recollections of Newman:--

"I attended Professor Newman's senior class on Latin literature for two or
three sessions in 1848, and I have a very vivid remembrance of him; at
that time he had not assumed a beard, and his clean-cut features were not
obscured by hair, as in later life. His lectures were very interesting and
stimulating. If I may venture to express an opinion on the point, I should
describe him as a very brilliant scholar, with a tendency towards
eccentricity.

"We read whilst I was with him some three or four of the early works of
Livy, and some of the histories of Tacitus; and his expansion of the
Constitution of Rome, both at the early and later date, was of very
unusual excellence. Such was my memory, and this has been confirmed by a
reference to my notebooks which I have made in consequence of your note. I
think his estimate of character did not always agree with that of Tacitus.
Other subjects which I recollect as having been expounded were the
relation of Latin to the Celtic group of languages, and that everlasting
question, the relation of the Etruscans and the Pelasgi.

"Once a week Newman used to give out a piece of English prose to be
rendered into Latin; these he corrected, reading also to us his own
version. Since your note I have looked at such notes of his lectures as I
can find, and at his corrections of my Latin prose."

Mr. Talfourd Ely, writing on Francis Newman as a teacher, says "he was
most careful and conscientious in his work. He was refined and even
fastidious in literary taste. To the ordinary undergraduate, such as
myself, he seemed too little like other men. We did not understand his
genius, and were too apt to judge him by peculiarities of garb and speech.