Herbert W. Paul

“ But in raising it Froude was a pioneer, and, though a man of letters, saw more plainly than practical politicians what were the questions they would have to solve. He despised local jealousies, and took large views. Many men, perhaps most men, contract their horizon with advancing years.
Froude's vision seemed to widen. Through the storms and mists of passion and prejudice which blinded the eyes of Liberals and Conservatives fighting each other at Westminster, he looked to the ultimate union of all British subjects in an England conterminous with the sovereignty of the Crown. ”

“ Froude thought her the most brilliant and interesting woman he had ever met. The attraction was purely intellectual. Mrs. Carlyle was no longer young, and Froude's temperament was not inflammable. But she liked clever men, and clever men liked her. She was an unhappy woman, without children, without religion, without any regular occupation except keeping house. Her husband she regarded as the greatest genius of his time, and his affection for her was the deepest feeling of his heart. ”

“ Church does not rival Newman and Froude at their best. But he never, as they sometimes do, falls into loose and slipshod writing. He was the fine flower of the old Oxford education, growing in hedged gardens, sheltered from the winds of heaven, such as Catullus painted in everlasting colours long centuries ago. Froude was a man of the world, who knew the classics, and the minds of men, and cities, and governments, and the various races which make up the medley of the universe. ”

“ If this view is correct and exhaustive, Froude was no historian. He must remain outside the pale in the company of Thucydides, Tacitus, Gibbon, Macaulay, and Mommsen. Among literary historians, the special detestation of the pseudo-scientific school, Froude was pre-eminent. Few things excite more suspicion than a good style, and no theory is more plausible than that which associates clearness of expression with shallowness of thought. Froude, however, was no fine writer, no coiner of phrases for phrases' sake. A mere chronicler of events he would hardly have cared to be. ”

“ In spite of ghosts and muddy water Anthony worshipped Hurrell, a born leader of men, who had a fascination for his brothers and sisters, though not perhaps of the most wholesome kind. The Archdeacon himself had no crotchets. He was a religious man, to whom religion meant duty rather than dogma, a light to the feet, and a lantern for the path. A Tory and a Churchman, he was yet a moderate Tory and a moderate Churchman; prudent, sensible, a man of the world. To Hurrell Dissenters were rogues and idiots, a Liberal was half an infidel, a Radical was, at least in intention, a thief. ”

“ Froude pursued his studies, reading all the collections of original documents in Strype and other chroniclers. Why, he asked himself should Henry, this bloody and ferocious tyrant, have been so popular in his own lifetime? Parliament, judges, juries, all the articulate classes of the community, why had they stood by him? No doubt he could dissolve Parliament, and dismiss the judges. But to submit without a struggle, without even protest or remonstrance, was not like Englishmen, before or since. ”

“ It seemed to Froude that Carlyle, who never had a day's serious illness, felt more for his own dyspepsia and hypochondria than for his wife's far graver ailments. In this he was very likely unjust, for Carlyle was tenderly attached to his "Jeanie," and would have done anything for her if he had thought of it. But he was absorbed in Friederich, whose battles he would fight over again with the tired invalid on sofa. If woman be the name of frailty, the name of vanity is man. Carlyle was fond of his wife, but he was thinking of himself. ”

“ On the contrary, they are full of life and fire. Yet Froude was by no means entirely engrossed in his work. He had time for hospitality, and for making friends with young men. He loved his familiar surroundings, for nothing can vulgarise Oxford. He found men who still read the classics as literature, not to convict Aeschylus of violating Dawes's Canon, or to get loafers through the schools. He was not in all respects, it must be admitted, abreast of modern thought. His education had been unscientific, and he cared no more for Darwin than Carlyle did. ”

“ The orators go in for virtue, freedom, etc., the cheap cant which will charm the constituencies. They are generous with what costs them nothing—Irish land, religious liberty, emancipation of niggers—sacrificing the dependencies to tickle the vanity of an English mob and catch the praises of the newspapers. If ever the tide turns, surely the first step will be to hang the great misleaders of the people—as the pirates used to be—along the House of Commons terrace by the river as a sign to mankind, and send the rest for ever back into silence and impotence. ”

“ Many years afterwards Froude said to Tennyson that the most essential quality in an historian was imagination. This true and profound remark is peculiarly liable to be misunderstood. People who do not know what imagination means are apt to confound it with invention, although the latter quality is really the last resort of those who are destitute of the former. Froude was an ardent lover of the truth, and desired nothing so much as to tell it. ”

“ In a letter to Charles Kingsley, written from Dartington on New Year's Day, 1849, Froude speaks with transparent candour of his book, and of his own mind:
"I wish to give up my Fellowship. I hate the Articles. I have said I hate chapel to the Rector himself; and then I must live somehow, and England is not hospitable, and the parties here to whom I am in submission believe too devoutly in the God of this world to forgive an absolute apostasy. Under pain of lost favour for ever if I leave my provision at Oxford, I must find another, and immediately. ”

“ Courage and truth made him indifferent to fashion and popularity. Popularity was not his aim. His aim was to tell people what was for their good, whether they would hear or whether they would forbear. Froude had so much confidence in the essential greatness of the man that he did not hesitate to show him as he was, not a prodigy of impossible perfection, but a sterling character and a lofty genius. ”

“ CHAPTER IX BOOKS AND TRAVEL The two passions of Froude's life were Devonshire and the sea. "Summer has come at last," he wrote to Mrs. Kingsley from Salcombe in the middle of September, "after two months of rain and storm. The fields from which the wrecks of the harvest were scraped up mined and sprouting now lie basking in stillest sunshine, as if wind and rain had never been heard of. The coast is extremely beautiful, and I, in addition to the charms of the place, hear my native tongue spoken and sung in the churches in undiminished purity." ”

“ I continually wonder at myself for remaining in London when I can go where I please, and take with me all the occupations I am fit for. Alas! it is oneself that one wants really to be rid of. If we did not ourselves share in the passions and follies that are working round us we should not be touched by them. I have made up my mind to leave it all, at all events, as soon as Mr. Carlyle is gone; but the enchantment which scenery, grand or beautiful, or which simple country life promises at a distance, will never abide—let us be where we will. ”

“ But the English cause in the sixteenth century he regarded as national and religious, making for freedom and independence of policy and thought. To be free, to understand, to enjoy, said Thomas Hill Green, is the claim of the modern spirit. Froude would not have admitted that man in the philosophic sense was free, or that he could ever hope to understand the ultimate causes of things. And, though no man was more capable of enjoying the present moment, he would have sternly denied that pleasure, however refined, could be a legitimate aim in life. ”

“ Serious blunders have been discovered by microscopic criticism in Carlyle's French Revolution; it remains the most vivid and impressive version of a tremendous drama that has ever been given to the world. Froude and Carlyle had the same scorn of the multitude, the same belief in destiny, the same love of truth. Froude was more sceptical, less inclined to hero-worship, far more academic in thought and style. They agreed in setting the moral lessons of history above any theory of scientific development, and in cultivating the human interest of the narrative as that which alone abides. ”

“ To Froude, as to Carlyle, Cromwell was the minister of divine vengeance upon murderous and idolatrous Papists. His liking for the Irish, though perfectly genuine, was accompanied with an underlying contempt which is more offensive to the objects of it than the hatred of an open foe. He regarded them as a race unfit for self-government, who had proved their unworthiness of freedom by not winning it with the sword. If they had not quarrelled among themselves, and betrayed one another, they would have established their right to independence ”

“ Froude's book, as a whole, the verdict of all competent historical scholars has long ago been given. Occasional beauties of style and narrative cannot be allowed to redeem carelessness of truth, ignorance of law, contempt for the first principles of morals, ecclesiastical malignity of the most frantic kind. There are parts of Mr. Froude's volumes which we have read with real pleasure, with real admiration. But the book, as a whole, is vicious in its conception, vicious in its execution. No merit of detail can atone for the hollowness that runs through the whole. ”

“ It is none the less certain, however, that the danger was real and terrible, and the same causes which relieve a commander in active service from the restraints of the common law apply to the conduct of statesmen who are dealing with organised treason. The law is made for the nation, not the nation for the law. Those who transgress it do it at their own risk, but they may plead circumstances at the bar of history, and have a right to be heard." Thus Froude asserts as strongly and clearly as Freeman himself that torture was in 1580, and always had been, contrary to the law of England. ”

“ His religion, very deep, constant, and genuine, was not a spiritual emotion, nor a dogmatic creed, but a calm and steady confidence that, whatever weak mortals might do, the Judge of all the earth would do right. "It is impossible," said Emerson, whom he loved and admired, "for a man not to be always praying." The relations of such men with the unseen are an inseparable part of their daily lives. Froude had no more sympathy with the self-complacent "agnosticism" of modern thought than he had with Catholic authority or ecstatic revivalism. ”

“ Elizabeth boasted, and boasted truly, that she did not persecute opinion. If people were good citizens and loyal subjects, it was all the same to her whether they went to church or to mass. Had it been possible to adopt and apply in the sixteenth century the modern doctrine of contemptuous indifference to sectarian quarrels, there was not one of her subjects more capable of appreciating and acting upon it than the great Queen herself. ”

“ Honestly believing that the Reformation was a great and beneficent fact in the progress of mankind, he was incapable of treating it as a sinful rebellion against the authority of the Church. Holding Henry VIII., with all his faults, to have been the champion of the laity against the clergy, of spiritual and intellectual freedom against the Roman yoke, he could not represent him as a monster of wickedness, trampling on morality for his own selfish ends. ”

“ He was thinking of England. Between the fall of Wolsey and the defeat of the Armada was decided the great question whether England should be Catholic or Protestant, bond or free. The dazzling Queen of Scots, like the virtuous Chancellor and the holy Bishop, were on the wrong side. Henry and Elizabeth, with all their faults, were on the right one. That is the pith and marrow of Froude's book. Those who think that in history there is no side may blame him. He followed Carlyle. "Froude is a man of genius," said Jowett: "he has been abominably treated." ”

“ Patronage of religion he detested, most of all the form of it which prescribes religion for other people. An American philosopher called, and told him that, having failed to find a new creed, he thought the old superstitions had better be kept up, Popery for choice. "This," remarks Froude, "is what I call want of faith. If you can believe that what you are convinced is a lie may nevertheless exert a wholesome moral influence on people, and that, whether true or not, or rather though certainly not true, it is good to be preserved and taken up with, you are to all practical purposes an atheist." ”

“ He did not, any more than Darwin, attack the Christian religion, and he did not really go much farther than Lucretius. But he had more modern lights, he understood science, and he wrote in a popular style. He made a lively impression upon Froude, who learnt from him that natural phenomena were due to natural causes, at the same time that he acquired from Spinoza a disbelief in the freedom of the will. When Dr. Johnson said, "Sir, we know that the will is free, and there's an end on't," he did not understand the question. We all know that the will is free to act. But is man free to will? ”

“ No sooner had Froude landed at Cape Town than he began tracing all its evils to responsible government. The solidity of the houses reminded him that they were built under an absolute system. "What is it which has sent our Colonies into so sudden a frenzy for what they call political liberty?" A movement which has been in steady progress for thirty years can scarcely be called sudden, even though it be regarded as a frenzy, and so far back as 1776 there were British colonists beyond the seas who attached some practical value to freedom. ”

“ Freeman lived, and loved, the controversial life. Sharing Gladstone's politics both in Church and State, he was in all secular matters a strong Liberal, and his hatred of Disraeli struck even Liberals as bordering on fanaticism. Yet his hatred of Disraeli was as nothing to his hatred of Froude. By nature "so over-violent or over-civil that every man with him was God or devil," he had erected Froude into his demon incarnate. Other men might be, Froude must be, wrong. ”