NECKHAM, ALEXANDER (1157-1217).—­Scholar, b. at St. Albans, was foster-brother to Richard Coeur de Lion.  He went to Paris in 1180, where he became a distinguished teacher.  Returning, to England in 1186 he became an Augustinian Canon, and in 1213 Abbot of Cirencester.  He is one of our earliest men of learning, and wrote a scientific work in Latin verse. De Naturis Rerum (c. 1180-94) in 10 books.  Other works are De Laudibus Divinae Sapientiae (in Praise of the Divine Wisdom), and De Contemptu Mundi (on Despising the World), and some grammatical treatises.

NEWCASTLE, MARGARET, DUCHESS of (1624?-1674).—­Dau. of Sir Thomas Lucas, and a maid of honour to Queen Henrietta.  Maria, m. in 1645 the 1st Duke of Newcastle (then Marquis), whom she regarded in adversity and prosperity with a singular and almost fantastic devotion, which was fully reciprocated.  The noble pair collaborated (the Duchess contributing by far the larger share) in their literary ventures, which filled 12 vols., and consisted chiefly of dramas (now almost unreadable), and philosophical exercitations which, amid prevailing rubbish, contain some weighty sayings.  One of her poems, The Pastimes and Recreations of the Queen of Fairies in Fairyland has some good lines.  Her Life of her husband, in which she rates him above Julius Caesar, was said by Lamb to be “a jewel for which no casket was good enough.”

NEWMAN, FRANCIS WILLIAM (1805-1897).—­Scholar and theological writer, brother of Cardinal N., b. in London, and ed. at Oxf.  After spending three years in the East, he became successively classical tutor in Bristol Coll., Professor of Classical Literature in Manchester New Coll. (1840), and of Latin in Univ.  Coll., London, 1846-63.  Both brought up under evangelical influences, the two brothers moved from that standpoint in diametrically opposite directions, Francis through eclecticism towards scepticism.  His writings include a History of the Hebrew Monarchy (1847), The Soul (1849), and his most famous book, Phases of Faith (1850), a theological autobiography corresponding to his brother’s Apologia, the publication of which led to much controversy, and to the appearance of Henry Rogers’ Eclipse of Faith.  He also pub. Miscellanea in 4 vols., a Dictionary of modern Arabic, and some mathematical treatises.  He was a vegetarian, a total abstainer, and enemy of tobacco, vaccination, and vivisection.  Memoir by I.G.  Sieveking, 1909.

NEWMAN, JOHN HENRY (1801-1890).—­Theologian, s. of a London banker, and brother of the above, was ed. at Ealing and Trinity Coll., Oxf., where he was the intimate friend of Pusey and Hurrell Froude.  Taking orders he was successively curate of St. Clement’s 1824, and Vicar of St. Mary’s, Oxford, 1828.  He was also Vice-principal of Alban Hall, where he assisted Whately, the Principal, in his Logic.