences of Oriel_, says he was partner in the firm
of "Ramsbottom, Newman, Ramsbottom & Co., 72 Lombard Street, which appears
in the lists of London bankers from 1807 to 1816 inclusive." He tells us
that the family of "Newman" (or, as it was originally spelt, "Newmann")
was of Dutch extraction. The father of Francis Newman had great schemes
for making England "independent of foreign timber by planking all our
waste lands."

In 1800 John Newman married Jemima Fourdrinier, and in the year 1801 John
Henry, the future Cardinal, was born. The latter and the subject of our
memoir were in effect the two sheaves before whom all the rest bowed down.
There were four other children: Charles Robert, Harriette Elizabeth,
Jemima Charlotte, and Mary Sophia.

[Illustration: SEALE'S COFFEE HOUSE, OXFORD
(NOW DEMOLISHED)
Done from an old drawing in the year when Francis Newman and John Henry
Newman stayed there with Blanco White.]

John Henry and Francis went to a school at Ealing (of which Dr. Nicholas
was head-master), then, as Mr. Mozley says, considered the best
preparatory school in the country. There were three hundred boys there at
that time, but none were so brilliant or showed so much talent as the two
Newmans. One after the other they rose to the top of the school. Frank was
captain in 1821. There was some talk of removing John Henry after he had
spent some years there, but he himself begged to be allowed to remain a
little longer. Miss Anne Mozley, in her _Life and Correspondence of John
Henry Newman_, quotes Dr. Nicholas as having said, "No boy had run through
the school from bottom to top as rapidly as John Newman." He was eight and
a half years at Ealing; yet during the whole of that time, it is reported
that his school-fellows declared they had hardly ever seen him play in any
game, though at that time games did not occupy the prominent place in the
curriculum of schools that now they do in our day.

It was not until his last half-year that one of the greatest spiritual
influences of his life began. It was one of those seemingly curious
chances which sometimes change a man's, or a woman's, whole outlook; and
beginning, as it seems at the time, quite casually, quite unconsciously,
lead not only the one chiefly concerned, but others, far afield into
absolutely new environments.

Quite, as it seems, by chance, the destiny of a lifetime approaches
through the conventional door of everyday life--steals up, lays the hand
that none can resist on the handle of some door which opens of itself into
a new, a wider world. Before one is aware of it, perhaps, one's feet have
crossed the threshold into the Land of the New Outlook, and "old things
are passed away."

In August, 1816, John Henry Newman found himself at school, in a sense
alone, because his special personal friends there had left, and thus he
began to be thrown more and more under the influence of the Rev. Walter
Mayer (of Pembroke College, Oxford), who was one of the classical masters.
Long religious talks with him had a great effect upon his mind, and he
himself traces much of his spiritual development to Mr. Mayer's point of
view in religion. He was what is known as a "high Calvinist." When school
was over for John Henry and Francis Newman, Mr. Mayer's influence was not
lost, for both the brothers wrote to him, and stayed with him, when some
time later he became curate to the Rev. William Wilson at Worton.

Scottish book of the year goes to Kieron Smith, Boy by James Kelman

The barrister Constance Briscoe has won the libel case brought against her by her mother, Carmen Briscoe-Mitchell, over her bestselling misery memoir Ugly, in which she accused Briscoe-Mitchell of childhood cruelty and neglect.

Briscoe-Mitchell claimed the allegations were "a piece of fiction", and sued Briscoe and her publishers Hodder & Stoughton for libel.

A 10-day hearing at the high court in London concluded earlier today with a unanimous verdict from the jury after more than a day's deliberation. Speaking outside the court, Briscoe, a part-time judge, said she was "very happy" with the verdict.

"It is sad that my mother still feels the need to pursue me. Now I just want to get on with my career," she said. "I can quite understand why my family went into collective denial, but whilst child abuse may be committed behind closed doors, it should never be swept under the carpet."

The hearing saw Briscoe tell Mr Justice Tugendhat and a jury how her mother beat her with a stick for wetting the bed, called her a "dirty little whore" and drove her to attempt suicide by drinking bleach.

Briscoe's account of her upbringing was published in 2006 and has sold more than 400,000 copies in the UK.

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Would you have your ashes scattered in Jane Austen's garden?
American film producer to publish version of the Bible in which God says it is better to be gay than straight

The royal family doesn't need a poet

The power of Jane Austen never ceases to amaze: the myriad film and TV adaptations, the biopics, the spin-off self-help books, the novels about Austen book clubs and Austen obsessives and even, next spring, the publication of a book about "how Jane Austen conquered the world" (Jane's Fame, by Clare Harman). And now comes the just-too-weird story that deceased fans of Jane Austen have been banned from having their ashes scattered in her garden. In a letter to the Jane Austen Society, Louise West, the collections manager of Jane Austen's House Museum, wrote: "While we understand many admirers of Jane Austen would love to have ashes laid here, it is something we do not allow. It is distressing for visitors to see mounds of human ash, particularly so for our gardener. Also, it is of no benefit to the garden!" (Or is it? Surely a small quantity of fresh ashes judiciously placed beneath a hydrangea bush is just the ticket?)

Anyway, leaving aside the Gardeners' Question Time minutiae, what on earth is going on here? I like an Austen novel as much as the next person – I probably reread my way through the complete works every couple of years – but I am baffled as to why one would want to be laid to rest among the flowerbeds of Chawton. The only explanation is the currently unstoppable power of the Austen cult, fuelled by Colin Firth in a wet blouse, by Andrew Davies's adaptations, and by Hollywood. I'm all for enjoying books, but the cult of Austen has reached ridiculous proportions. In a post-feminist world that should know better, she seems to be adored as the comforting provider of romantic, happy-endings nonsense instead of the sharp and acerbic social satirist she deserves to be seen as.

(Does anyone actually believe her, by the way, when she foretells a happy marriage for Darcey and Elizabeth? I fear a woman as interesting as Elizabeth would be sorely disappointed with this standard-issue British Repressed Public-school Man - hopeless emotionally, and probably hopeless in bed.)

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