Sieve

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'être 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.

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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