Louise Imogen Guiney

SOME REPRINTED COMMENTS ON HIM AND ON HIS RELATION TO THE OXFORD MOVEMENT

From ‘The Oxford Movement: Twelve Years, 1833-1845,’ By R. W. Church, M.A., D.C.L., sometime Dean of St. Paul’s, and Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. London: Macmillan & Co., 1891.

[By the kind permission of Miss Church and of Messrs. Macmillan & Co.]

‘What was it that turned [Keble] by degrees into so prominent and so influential a person? It was the result of the action of his convictions and ideas, and still more of his character, on the energetic and fearless mind of a pupil and disciple, Richard Hurrell Froude. Froude was Keble’s pupil at Oriel, and when Keble left Oriel for his curacy at the beginning of the Long Vacation of 1823, he took Froude with him to read for his degree. He took with him ultimately two other pupils, Robert Wilberforce and Isaac Williams of Trinity. One of them, Isaac Williams, has left some reminiscences of the time, and of the terms on which the young men were with their tutor, then one of the most famous men at Oxford. They were terms of the utmost freedom. “Master is the greatest boy of them all,” was the judgment of the rustic who was gardener, groom, and parish clerk to Mr. Keble. Froude’s was a keen logical mind, not easily satisfied, contemptuous of compromises and evasions, and disposed on occasion to be mischievous and aggressive; and with Keble, as with anybody else, he was ready to dispute and try every form of dialectical experiment. But he was open to higher influences than those of logic, and in Keble he saw what subdued and won him to boundless veneration and affection. Keble won the love of the whole little society; but in Froude he had gained a disciple who was to be the mouthpiece and champion of his ideas, and who was to react on himself and carry him forward to larger enterprises and bolder resolutions than by himself he would have thought of. Froude took in from Keble all he had to communicate: principles, convictions, moral rules and standards of life, hopes, fears, antipathies. And his keenly-tempered intellect, and his determination and high courage, gave a point and an impulse of their own to Keble’s views and purposes. As things came to look darker, and dangers seemed more serious to the Church, its faith or its rights, the interchange of thought between master and disciple, in talk and in letter, pointed more and more to the coming necessity of action; and Froude at least had no objections to the business of an agitator. But all this was very gradual; things did not yet go beyond discussion; ideas, views, arguments were examined and compared; and Froude, with all his dash, felt as Keble felt, that he had much to learn about himself, as well as about books and things. In his respect for antiquity, in his dislike of the novelties which were invading Church rules and sentiments, as well as its Creeds, in his jealousy of the State, as well as in his seriousness of self-discipline, he accepted Keble’s guidance and influence more and more; and from Keble he had more than one lesson of self-distrust, more than one warning against the temptations of intellect. “Froude told me many years after,” writes one of his friends, “that Keble once, before parting with him, seemed to have something on his mind which he wished to say, but shrank from saying, while waiting, I think, for a coach. At last he said, just before parting, ‘Froude, you thought Law’s Serious Call was a clever book; it seemed to me as if you had said the Day of Judgement will be a pretty sight.’ This speech, Froude told me, had a great effect on his after life.”[294]

‘At Easter, 1826, Froude was elected Fellow of Oriel. He came back to Oxford, charged with Keble’s thoughts and feelings, and from his more eager and impatient temper, more on the look-out for ways of giving them effect. The next year he became Tutor, and he held the tutorship till 1830. But he found at Oriel a colleague, a little his senior in age and standing, of whom Froude and his friends as yet knew little except that he was a man of great ability, that he had been a favourite of Whately’s, and that in a loose and rough way he was counted among the few Liberals and Evangelicals in Oxford. This was Mr. Newman. Keble had been shy of him, and Froude would at first judge him by Keble’s standard. But Newman was just at this time “moving,” as he expresses it, “out of the shadow of Liberalism.” Living not apart like Keble, but in the same College, and meeting every day, Froude and Newman could not but be either strongly and permanently repelled, or strongly attracted. They were attracted: attracted with a force which at last united them in the deepest and most unreserved friendship. Of the steps of this great change in the mind and fortunes of each of them we have no record: intimacies of this kind grow in College out of unnoticed and unremembered talks, agreeing or differing, out of unconscious disclosures of temper and purpose, out of walks and rides and quiet breakfasts and Common-Room arguments, out of admirations and dislikes, out of letters and criticisms and questions; and nobody can tell afterwards how they have come about. The change was gradual and deliberate. Froude’s friends in Gloucestershire, the Keble family, had their misgivings about Newman’s supposed Liberalism; they did not much want to have to do with him. His subtle and speculative temper did not always square with Froude’s theology. “N. is a fellow that I like more, the more I think of him,” Froude wrote in 1828; “only I would give a few odd pence if he were not a heretic.”[295] But Froude, who saw him every day, and was soon associated with him in the tutorship, found a spirit more akin to his own in depth and freedom and daring, than he had yet encountered. And Froude found Newman just in that maturing state of religious opinion in which a powerful mind like Froude’s would be likely to act decisively. Each acted on the other. Froude represented Keble’s ideas, Keble’s enthusiasm. Newman gave shape, foundation, consistency, elevation to the Anglican theology, when he accepted it, which Froude had learned from Keble. “I knew him first,” we read in the Apologia, “in 1826, and was in the closest and most affectionate friendship with him from about 1829 till his death in 1836.”[296] But this was not all. Through Froude, Newman came to know and to be intimate with Keble; and a sort of camaraderie arose of very independent and outspoken people, who acknowledged Keble as their master and counsellor.

‘“The true and primary author of it” (the Tractarian Movement), we read in the Apologia, “as is usual with great motive powers, was out of sight…. Need I say that I am speaking of John Keble?” The statement is strictly true. Froude never would have been the man he was but for his daily and hourly intercourse with Keble; and Froude brought to bear upon Newman’s mind, at a critical period of its development, Keble’s ideas and feelings about religion and the Church, Keble’s reality of thought and purpose, Keble’s transparent and saintly simplicity. And Froude, as we know from a well-known saying of his,[297] brought Keble and Newman to understand one another, when the elder man was shy and suspicious of the younger, and the younger, though full of veneration for the elder, was hardly yet in full sympathy with what was most characteristic and most cherished in the elder’s religious convictions. Keble attracted and moulded Froude: he impressed Froude with his strong Churchmanship, his severity and reality of life, his poetry, and high standard of scholarly excellence. Froude learned from him to be anti-Erastian, anti-Methodistical, anti-sentimental, and as strong in his hatred of the world, as contemptuous of popular approval, as any Methodist. Yet all this might merely have made a strong impression, or formed one more marked school of doctrine, without the fierce energy which received it and which it inspired. But Froude, in accepting Keble’s ideas, resolved to make them active, public, aggressive; and he found in Newman a colleague whose bold originality responded to his own. Together they worked as Tutors; together they worked when their tutorships came to an end; together they worked when thrown into companionship in their Mediterranean voyage, in the winter of 1832 and the spring of 1833. They came back full of aspirations and anxieties which spurred them on; their thoughts had broken out in papers sent home from time to time to Rose’s British Magazine (“Home Thoughts Abroad”) and the Lyra Apostolica. Then came the meeting at Hadleigh, and the beginning of the Tracts. Keble had given the inspiration, Froude had given the impulse; then Newman took up the work, and the impulse henceforward, and the direction, were his.

‘Doubtless, many thought and felt like them about the perils which beset the Church and religion. Loyalty to the Church, belief in her divine mission, allegiance to her authority, readiness to do battle for her claims, were anything but extinct in her ministers and laity. The elements were all about of sound and devoted Churchmanship. Higher ideas of the Church than the popular and political notion of it, higher conceptions of Christian doctrine than those of the ordinary Evangelical theology—echoes of the meditations of a remarkable Irishman, Mr. Alexander Knox—had in many quarters attracted attention in the works and sermons of his disciple, Bishop Jebb, though it was not till the Movement had taken shape that their full significance was realised. Others besides Keble and Froude and Newman were seriously considering what could best be done to arrest the current which was running strong against the Church, and discussing schemes of resistance and defence. Others were stirring up themselves and their brethren to meet the new emergencies, to respond to the new call. Some of these were in communication with the Oriel men, and ultimately took part with them in organising vigorous measures. But it was not till Mr. Newman made up his mind to force on the public mind, in a way which could not be evaded, the great article of the Creed, “I believe one Catholic and Apostolic Church,” that the Movement began. And for the first part of its course, it was concentrated at Oxford. It was the direct result of the searchings of heart and the communings for seven years, from 1826 to 1833, of the three men who have been the subject of this chapter.

* * * * *

‘Hurrell Froude[298] soon passed away before the brunt of the fighting came. His name is associated with Mr. Newman and Mr. Keble, but it is little more than a name to those who now talk of the origin of the Movement. Yet all who remember him agree in assigning to him an importance as great as that of any, in that little knot of men whose thoughts and whose courage gave birth to it…. He was early cut off from direct and personal action on the course which things took. But it would be a great mistake to suppose that his influence on the line taken, and on the minds of others, was inconsiderable. It would be more true to say that, with one exception, no one was more responsible for the impulse which led to the Movement; no one had more to do with shaping its distinct aims and its moral spirit and character, in its first stage; no one was more daring and more clear, as far as he saw, in what he was prepared for. There was no one to whom his friends so much looked up with admiration and enthusiasm. There was no “wasted shade”[299] in Hurrell Froude’s disabled, prematurely shortened life.

‘Like Henry Martyn, he was made by strong and even merciless self-discipline over a strong and for a long time refractory nature. He was a man of great gifts, with much that was most attractive and noble; but joined with this there was originally in his character a vein of perversity and mischief, always in danger of breaking out, and with which he kept up a long and painful struggle. His inmost thought and knowledge of himself have been laid bare in the papers which his friends published after his death. He was in the habit of probing his motives to the bottom, and of recording without mercy what he thought his self-deceits and affectations. The religious world of the day made merry over his methods of self-discipline; but whatever may be said of them, (and such things are not easy to judge of), one thing is manifest, that they were true and sincere efforts to conquer what he thought evil in himself, to keep himself in order, to bring his inmost self into subjection to the Law and Will of God. The self-chastening which his private papers show, is no passion or value for asceticism, but a purely moral effort after self-command and honesty of character; and what makes the struggle so touching is its perfect reality and truth. He “turned his thoughts on that desolate wilderness, his own conscience, and said what he saw there.”[300] A man who has had a good deal to conquer in himself, and has gone a good way to conquer it, is not apt to be indulgent to self-deceit or indolence, or even weakness. The basis of Froude’s character was a demand which would not be put off for what was real and thorough; an implacable scorn and hatred for what he counted shams and pretences. “His highest ambition,” he used to say, “was to be a humdrum.”[301] The intellectual and the moral parts of his character were of a piece. The tricks and flimsinesses of a bad argument provoked him as much as the imposture and “flash” of insincere sentiment and fine talking; he might be conscious of “flash” in himself and his friends, and he would admit it unequivocally; but it was as unbearable to him to pretend not to see a fallacy as soon as it was detected, as it would have been to him to arrive at the right answer of a sum or a problem by tampering with the processes. Such a man, with strong affections and keen perception of all forms of beauty, and with the deepest desire to be reverent towards all that had a right to reverence, would find himself in the most irritating state of opposition and impatience with much that passed as religion round him. Principles not attempted to be understood and carried into practice; smooth self-complacency among those who looked down on a blind and unspiritual world; the continual provocation of worthless reasoning and ignorant platitudes; the dull unconscious stupidity of people who could not see that the times were critical, that Truth had to be defended, and that it was no easy or light-hearted business to defend it;—threw him into an habitual attitude of defiance, and half-amused, half-earnest contradiction, which made him feared by loose reasoners and pretentious talkers, and even by quiet easy-going friends, who unexpectedly found themselves led on blindfold, with the utmost gravity, into traps and absurdities, by the wiles of his mischievous dialectic. This was the outside look of his relentless earnestness. People who did not like him or his views, and who, perhaps, had winced under his irony, naturally put down his strong language, which on occasion could certainly be unceremonious, to flippancy and arrogance. But within the circle of those whom he trusted, or of those who needed at any time his help, another side disclosed itself: a side of the most genuine warmth of affection; an awful reality of devoutness, which it was his great and habitual effort to keep hidden; a high simplicity of unworldliness and generosity; and, in spite of his daring mockeries of what was commonplace or showy, the most sincere and deeply felt humility with himself. Dangerous as he was often thought to be in conversation, one of the features of his character which has impressed itself on the memory of one who knew him well, was his “patient, winning considerateness in discussion, which, with other qualities, endeared him to those to whom he opened his heart.”[302] “It is impossible,” writes James Mozley in 1833, with a mixture of amusement, speaking of the views about celibacy which were beginning to be current, “to talk with Froude without committing one’s self on such subjects as these; so that by and by I expect the tergiversants will be a considerable party.” His letters, with their affectionately playful addresses, da????e, a???tate, p?p??, Carissime, “Sir, my dear friend,” or “???e??? ??’ ???ste, have you not been a spoon?” are full of the most delightful ease and verve and sympathy.

‘With a keen sense of English faults he was, as Cardinal Newman has said, “an Englishman to the backbone”; and he was, further, a fastidious, high-tempered English gentleman, in spite of his declaiming about “pampered aristocrats” and the “gentleman heresy.” His friends thought of him as of the “young Achilles,” with his high courage, and noble form, and “eagle eye,” made for such great things, but appointed so soon to die. “Who can refrain from tears at the thought of that bright and beautiful Froude?” is the expression of one of them[303] shortly before his death, and when it was quite certain that the doom which had so long hung over him was at hand. He had the love of doing for the mere sake of doing what was difficult or even dangerous to do, which is the mainspring of characteristic English sports and games. He loved the sea; he liked to sail his own boat, and enjoyed rough weather, and took interest in the niceties of seamanship and shipcraft. He was a bold rider across country. With a powerful grasp on mathematical truths and principles, he entered with wholehearted zest into inviting problems, or into practical details of mechanical or hydrostatic or astronomical science. His letters are full of such observations, put in a way which he thought would interest his friends, and marked by his strong habit of getting into touch with what was real and of the substance of questions. He applied his thoughts to architecture with a power and originality which at the time were not common. No one who only cared for this world could be more attracted and interested than he was by the wonder and beauty of its facts and appearances. With the deepest allegiance to his home, and reverence for its ties and authority, (a home of the old-fashioned ecclesiastical sort, sober, manly, religious, orderly,) he carried into his wider life the feelings with which he had been brought up; bold as he was, his reason and his character craved for authority, but authority which morally and reasonably he could respect. Mr. Keble’s goodness and purity subdued him, and disposed him to accept, without reserve, his master’s teaching: and towards Mr. Keble, along with an outside show of playful criticism and privileged impertinence, there was a reverence which governed Froude’s whole nature. In the wild and rough heyday of reform, he was a Tory of the Tories. But when authority failed him, from cowardice or stupidity or self-interest, he could not easily pardon it; and he was ready to startle his friends by proclaiming himself a Radical, prepared for the sake of the highest and greatest interests to sacrifice all second-rate and subordinate ones.

‘When his friends, after his death, published selections from his journals and letters, the world was shocked by what seemed his amazing audacity, both of thought and expression, about a number of things and persons which it was customary to regard as almost beyond the reach of criticism. The Remains lent themselves admirably to the controversial process of culling choice phrases and sentences and epithets surprisingly at variance with conventional and popular estimates. Friends were pained and disturbed; foes, naturally enough, could not hold in their overflowing exultation at such a disclosure of the spirit of the Movement. Sermons and newspapers drew attention to Froude’s extravagances, with horror and disgust. The truth is, that if the off-hand sayings in conversation or letters of any man of force and wit and strong convictions about the things and persons that he condemns, were made known to the world, they would by themselves have much the same look of flippancy, injustice, impertinence, to those who disagreed in opinion with the speaker or writer; they are allowed for, or they are not allowed for by others, according to what is known of his general character. The friends who published Froude’s Remains knew what he was; they knew the place and proportion of the fierce and scornful passages; they knew that they really did not go beyond the liberty and the frank speaking which most people give themselves in the abandon and understood exaggeration of intimate correspondence and talk. But they miscalculated the effect on those who did not know him, or whose interest it was to make the most of the advantage given them. They seem to have expected that the picture which they presented of their friend’s transparent sincerity and singleness of aim, manifested amid so much pain and self-abasement, would have touched readers more. They miscalculated in supposing that the proofs of so much reality of religious earnestness would carry off the offence of vehement language, which without these proofs might naturally be thought to show mere random violence. At any rate the result was much natural and genuine irritation, which they were hardly prepared for. Whether on general grounds they were wise in startling and vexing friends, and putting fresh weapons into the hands of opponents by their frank disclosure of so unconventional a character, is a question which may have more than one answer: but one thing is certain, they were not wise, if they only desired to forward the immediate interests of their party or cause. It was not the act of cunning conspirators: it was the act of men who were ready to show their hands, and take the consequences. Undoubtedly, they warned off many who had so far gone along with the Movement, and who now drew back. But if the publication was a mistake, it was the mistake of men confident in their own straightforwardness.

‘There is a natural Nemesis to all over-strong and exaggerated language. The weight of Froude’s judgments was lessened by the disclosure of his strong words, and his dashing fashion of condemnation and dislike gave a precedent for the violence of shallower men. But to those who look back on them now, though there can be no wonder that at the time they excited such an outcry, their outspoken boldness hardly excites surprise. Much of it might naturally be put down to the force of first impressions; much of it is the vehemence of an Englishman who claims the liberty of criticising and finding fault at home; much of it was the inevitable vehemence of a reformer. Much of it seems clear foresight of what has since come to be recognised. His judgments on the Reformers, startling as they were at the time, are not so very different, as to the facts of the case, from what most people on all sides now agree in; and as to their temper and theology, from what most Churchmen would now agree in. Whatever allowances may be made for the difficulties of their time, (and these allowances ought to be very great), and however well they may have done parts of their work, such as the translations and adaptations of the Prayer-Book, it is safe to say that the divines of the Reformation never can be again, with their confessed Calvinism, with their shifting opinions, their extravagant deference to the foreign oracles of Geneva and Zurich, their subservience to bad men in power, the heroes and saints of Churchmen. But when all this is said, it still remains true that Froude was often intemperate and unjust. In the hands of the most self-restrained and considerate of its leaders, the Movement must anyhow have provoked strong opposition, and given great offence. The surprise and the general ignorance were too great; the assault was too rude and unexpected. But Froude’s strong language gave it a needless exasperation.

‘Froude was a man strong in abstract thought and imagination, who wanted adequate knowledge. His canons of judgment were not enlarged, corrected, and strengthened by any reading or experience commensurate with his original powers of reasoning or invention. He was quite conscious of it, and did his best to fill up the gap in his intellectual equipment. He showed what he might have done under more favouring circumstances in a very interesting volume on Becket’s history and letters. But circumstances were hopelessly against him: he had not time, he had not health and strength, for the learning which he so needed, which he so longed for. But wherever he could, he learned. He was quite ready to submit his prepossessions to the test and limitation of facts. Eager and quick-sighted, he was often apt to be hasty in conclusions from imperfect or insufficient premises; but even about what he saw most clearly he was willing to hold himself in suspense, when he found that there was something more to know. Cardinal Newman has noted two deficiencies which, in his opinion, were noticeable in Froude. “He had no turn for theology as such”; and, further, he goes on: “I should say that his power of entering into the minds of others was not equal to his other gifts”: a remark which he illustrates by saying that Froude could not believe that “I really held the Roman Church to be anti-Christian.” The want of this power—in which he stood in such sharp contrast to his friend—might be either a strength or a weakness: a strength, if his business was only to fight; a weakness, if it was to attract and persuade. But Froude was made for conflict, not to win disciples. Some wild solemn poetry, marked by deep feeling and direct expression, is scattered through his letters, kindled always by things and thoughts of the highest significance, and breaking forth with force and fire. But probably the judgment passed on him by a clever friend,[304] from the examination of his handwriting, was a true one: “This fellow has a great deal of imagination, but not the imagination of a poet.” He felt that even beyond poetry there are higher things than anything that imagination can work upon. It was a feeling which made him blind to the grandeur of Milton’s poetry. He saw in it only an intrusion into the most sacred of sanctities….

* * * * *

‘Froude’s first letter to Mr. Newman is in August, 1828. It is the letter of a friendly and sympathising colleague in College work, glad to be free from the “images of impudent undergraduates”; he inserts some lines of verse, talks about Dollond and telescopes, and relates how he and a friend got up at half-past two in the morning, and walked half a mile to see Mercury rise; he writes about his mathematical studies and reading for Orders, and how a friend had “read half through Prideaux and yet accuses himself of idleness”; but there is no interchange of intimate thought. Mr. Newman was at this time, as he has told us, drifting away from under the shadow of Liberalism; and in Froude he found a man who, without being a Liberal, was as quick-sighted, as courageous, and as alive to great thoughts and new hopes as himself. Very different in many ways, they were in this alike, that the commonplace notions of religion and the Church were utterly unsatisfactory to them, and that each had the capacity for affectionate and whole-hearted friendship. The friendship began and lasted on, growing stronger and deeper to the end. And this was not all. Froude’s friendship with Mr. Newman overcame Mr. Keble’s hesitations about Mr. Newman’s supposed Liberalism. Mr. Newman has put on record what he thought and felt about Froude: no one, probably, of the many whom Cardinal Newman’s long life has brought round him, ever occupied Froude’s place in his heart.[305] The correspondence shows in part the way in which Froude’s spirit rose, under the sense of having such a friend to work with, in the cause which, day by day, grew greater and more sacred in the eyes of both. Towards Mr. Keble Froude felt like a son to a father; towards Mr. Newman like a soldier to his comrade, and him the most splendid and boldest of warriors. Each mind caught fire from the other, till the high enthusiasm of the one was quenched in an early death.

‘Shortly after this friendship began, the course of events also began which finally gave birth to the Oxford Movement. The break-up of parties caused by the Roman Catholic Emancipation was followed by the French and Belgian revolutions of 1830, and these changes gave a fresh stimulus to all the reforming parties in England: Whigs, Radicals, and Liberal religionists. Froude’s letters mark the influence of these changes on his mind. They stirred in him the fiercest disgust and indignation, and as soon as the necessity of battle became evident to save the Church (and such a necessity was evident) he threw himself into it with all his heart, and his attitude was henceforth that of a determined and uncompromising combatant. “Froude is growing stronger and stronger in his sentiments every day,” writes James Mozley, in 1832, “and cuts about him on all sides. It is extremely fine to hear him talk. The aristocracy of the country, at present, are the chief objects of his vituperation, and he decidedly sets himself against the modern character of the gentleman, and thinks that the Church will eventually depend for its support, as it always did in its most influential times, on the very poorest classes.” “I would not set down anything that Froude says for his deliberate opinion,” writes James Mozley a year later, “for he really hates the present state of things so excessively that any change would be a relief to him.” … “Froude is staying up, and I see a great deal of him.” … “Froude is most enthusiastic in his plans, and says, ‘What fun it is living in such times as these! how could one now go back to the times of old Tory humbug?’” From henceforth his position among his friends was that of the most impatient and aggressive of reformers, the one who most urged on his fellows to outspoken language and a bold line of action. They were not men to hang back and be afraid, but they were cautious and considerate of popular alarms and prejudices, compared with Froude’s fearlessness. Other minds were indeed moving, minds as strong as his; indeed, it may be, deeper, more complex, more amply furnished, with a wider range of vision and a greater command of the field. But while he lived, he appears as the one who spurs on and incites, where others hesitate. He is the one by whom are visibly most felt the gaudia certaminis, and the confidence of victory, and the most profound contempt for the men and the ideas of the boastful and short-sighted present.

‘In this unsparing and absorbing warfare, what did Froude aim at—what was the object he sought to bring about, what were the obstacles he sought to overthrow?

‘He was accused, as was most natural, of Romanising: of wishing to bring back Popery. It is perfectly certain that this was not what he meant, though he did not care for the imputation of it. He was, perhaps, the first Englishman who attempted to do justice to Rome, and to use friendly language of it, without the intention of joining it. But what he fought for was not Rome, not even a restoration of Unity, but a Church of England such as it was conceived of by the Caroline divines and the Nonjurors. The great break-up of 1830 had forced on men the anxious question: “What is the Church, as spoken of in England? Is it the Church of Christ?” and the answers were various. Hooker had said it was “the nation”; and in entirely altered circumstances, with some qualifications, Dr. Arnold said the same. It was “the Establishment,” according to the lawyers and politicians, both Whig and Tory. It was an invisible and mystical body, said the Evangelicals. It was the aggregate of separate congregations, said the Nonconformists. It was the Parliamentary creation of the Reformation, said the Erastians. The true Church was the communion of the Pope, the pretended Church was a legalised schism, said the Roman Catholics. All these ideas were floating about, loose and vague, among people who talked much about the Church. Whately, with his clear sense, had laid down that it was a divine religious society, distinct in its origin and existence, distinct in its attributes from any other. But this idea had fallen dead, till Froude and his friends put new life into it. Froude accepted Whately’s idea that the Church of England was the one historic uninterrupted Church, than which there could be no other, locally, in England; but into this Froude read a great deal that never was and never could be in Whately’s thoughts. Whately had gone very far in viewing the Church, from without, as a great and sacred corporate body. Casting aside the Erastian theory, he had claimed its right to exist, and if necessary, govern itself, separate from the State. He had recognised excommunication as its natural and indefeasible instrument of government. But what the internal life of the Church was, what should be its teaching and organic system, and what was the standard and proof of these, Whately had left unsaid. And this outline Froude filled up. For this he went the way to which the Prayer-Book, with its Offices, its Liturgy, its Ordination services, pointed him. With the divines who had specially valued the Prayer-Book, and taught in its spirit, Bishop Wilson, William Law, Hammond, Ken, Laud, Andrewes, he went back to the times and the sources from which the Prayer-Book came to us, the early Church, the Reforming Church (for such, with all its faults, it was), of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, before the hopelessly corrupt and fatal times of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, which led to the break-up of the sixteenth. Thus, to the great question, What is the Church? he gave without hesitation, and gave to the end, the same answer that Anglicans gave and are giving still. But he added two points which were then very new to the ears of English Churchmen: (1) that there were great and to most people unsuspected faults and shortcomings in the English Church, for some of which the Reformation was gravely responsible; (2) that the Roman Church was more right than we had been taught to think, in many parts both of principle and practice, and that our quarrel with it on these points arose from our own ignorance and prejudices. To people who had taken for granted all their lives that the Church was thoroughly “Protestant” and thoroughly right in its Protestantism, and that Rome was Antichrist, these confident statements came with a shock. He did not enter much into dogmatic questions. As far as can be judged from his Remains, the one point of doctrine on which he laid stress, as being inadequately recognised and taught in the then condition of the English Church, was the Primitive doctrine of the Eucharist. His other criticisms pointed to practical and moral matters: the spirit of Erastianism, the low standard of life and purpose and self-discipline in the clergy, the low tone of the current religious teaching. The Evangelical teaching seemed to him a system of unreal words. The opposite school was too self-complacent, too comfortable, too secure in its social and political alliances; and he was bent on shaming people into severer notions. “We will have a vocabularium apostolicum, and I will start it with four words: ‘pampered aristocrats,’ ‘resident gentlemen,’ ‘smug parsons,’ and ‘pauperes Christi.’ I shall use the first on all occasions; it seems to me just to hit the thing.” “I think of putting the view forward (about new monasteries), under the title of a ‘Project for Reviving Religion in Great Towns.’ Certainly colleges of unmarried priests (who might, of course, retire to a living, when they could and liked) would be the cheapest possible way of providing effectively for the spiritual wants of a large population.” And his great quarrel with the existing state of things was that the spiritual objects of the Church were overlaid and lost sight of in the anxiety not to lose its political position. In this direction he was, as he proclaims himself, an out-and-out Radical, and he was prepared at once to go very far. “If a National Church means a Church without discipline, my argument for discipline is an argument against a National Church; and the best thing we can do is to unnationalise ours as soon as possible”; “let us tell the truth and shame the devil: let us give up a National Church and have a real one.”[306] His criticism did not diminish in severity, or his proposals become less daring, as he felt that his time was growing short and the hand of death was upon him. But to the end, the elevation and improvement of the English Church remained his great purpose. To his friend, as we know, the Roman Church was either the Truth or Antichrist. To Froude it was neither the whole Truth nor Antichrist; but like the English Church itself, a great and defective Church, whose defects were the opposite to ours, and which we should do wisely to learn from, rather than abuse. But, to the last, his allegiance never wavered to the English Church.

‘It is very striking to come from Froude’s boisterous freedom in his letters, to his sermons and the papers he prepared for publication. In his sermons his manner of writing is severe and restrained even to dryness. If they startle, it is by the force and searching point of an idea, not by any strength of words. The style is chastened, simple, calm, with the most careful avoidance of over-statement or anything rhetorical. And so in his papers, his mode of argument, forcible and cogent as it is, avoids all appearance of exaggeration or even illustrative expansion: it is all muscle and sinew; it is modelled on the argumentative style of Bishop Butler, and still more, of William Law. No one could suppose from these papers Froude’s fiery impetuosity, or the frank daring of his disrespectful vocabulary. Those who can read between the lines can trace the grave irony which clung everywhere to his deep earnestness.

‘There was yet another side of Froude’s character which was little thought of by his critics, or recognised by all his friends. With all his keenness of judgment and all his readiness for conflict, some who knew him best were impressed by the melancholy which hung over his life, and which, though he ignored it, they could detect. It is remembered still by Cardinal Newman. “I thought,” wrote Mr. Isaac Williams, “that knowing him, I better understood Hamlet, a person most natural, but so original as to be unlike any one else, hiding depth of delicate thought in apparent extravagances. Hamlet, and the Georgics of Virgil, he used to say, he should have bound together.” “Isaac Williams,” wrote Mr. Copeland, “mentioned to me a remark made on Froude by S. Wilberforce in his early days: ‘They talk of Froude’s fun, but somehow I cannot be in a room with him alone for ten minutes without feeling so intensely melancholy, that I do not know what to do with myself. At Brighstone, in my Eden days, he was with me, and I was overwhelmed with the deep sense which possessed him of yearning which nothing could satisfy, and of the unsatisfying nature of all things.’”[307]

‘Froude often reminds us of Pascal. Both had that peculiarly bright, brilliant, sharp-cutting intellect which passes with ease through the coverings and disguises which veil realities from men. Both had mathematical powers of unusual originality and clearness; both had the same imaginative faculty; both had the same keen interest in practical problems of science; both felt and followed the attraction of deeper and more awful interests. Both had the same love of beauty; both suppressed it. Both had the same want of wide or deep learning; they made skilful use of what books came to their hand, and used their reading as few readers are able to use it; but their real instrument of work was their own quick and strong insight, and power of close and vigorous reasoning. Both had the greatest contempt for fashionable and hollow “shadows of religion.” Both had the same definite, unflinching judgment. Both used the same clear and direct language. Both had a certain grim delight in the irony with which they pursued their opponents. In both it is probable that their unmeasured and unsparing criticism recoiled on the cause which they had at heart. But in the case of both of them it was not the temper of the satirist, it was no mere love of attacking what was vulnerable, and indulgence in the cruel pleasure of stinging and putting to shame, which inspired them. Their souls were moved by the dishonour done to religion, by public evils and public dangers. Both of them died young, before their work was done. They placed before themselves the loftiest and most unselfish objects, the restoration of truth and goodness in the Church: and to that they gave their life and all that they had. And what they called on others to be they were themselves. They were alike in the sternness, the reality, the perseverance, almost unintelligible in its methods to ordinary men, of their moral and spiritual self-discipline.’

[Supplementary Chapter, written by Lord Blachford
(Frederic Rogers).[308]]

‘Hurrell Froude was, when I, as an undergraduate, first knew him, in 1828, tall and very thin, with something of a stoop, with a large skull and forehead, but not a large face, delicate features, and penetrating grey eyes, not exactly piercing, but bright with internal conceptions, and ready to assume an expression of amusement, careful attention, inquiry, or stern disgust, but with a basis of softness. His manner was cordial and familiar, and assured you, as you knew him well, of his affectionate feeling, which encouraged you to speak your mind (within certain limits), subject to the consideration that if you said anything absurd it would not be allowed to fall to the ground. He had more of the undergraduate in him than any “don” whom I ever knew: absolutely unlike Newman in being always ready to skate, sail, or ride with his friends, and, if in a scrape, not pharisaical as to his means of getting out of it. I remember, e.g., climbing Merton gate with him in my undergraduate days, when we had been out too late boating or skating. And unless authority or substantial decorum was really threatened he was very lenient: or, rather, had an amused sympathy with the irregularities that are mere matters of mischief or high spirits. In lecture it was, mutatis mutandis, the same man. Seeing, from his Remains, the “high view of his own capacities of which he could not divest himself,” and his determination not to exhibit or be puffed up by it, and looking back on his tutorial manner (I was in his lectures, both in classics and mathematics), it was strange how he disguised, not only his sense of superiority, but the appearance of it, so that his pupils felt him more as a fellow-student than as the refined scholar or mathematician which he was. This was partly owing to his carelessness of those formulÆ, the familiarity with which gives even second-rate lectures a position of superiority which is less visible in those who, like their pupils, are themselves always struggling with principles; and partly to an effort, perhaps sometimes overdone, not to put himself above the level of others. In a lecture on the Supplices of Æschylus, I have heard him say tout bonnement: “I can’t construe that: what do you make of it, A. B.?” turning to the supposed best scholar in the lecture; or, when an objection was started to his mode of getting through a difficulty: “Ah! I had not thought of that; perhaps your way is the best.” And this mode of dealing with himself and the undergraduates whom he liked, made them like him, but also made them really undervalue his talent, which, as we now see, was what he meant they should do. At the same time, though watchful over his own vanity, he was keen and prompt in snubs in playful and challenging retort, to those he liked, but in the nature of scornful exposure, when he had to do with coarseness or coxcombry, or shallow display of sentiment. It was a paradoxical consequence of his suppression of egotism that he was more solicitous to show that you were wrong than that he was right. He also wanted, like Socrates or Bishop Butler, to make others, if possible, think for themselves.

‘However, it is not to be inferred that his conversation was made of controversy. To a certain extent it turned that way, because he was fond of paradox. (His brother William used to say that he, William, never felt he had really mastered a principle till he had thrown it into a paradox.) And paradox, of course, invites contradiction, and so controversy. On subjects upon which he considered himself more or less an apostle, he liked to stir people’s minds by what startled them, waking them up, or giving them “nuts to crack.” An almost solemn gravity, with amusement twinkling behind it (not invisible, and ready to burst forth into a bright low laugh when gravity had been played out), was a very frequent posture with him. But he was thoroughly ready to amuse and instruct, or to be amused and instructed, as an eager and earnest speaker or listener on most matters of interest. I do not remember that he had any great turn for beauty of colour; he had none, I think, or next to none, for music, nor do I remember in him any great love of humour; but for beauty of physical form, for mechanics, for mathematics, for poetry which had a root in true feeling, for wit (including that perception of a quasi-logical absurdity of position), for history, for domestic incidents, his sympathy was always lively, and he would throw himself naturally and warmly into them. From his general demeanour (I need scarcely say) the “odour of sanctity” was wholly absent.

‘I am not sure that his height and depth of aim and lively versatility of talent did not leave his compassionate sympathies rather undeveloped; certainly to himself, and, I suspect, largely in the case of others, he would view suffering not as a thing to be cockered up or made much of, though of course to be alleviated if possible, but to be viewed calmly as a Providential discipline for those who can mitigate, or have to endure it. J. H. N. was once reading me a letter just received from him in which (in answer to J. H. N.’s account of his work and the possibility of his breaking down), he said in substance: “I daresay you have more to do than your health will bear, but I would not have you give up anything except perhaps the Deanery” (of Oriel). And then J. H. N. paused, with a kind of inner exultant chuckle, and said: “Ah! there’s a Basil for you”; as if the friendship which sacrificed its friend, as it would sacrifice itself, to a cause, was the friendship which was really worth having.

‘As I came to know him in a more manly way, as a brother Fellow, friend, and collaborateur, the character of “ecclesiastical agitator” was of course added to this. In this capacity his great pleasure was taking bulls by their horns. Like the “gueux” of the Low Countries, he would have met half-way any opprobrious nickname, and I believe coined the epithet “Apostolical” for his party because it was connected with everything in Spain which was most obnoxious to the British public. I remember one day his grievously shocking Palmer of Worcester, a man of an opposite texture, when a council in J. H. N.’s rooms had been called to consider some memorial or other to which Palmer wanted to collect the signatures of many, and particularly of dignified persons, but in which Froude wished to express the determined opinions of a few. Froude stretched out his long length on Newman’s sofa, broke in upon one of Palmer’s judicious harangues about Bishops and Archdeacons and such like, with the ejaculation: “I don’t see why we should disguise from ourselves that our object is to dictate to the clergy of this country; and I, for one, do not want anyone else to get on the box!” He thought that true Churchmen must be few before they were many: that the sin of the clergy in all ages was that they tried to make out that Christians were many when they were only few, and sacrificed to this object the force derivable from downright and unmistakable enforcement of truth in speech or action.

‘As simplicity in thought, word, and deed formed no small part of his ideal, his tastes in architecture, painting, sculpture, rhetoric, or poetry were severe. He had no patience with what was artistically dissolute, luscious, or decorated more than in proportion to its animating idea, wishy-washy, or sentimental. The ornamental parts of his own rooms (in which I lived in his absence) were a slab of marble to wash upon, a print of Rubens’s “Deposition,” and a head (life-size) of the Apollo Belvedere. And I remember still the tall scorn, with something of surprise, with which, on entering my undergraduate room, he looked down on some Venuses, Cupids, and Hebes, which, freshman-like, I had bought from an Italian.

‘He was not very easy even under conventional vulgarity, still less under the vulgarity of egotism; but, being essentially a partisan, he could put up with both in a man who was really in earnest and on the right side. Nothing, however, I think, would have induced him to tolerate false sentiment, and he would, I think, if he had lived, have exerted himself very trenchantly to prevent his cause being adulterated by it. He was, I should say, sometimes misled by a theory that genius cut through a subject by logic or intuition, without looking to the right or left, while common sense was always testing every step by consideration of surroundings (I have not got his terse mode of statement), and that genius was right, or at least had only to be corrected, here and there, by common sense. This, I take it, would hardly have answered if his trenchancy had not been in practice corrected by J. H. N.’s wider political circumspection. He submitted, I suppose, to J. H. N.’s axiom, that if the Movement was to do anything it must become “respectable”; but it was against his nature.

‘He would (as we see in the Remains) have wished Ken to have the “courage of his convictions” by excommunicating the Jurors in William III.’s time, and setting up a little Catholic Church, like the Jansenists in Holland. He was not (as has been observed) a theologian, but he was as jealous for orthodoxy as if he were. He spoke slightingly of Heber as having ignorantly or carelessly communicated with Monophysites. But he probably knew no more about that and other heresies than a man of active and penetrating mind would derive from text-books. And I think it likely enough, not that his reverence for the Eucharist, but that his special attention to the details of Eucharistic doctrine, was due to the consideration that it was the foundation of ecclesiastical discipline and authority: matters on which his mind fastened itself with enthusiasm.’

From ‘Apologia pro Vita Sua,’ by John Henry Newman, D.D., of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri. London: Longmans, Green, Reader & Dyer, 1873.

[By the kind permission of the Rev. W. P. Neville of the Oratory, and of Messrs. Longmans, Green & Co.]

‘… Hurrell Froude was a pupil of Keble’s, formed by him, and in turn reacting upon him. I knew him first in 1826, and was in the closest and most affectionate friendship with him from about 1829 until his death in 1836. He was a man of the highest gifts: so truly many-sided, that it would be presumptuous in me to attempt to describe him, except under those aspects in which he came before me. Nor have I here to speak of the gentleness and tenderness of nature, the playfulness, the free elastic force and graceful versatility of mind, and the patient winning considerateness in discussion, which endeared him to those to whom he opened his heart; for I am all along engaged upon matters of belief and opinion, and am introducing others into my narrative, not for their own sake, or because I love them and have loved them, so much as because, and so far as, they have influenced my theological views. In this respect, then, I speak of Hurrell Froude, in his intellectual aspect: as a man of high genius, brimful and overflowing with ideas and views, in him original, which were too many and strong even for his bodily strength, and which crowded and jostled against each other, in their effort after distinct shape and expression. And he had an intellect as critical and logical as it was speculative and bold. Dying prematurely, as he did, and in the conflict and transition-state of opinion, his religious views never reached their ultimate conclusion, by the very reason of their multitude and their depth. His opinions arrested and influenced me even when they did not gain my assent. He professed openly his admiration of the Church of Rome, and his hatred of the Reformers. He delighted in the notion of an hierarchical system, of sacerdotal power, and of full ecclesiastical liberty. He felt scorn of the maxim, “The Bible and the Bible only is the religion of Protestants,” and he gloried in accepting Tradition as a main instrument of religious teaching. He had a high severe idea of the intrinsic excellence of Virginity, and he considered the Blessed Virgin its great Pattern. He delighted in thinking of the Saints; he had a vivid appreciation of the idea of sanctity, its possibility and its heights; and he was more than inclined to believe a large amount of miraculous interference as occurring in the early and middle ages. He embraced the principle of penance and mortification. He had a deep devotion to the Real Presence, in which he had a firm faith. He was powerfully drawn to the MediÆval Church, but not to the Primitive.

‘He had a keen insight into abstract truth; but he was an Englishman to the backbone in his severe adherence to the real and the concrete. He had a most classical taste, and a genius for philosophy and art; and he was fond of historical inquiry, and the politics of religion. He had no turn for theology as such. He set no sufficient value on the writings of the Fathers, on the detail or development of doctrine, on the definite traditions of the Church viewed in their matter, on the teaching of the Ecumenical Councils, or on the controversies out of which they arose. He took an eager courageous view of things, on the whole. I should say that his power of entering into the minds of others did not equal his other gifts: he could not believe, for instance, that I really held the Roman Church to be anti-Christian. On many points, he would not believe but that I agreed with him, when I did not: he seemed not to understand my difficulties. His were of a different kind: the contrariety between theory and fact. He was a High Tory of the Cavalier stamp, and was disgusted with the Toryism of the opponents of the Reform Bill. He was smitten with the love of the Theocratic Church: he went abroad, and was shocked by the degeneracy which he thought he saw in the Catholics of Italy.

‘It is difficult to enumerate the precise additions to my theological creed which I derived from a friend to whom I owe so much. He taught me to look with admiration towards the Church of Rome, and, in the same degree, to dislike the Reformation. He fixed deep in me the idea of devotion to the Blessed Virgin, and he led me gradually to believe in the Real Presence.

* * * * *

‘There were other reasons, besides Mr. Rose’s state of health, which hindered those who so much admired him from availing themselves of his close co-operation in the coming fight. United as both he and they were in the general scope of the Movement, they were in discordance with each other, from the first, in their estimate of the means to be adopted for attaining it. Mr. Rose had a position in the Church, a name, and serious responsibilities; he had direct ecclesiastical superiors; he had intimate relations with his own University, and a large clerical connection through the country. Froude and I were nobodies, with no characters to lose, and no antecedents to fetter us. Rose could not go ahead across country, as Froude had no scruples in doing. Froude was a bold rider: as on horseback, so also in his speculations. After a long conversation with him on the logical bearing of his principles, Mr. Rose said of him, with quiet humour, that “he did not seem to be afraid of inferences.” It was simply the truth. Froude had that strong hold of first principles, and that keen perception of their value, that he was comparatively indifferent to the revolutionary action which would attend on their application to a given state of things; whereas, in the thoughts of Rose, as a practical man, existing facts had the precedence of every other idea, and the chief test of the soundness of a line of policy lay in the consideration whether it would work. This was one of the first questions which, as it seemed to me, on every occasion occurred to his mind. With Froude, Erastianism, that is, the union (so he viewed it) of Church and State, was the parent, or if not the parent, the serviceable and sufficient tool of Liberalism. Till that union was snapped, Christian doctrine never could be safe; and while he well knew how high and unselfish was the temper of Mr. Rose, yet he used to apply to him an epithet, reproachful in his mouth: Rose was “a conservative.” By bad luck, I brought out this word to Mr. Rose in a letter of my own, which I wrote to him in criticism of something he had inserted in his Magazine: I got a vehement rebuke for my pains; for though Rose pursued a conservative line, he had as high a disdain as Froude could have of a worldly ambition, and an extreme sensitiveness of such an imputation. But there was another reason still, and a more elementary one, which severed Mr. Rose from the Oxford Movement. Living movements do not come of committees, nor are great ideas worked out through the post, even though it had been the penny post. This principle deeply penetrated both Froude and myself from the first, and recommended to us the course which things soon took spontaneously, and without set purpose of our own.

* * * * *

‘It was an apparent accident which introduced me to [the Roman Breviary], that most wonderful and most attractive monument of the devotion of Saints. On Hurrell Froude’s death, in 1836, I was asked to select one of his books as a keepsake. I selected Butler’s Analogy; finding that it had been already chosen, I looked with some perplexity along the shelves, as they stood before me, when an intimate friend at my elbow said: “Take that.” It was the Breviary which Hurrell had had with him at Barbados. Accordingly, I took it, studied it, wrote my Tract from it, and have it on my table in constant use till this day.[309] That dear and familiar companion,[310] who thus put the Breviary into my hands, is still in the Anglican Church. So, too, is that early-venerated long-loved friend,[311] together with whom I edited a work which, more perhaps than any other, caused disturbance and annoyance in the Anglican world, Froude’s Remains; yet, however judgments might run as to the prudence of publishing it, I never heard any one impute to Mr. Keble the very shadow of dishonesty or treachery towards his Church in so acting.’

From ‘The Cherwell Water-Lily and other Poems,’ by the Rev. Frederick William Faber, M.A., Fellow of University College, Oxford. London: Rivingtons; and Oxford, Parker, 1840.

[By the kind permission of the Rev. Charles Bowden of the London Oratory.]

Verses sent to a Friend with a copy of Froude’s Remains.[312]

‘The languid heart that hath been ever nursed

By strains of drowsy sweetness, ill can brook

The rude rough music that at times doth burst

From him whose thoughts are treasured in this book.

It was his lot to live in days uncouth

That shrink from aught so hard and stern as Truth.

I know my generous friend too well to fear

This holy gift will be unsafe with thee:

Thou never yet hast had the heart to sneer

At the eccentric feats of chivalry;

And well I know there are cold men who deem

This saintly Cause a weak knight-errant’s dream.

When thou hast marked him well, thine eye will trace

Lines deep and steadfast; features grave and bold;

Beauty austere and masculine; a face

And stalwart form wrought in the antique mould;

And if some shades too broad and coarse are thrown,

’Tis where the Age hath marred the block of stone.’

From ‘The Evangelical Succession,’ in ‘Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography,’ by the Right Honourable Sir James Stephen, K.C.B. London: Longman, Brown, Green & Longmans, 1849.[313]

[By the kind permission of Herbert Stephen, Esq., and of Messrs. Longmans, Green & Co.]

‘… In obedience to the general law of human affairs, arrived the day of reaction. A new race of students had grown up at Oxford. They were men of unsullied, and even severe virtue; animated by a devotion which, if not very fervent, was at least genuine and grave; conversant with classical literature, and not without pretensions, more or less considerable, to an acquaintance with Christian antiquity. As they paced thoughtfully along those tall avenues, to which, a hundred years before, Whitfield and the Wesleys had been accustomed to retire for meditation, they recoiled, with a mixture of aversion and contempt, from the image of the crowded assemblages, and the dramatic exercises, in which the successors of those great men in the Church of England were performing so conspicuous a part. They revolved, not without indignation, the intellectual barrenness with which that Church had been stricken, from the time when her most popular teachers had not merely been satisfied to tread the narrow circle of the “Evangelical” theology, but had exulted in that bondage as indicating their possession of a purer light than had visited the other ministers of the Gospel. They invoked, with an occasional sigh, but not without many a bitter smile, the reappearance amongst us of a piety more profound and masculine, more meek and contemplative. They believed that such a change in the religious character of their age and country was a divine command, and that a commission had been given to themselves to carry it into effect.

* * * * *

‘… It came to pass, in the Oxonian as in other leagues, that the head moved forward by the impulse of the tail. Step by step in their progress, “the Church,” whom they worshipped, changed her attitude and her aspect. She soon disclaimed her Elizabethan or statutory origin, and then made vehement efforts to escape from her Elizabethan or statutory ceremonial. She assumed the title, and laid claim to the character, of the Primitive Church, or the Church of the Fathers, and at length arrogated to herself the prerogatives of that Catholic or universal Church, which “lifts her mitred front in courts and palaces,” whether at Rome, at Moscow, or at Lambeth, but whose presence is never vouchsafed to any who cannot trace back from Apostolic hands an Episcopal succession.

‘At this stage of the history of the Oxonian league, its progress was quickened and animated by the panic which exhibited itself from one end to the other of the hostile camp. The disciples of Whitfield and of Wesley, united to those of Newton and Scott, of Milner and of Venn, and, reinforced by the whole strength of the Nonconformists, began to throw up, along the whole field of controversy, entrenchments for their own defence, and batteries for the annoyance of their assailants. Amongst the literary missiles cast by the contending hosts against each other, there are few better worth the study of those who wish to estimate the probable result of the conflict, than the Life of Richard Hurrell Froude. It was launched from a catapult under the immediate direction of Messrs. Keble and Newman themselves, and, though it is a book of no great inherent value, it has a considerable interest as the only biography which the world possesses of a confessor of Oxford Catholicism. It contains a vivid picture of the discipline, the studies, the opinions, and the mental habits of his fraternity, and is published by the two great fathers of that school, with the avowal of their “own general coincidence” in the opinions and feelings of their disciple. We have thus a delineation, at full length, of one of those divines who are to effect the conquest which was attempted in vain by the Bellarmines and the Bossuets of former times. If it teaches us nothing else, this biography will at least teach us what is the real extent and urgency of the danger which has so much disturbed the tranquillity of the guardians of the Protestant faith of England.

‘Richard Hurrell Froude was born, as we read, on the “Feast of the Annunciation,” in the year 1803, and died in 1836. He was an Etonian, a Fellow of Oriel College, a priest in Holy Orders of the Church of England, the writer of unsuccessful prize essays, and of journals, letters, and sermons; an occasional contributor to the periodical literature of his theological associates; and, during the last four years of his life, an invalid in search of health, either in the south of Europe or in the West Indies. Such are all the incidents of a life to the commemoration of which two octavo volumes have been dedicated. A more intractable story, if regarded merely as a narrative, was never undertaken. But Mr. Froude left behind him a great collection of papers, which affection would have committed to the fire, though party spirit has given them to the press. The most unscrupulous publisher of diaries and private correspondence never offered for sale a self-analysis more frank or less prepossessing. But the world is invited to gaze on this suicidal portraiture, on account of “the extreme importance of the views, to the development of which the whole is meant to be subservient,” and in order that they may not lose “the instruction derivable from a full exhibition of his character as a witness to those views.” Heavy as are the penalties which the Editors of these volumes have incurred for their disclosure of the infirmities of their friend, the world will probably absolve them if they will publish more of the letters which he appears to have received from his mother, and to have transmitted to them. One such letter which they have rescued from oblivion, is worth far more than all which they have published of her son’s. Though both the parent and the child have long since been withdrawn from the reach of this world’s judgment, it yet seems almost an impiety to transcribe her estimate of his early character, and to add that the less favourable anticipations which she drew from her study of him in youth, were but too distinctly verified in his riper years. She read his heart with a mother’s sagacity, and thus revealed it to himself with a mother’s tenderness and truth.

‘“From his very birth his temper had been peculiar; pleasing, intelligent, and attaching, when his mind was undisturbed, and he was in the company of people who treated him reasonably and kindly; but exceedingly impatient under vexatious circumstances; very much disposed to find his own amusement in teasing and vexing others; and almost entirely incorrigible when it was necessary to reprove him. I never could find a successful mode of treating him. Harshness made him obstinate and gloomy; calm and long displeasure made him stupid and sullen; and kind patience had not sufficient power over his feelings to force him to govern himself. After a statement of such great faults, it may seem an inconsistency to say that he nevertheless still bore about him strong marks of a promising character. In all points of substantial principle his feelings were just and high. He had (for his age) an unusually deep feeling of admiration for everything which was good and noble; his relish was lively, and his taste good, for all the pleasures of the imagination; and he was also quite conscious of his own faults, and (untempted) had a just dislike to them.”’

‘Exercising a stern and absolute dominion over all the baser passions, with a keen perception of the beautiful in nature and in art, and a deep homage for the sublime in morals; imbued with the spirit of the classical authors, and delighting in the exercise of talents which, though they fell far short of excellence, rose as far above mediocrity, Mr. Froude might have seemed to want no promise of an honourable rank in literature, or of distinction in his sacred office. His career was intercepted by a premature death; but enough is recorded to show that his aspirations, however noble, must have been defeated by the pride and moroseness which his mother’s wisdom detected, and which her love disclosed to him; united as they were to a constitutional distrust of his own powers, and a weak reliance on other minds for guidance and support. A spirit at once haughty, and unsustained by genuine self-confidence; subdued by the stronger will or intellect of other men, and glorying in that subjection; regarding the opponents of his masters with an intolerance exceeding their own; and, in the midst of all his animosity towards others, turning with no infrequent indignation on itself,—might form the basis of a good dramatic sketch, of which Mr. Froude might not unworthily sustain the burden. But a “dialogue of the dead,” in which George Whitfield and Richard Froude should be the interlocutors, would be a more appropriate channel for illustrating the practical uses of “the Second Reformation,” and of the “Catholic Restoration,” which it is the object of their respective biographies to illustrate. Rhadamanthus having dismissed them from his tribunal, they would compare together their juvenile admiration of the drama, their ascetic discipline at Oxford, their early dependence on stronger or more resolute minds, their propensity to self-observation and to self-portraiture, their contemptuous opinions of the negro race, and the surprise with which they witnessed the worship of the Church of Rome in lands where it is still triumphant. So far all is peace, and the concordes animÆ exchange such greetings as pass between disembodied spirits. But when the tidings brought by the new denizen of the Elysian fields to the reformer of the eighteenth century, reach his affrighted shade, the regions of the blessed are disturbed by an unwonted discord; and the fiery soul of Whitfield blazes with intense desire to resume his wanderings through the earth, and to lift up his voice against the new apostasy.

‘It was with no unmanly dread of the probe, but from want of skill or leisure to employ it, that the self-scrutiny of Whitfield seldom or never penetrated much below the surface. Preach he must; and when no audience could be brought together, he seized a pen and preached to himself. The uppermost feeling, be it what it may, is put down in his journal honestly, vigorously, and devoutly. Satan is menaced and upbraided. Intimations from Heaven are recorded, without one painful doubt of their origin. He prays and exults, anticipates the future with delight, looks back to the past with thankfulness, blames himself simply because he thinks himself to blame, despairs of nothing, fears nothing, and has not a moment’s ill-will to any human being. Mr. Froude conducts his written soliloquies in a different spirit. His introverted gaze analyses with elaborate minuteness the various motives at the confluence of which his active powers receive their impulse, and, with perverted sagacity, pursues the self-examination, until, bewildered in the dark labyrinth of his own nature, he escapes to the cheerful light of day by locking up his journal. A friend (whose real name is as distinctly intimated under its initial letter, as if it were written at length) advises burning confessions. “I cannot make up my mind to that,” observes the penitent; “but I think I can see many points in which it will be likely to do me good to be cut off for some time from these records.” On such a subject the author of The Christian Year was entitled to greater deference. That bright ornament of the College de Propagand at Oxford had also gazed on his own heart through the mental microscope, till he had learnt the danger of the excessive use of it. While admonishing men to approach their Creator not as isolated beings, but as members of the Universal Church, and while aiding the inmates of her hallowed courts to worship in strains so pure, so reverent, and so meek, as to answer not unworthily to the voice of hope and reconciliation in which she is addressed by her Divine Head, this “sweet singer” had so brooded over the evanescent processes of his own spiritual nature, as not seldom to render his real meaning imperceptible to his readers, and probably to himself. With how sound a judgment he counselled Mr. Froude to burn his books, may be judged from the following entries in them:

‘“I have been talking a great deal to P.[314] about religion to-day. He seems to take such straightforward practical views of it that, when I am talking to him, I wonder what I have been bothering myself with all the summer, and almost doubt how far it is right to allow myself to indulge in speculations on a subject where all that is necessary is so plain and obvious.”—“Yesterday, when I went out shooting, I fancied I did not care whether I hit or not; but when it came to the point, I found myself anxious, and, after having killed, was not unwilling to let myself be considered a better shot than I described myself. I had an impulse, too, to let it be thought that I had only three shots when I really had had four. It was slight, to be sure, but I felt it.”—“I have read my journal, though I can hardly identify myself with the person it describes. It seems like having someone under one’s guardianship who was an intolerable fool, and exposed himself to my contempt, every moment, for the most ridiculous and trifling motives; and while I was thinking all this, I went into L.’s room to seek a pair of shoes, and on hearing him coming, got away as silently as possible. Why did I do this? Did I think I was doing what L. did not like? or was it the relic of a sneaking habit? I will ask myself these questions again.”—“I have a sort of vanity which aims at my own good opinion, and I look for anything to prove to myself that I am more anxious to mind myself than other people. I was very hungry, but because I thought the charge unreasonable, I tried to shirk the waiter: sneaking!”—“Yesterday I was much put out by an old fellow chewing tobacco and spitting across me; also bad thoughts of various kinds kept presenting themselves to my mind when it was vacant.”—“I talked sillily to-day, as I used to do last Term, but took no pleasure in it, so I am not ashamed. Although I don’t recollect any harm of myself, yet I don’t feel that I have made a clean breast of it.”—“I forgot to mention that I had been looking round my rooms, and thinking that they looked comfortable and nice, and that I said in my heart, ‘Ah, ah! I am warm.’”—“It always suggests itself to me that a wise thought is wasted when it is kept to myself, against which, as it is my most bothering temptation, I will set down some arguments to be called to mind in time of trouble.”—“Now I am proud of this, and think that the knowledge it shows of myself implies a greatness of mind.”—“These records are no guide to me to show the state of my mind afterwards; they are so far from being exercises of humility, that they lessen the shame of what I record, just as professions [of] goodwill to other people reconcile us to our neglect of them.”

* * * * *

‘As it is not by these nice self-observers that the creeds of hoar antiquity, and the habits of centuries are to be shaken; so neither is such high emprise reserved for ascetics who can pause to enumerate the slices of bread and butter from which they have abstained. When Whitfield would mortify his body, he set about it like a man. The paroxysm was short indeed, but terrible. While it lasted, his diseased imagination brought soul and body into deadly conflict, the fierce spirit spurning, trampling, and well-nigh destroying the peccant carcase. Not so the fastidious and refined “witness to the views” of the restorers of the Catholic Church. The strife between his spiritual and animal nature is recorded in his journal in such terms as these: “Looked with greediness to see if there was goose on the table for dinner.”—“Meant to have kept a fast and did abstain from dinner, but at tea eat buttered toast.”—“Tasted nothing to-day till tea-time, and then only one cup and dry bread.”—“I have kept my fast strictly, having taken nothing till near nine this evening, and then only a cup of tea and a little bread without butter, but it has not been as easy as it was last.”—“I made rather a more hearty tea than usual, quite giving up the notion of a fast in W.’s rooms, and by this weakness have occasioned another slip.” Whatever may be thought of the propriety of disclosing such passages as these, they will provoke a contemptuous smile from no one who knows much of his own heart. But they may relieve the anxiety of the alarmists. Luther and Zwingle, Cranmer and Latimer, may still rest in their honoured graves. “Take courage, brother Ridley, we shall light up such a flame in England as shall not soon be put out!” is a prophecy which will not be defeated by the successors of the Oxonian divines who listened to it, so long as they shall be [able?][315] to record, and to publish, contrite reminiscences of a desire for roasted goose, and of an undue indulgence in buttered toast.

‘Yet the will to subvert the doctrines and discipline of the Reformation is not wanting, and is not concealed. Mr. Froude himself, were he still living, might, indeed, object to be judged by his careless and familiar Letters. No such objection can, however, be made by the eminent persons who have deliberately given them to the world on account “of the truth and extreme importance of the views to which the whole is meant to be subservient,” and in which they record their “own general concurrence.” Of these weighty truths take the following examples: “You will be shocked at my avowal that I am every day becoming a less and less loyal son of the Reformation. It appears to me plain that in all matters which seem to us indifferent, or even doubtful, we should conform our practices to those of the Church which has preserved its traditionary practices unbroken. We cannot know about any seemingly indifferent practice of the Church of Rome that it is not a development of the Apostolic ????, and it is to no purpose to say that we can find no proof of it in the writings of the first six centuries: they must find a disproof if they would do anything.”—“I think people are injudicious who talk against the Roman Catholics for worshipping Saints and honouring the Virgin and images, etc. These things may perhaps be idolatrous: I cannot make up my mind about it.”—“P. called us the Papal Protestant Church, in which he proved a double ignorance, as we are Catholics without the Popery, and Church of England men without the Protestantism.”—“The more I think over that view of yours about regarding our present Communion Service, etc., as a judgement on the Church, and taking it as the crumbs from the Apostles’ table, the more I am struck with its fitness to be dwelt upon as tending to check the intrusion of irreverent thoughts, without in any way interfering with one’s just indignation.”—“Your trumpery principle about Scripture being the sole rule of faith in fundamentals (I nauseate the word), is but a mutilated edition, without the breadth and axiomatic character, of the original.”—“Really I hate the Reformation and the Reformers more and more, and have almost made up my mind that the Rationalist spirit they set afloat is the ?e?d?p??f?t?? of the Revelations.”—“Why do you praise Ridley? Do you know sufficient good about him to counterbalance the fact that he was the associate of Cranmer, Peter Martyr, and Bucer?”—“I wish you could get to know something of S. and W.” (Southey and Wordsworth), “and un-Protestantise, un-Miltonise them.”—“How is it WE are so much in advance of our generation?” Spirit of George Whitfield! how would thy voice, rolled from “the secret place of thunders,” have overwhelmed these puny protests against the truths which it was the one business of thy life to proclaim from the rising to the setting sun!

* * * * *

‘Penetrating the design and seizing the spirit of the Gospels, the Reformers inculcated the faith in which the sentient and the spiritual in man’s compound nature had each its appropriate office: the one directed to the Redeemer in His palpable form, the other to the Divine Paraclete in His hidden agency; while, united with these, they exhibited to a sinful, but penitent, race the parental character of the omnipresent Deity. Such is not the teaching of the restored theology. The most eminent of its professors have thrown open the doors of Mr. Froude’s oratory, and have invited all passers-by to notice in his prayers and meditations “the absence of any distinct mention of our Lord and Saviour.” They are exhorted not to doubt that there was a real though silent “allusion to Christ” under the titles in which the Supreme Being is addressed; and are told that “this circumstance may be a comfort to those who cannot bring themselves to assume the tone of many popular writers of this day, who yet are discouraged by the peremptoriness with which it is exacted of them. The truth is, that a mind alive to its own real state often shrinks to utter what it most dwells upon; and is too full of awe and fear to do more than silently hope what it most wishes.”

‘It would indeed be presumptuous to pass a censure, or to hazard an opinion, on the private devotions of any man; but there is no such risk in rejecting the apology which the publishers of those secret exercises have advanced for Mr. Froude’s departure from the habits of his fellow-Christians. Feeble, indeed, and emasculate must be the system, which, in its delicate distaste for the “popular writers of the day,” would bury in silence the Name in which every tongue and language has been summoned to worship and to rejoice. Well may “awe and fear” become all who assume and all who invoke it. But an “awe” which “shrinks to utter”[316] the Name of Him Who was born at Bethlehem, and yet does not fear to use the Name which is ineffable; a “fear” which can make mention of the Father, but may not speak of the Brother, of all;—is a feeling which fairly baffles comprehension. There is a much more simple though a less imposing theory. Mr. Froude permitted himself, and was encouraged by his correspondents, to indulge in the language of antipathy and scorn towards a large body of his fellow-Christians. It tinges his Letters, his Journals, and is not without its influence even on his devotions. Those despised men too often celebrated the events of their Redeemer’s life, and the benefits of His Passion, in language of offensive familiarity, and invoked Him with fond and feeble epithets. Therefore, a good Oxford Catholic must envelope in mystic terms all allusion to Him round Whom, as its centre, the whole Christian system revolves. The line of demarcation between themselves and these coarse sentimentalists must be broad and deep, even though it should exclude those by whom it is drawn, from all the peculiar and distinctive ground on which the standard of the reformed Churches has been erected…. The martyrs of disgust and the heroes of revolutions are composed of entirely opposite materials, and are cast in quite different moulds. Nothing truly great or formidable was ever yet accomplished, in thought or action, by men whose love for truth was not strong enough to triumph over their dislike of the offensive objects with which truth may chance to be associated.

‘Mr. Froude was the helpless victim of such associations. Nothing escapes his abhorrence which has been regarded with favour by his political or religious antagonists. The Bill for the Abolition of Slavery was recommended to Parliament by an Administration more than suspected of Liberalism in matters ecclesiastical. The “witness to Catholic views,” “in whose sentiments, as a whole,” his Editors concur, visits the West Indies, and they are not afraid to publish the following report of his feelings: “I have felt it a kind of duty to maintain in my mind an habitual hostility to the niggers, and to chuckle over the failures of the new system, as if these poor wretches concentrated in themselves all the Whiggery, dissent, cant, and abomination that have been ranged on their side.” Lest this should pass for a pleasant extravagance, the Editors enjoin the reader not to “confound the author’s view of the negro cause and of the abstract negro with his feelings towards any he should actually meet”; and Professor ThÖluck is summoned from Germany to explain how the “originators of error” may lawfully be the objects of a good man’s hate, and how it may innocently overflow upon all their clients, kindred, and connections. Mr. Froude’s feelings towards the “abstract negro” would have satisfied the learned Professor in his most malevolent mood. “I am ashamed,” he says, “I cannot get over my prejudices against the niggers.”—“Every one I meet seems to me like an incarnation of the whole Anti-Slavery Society, and Fowell Buxton at their head.”—“The thing that strikes me as most remarkable in the cut of these niggers is excessive immodesty, a forward stupid familiarity intended for civility, which prejudices me against them worse even than Buxton’s cant did. It is getting to be the fashion with everybody, even the planters, to praise the emancipation and Mr. Stanley.”

‘Mr. Froude, or rather his Editors, appear to have fallen into the error of supposing that their profession gives them not merely the right to admonish, but the privilege to scold. Lord Stanley and Mr. Buxton have, however, the consolation of being railed at in good company. Hampden is “hated” with much zeal, though, it is admitted, with imperfect knowledge. Louis Philippe, and his associates of the Three Days, receive the following humane benediction: “I sincerely hope ‘the march of mind’ in France may yet prove a bloody one.”—“The election of the wretched B. for ——, and that base fellow H. for ——, in spite of the exposure,” etc. Again, the Editors protest against our supposing that this is a playful exercise in the art of exaggeration. “It should be observed,” they say, “as in other parts of this volume, that the author used these words on principle, not as abuse, but as expressing matters of fact, as a way of bringing before his own mind things as they are.”

‘Milton, however, is the special object of Mr. Froude’s virtuous abhorrence. He is “a detestable author.” Mr. Froude rejoices to learn something of the Puritans, because, as he says, “it gives me a better right to hate Milton, and accounts for many of the things which most disgusted me in his (not-in-my-sense-of-the-word) poetry!”—“A lady told me yesterday that you wrote the article on Sacred Poetry, etc. I thought it did not come up to what I thought your standard of aversion to Milton.” … There are much better things in Mr. Froude’s book than the preceding quotations might appear to promise. If given as specimens of his powers, they would do injustice to one whom we willingly would believe to have been a good and able man, a ripe scholar, and a devout Christian; though as illustrations of the temper and opinions of those who now sit in Wycliffe’s seat, they are neither unfair nor unimportant. But they may convince all whom it concerns, that hitherto, at least, Oxford has not given birth to a new race of giants, by whom the Evangelical founders and missionaries of the Church of England are about to be expelled from their ancient authority, or the Protestant world excluded from the light of day and the free breath of Heaven.’

From ‘A Memoir of the Rev. John Keble, M.A., Late Vicar of Hursley,’ by the Right Hon. Sir J. T. Coleridge, D.C.L. Oxford. London: James Parker & Co., 1870. [3rd ed.]

[By the kind permission of Messrs. J. Parker & Co.]

‘Of Hurrell Froude Dr. Newman has written: “He was a pupil of Keble’s, formed by him, and in turn reacting upon him.” This sentence is followed by a short and striking account of this extraordinary man, to which it would be unwise in me to attempt any addition, except as it may bear on the object of this memoir. I knew [Hurrell Froude] from a child, and I trace in the somewhat singular composition of his character, what he inherited both from his father, and his highly gifted mother: his father, whom Keble after his first visit to Dartington Parsonage playfully described to me as “very amiable, but provokingly intelligent, one quite uncomfortable to think of, making one ashamed of going gawking as one is wont to do about the world, without understanding anything one sees”; his mother very beautiful in person and delicate in constitution, with a highly expressive countenance, and gifted in intellect with the genius and imagination which his father failed in. Like the one, he was clever, knowing, quick, and handy; like the other, he was sensitive, intellectual, imaginative. He came to Keble full of respect for his character; he was naturally soon won by his affectionateness and simplicity, and, in turn, he was just the young man in whom Keble would at once take an interest and delight, as pupil; and so in fact it was. I find him again and again in Keble’s letters spoken of in the most loving language, yet often not without some degree of anxiety as to his future course: he saw the elements of danger in him, how liable he might be to take a wrong course, or be misunderstood even when taking a right one. Yet his hopes largely prevailed; and especially I remember his rejoicing at his [Froude’s] being elected Fellow of Oriel, thinking that the new society and associations, with the responsibilities of College employment, would tend to keep him safe. That Keble acted on him (I would rather use that term than “formed”) is certain; and even when, in the later years of his short life, symptoms of coming differences in opinion may be traced in his letters, there is no abatement of personal love and reverence, nor, indeed, in a certain sense, of his feeling the weight of Keble’s influence; and though I gather from these that there was more entire agreement with Dr. Newman as to action, yet it seems to me that there still remained a closer intimacy and more filial feeling with regard to Keble….

‘… That Hurrell Froude “re-acted on Keble” is true also, I have no doubt, in a certain sense; it could scarcely be otherwise where there was so much ability and affectionate playfulness, with so much originality on one side; so much humility on the other; and so much love on both. It would be idle to speculate on what might have been, when the hour of trial came which none of those specially engaged probably then foresaw. Before it arrived, Hurrell Froude had sunk under the constitutional malady against which he struggled for four years. What he would have been, and what he would have done, had his life been prolonged, no one can say; it would be unfair to judge him by what he left behind, except as rich grounds of promise. This I believe I may confidently say, that those who knew him best loved him the most dearly, and expected the most from him.

‘… My readers will have observed how Keble writes respecting Hurrell Froude and his Remains. His death was a heavy blow to him, and no wonder: those who knew him but were not on terms of intimacy, could not but regard mournfully the end of one so accomplished, so gifted, so good and so pure; a man of such remarkable promise, worn out in the very prime of life by slow, and wasting, and long-hopeless disease. But it was much more than this with Keble: they were more like elder and younger brothers. Reverence in some sort sanctified Froude’s love for Keble, and moderated the sallies of his somewhat too quick and defiant temper, and imparted a special diffidence to his opposition, in their occasional controversies with each other; while a sort of paternal fondness in Keble gave unusual tenderness to his friendship for Froude, and exaggerated, perhaps, his admiration for his undoubted gifts of head and heart. And these were greater than mere acquaintances would be aware of: for he did not present the best aspects of himself to common observation….

* * * * *

‘I had the misfortune of giving [Keble] pain, not only by differing from him on the subject [of the Remains], but, owing to misinformation, or misapprehension, on my part, by what turned out to be a fruitless and ill-timed interference to prevent the publication. I need not now explain how this arose; but I must confess that my opinion remains unchanged. It is a deeply interesting book; not only perfectly harmless now, but capable of instructing and improving those who will read it calmly and considerately. Still, I think that it was calculated, at the time, to throw unnecessary difficulties in the way of the Movement; that it tended to prevent a fair consideration of what the “movers” were attempting, to excite passion, and to encourage a scoffing spirit against them. Some part of the anger and bitterness with which the Ninetieth Tract was afterwards received, may fairly be traced to the feeling created, unjustly indeed, but not unnaturally, by the publication of the Remains. The one seemed to be the result of the other, and the sequence of the two was held to show a deliberate hostility to the Anglican, and an undue preference of the Roman Church.’

From ‘Essays Historical and Theological,’ by J. B. Mozley, D.D. Rivingtons, 1878. [From the Essay on Dr. Arnold.]

[By the kind permission of Messrs. J. R. & H. W. Mozley.]

‘The Church of England had, after a century of growing laxity, just come to the point at which she must either retrace her steps into a stricter state, or go forward into a formal latitudinarianism. Arnold was for the latter course; the writers of the Tracts for the Times for the former. The two schools met at these cross-roads, as it were, and a remarkable contrast indeed they presented. The foremost characters in the Church Movement (if they will excuse us looking at them so historically) were undoubtedly phenomena in their way, as Arnold was in his. Of one of these we can speak: the death that robs us of so much, gives us, at any rate, this privilege. Singular it is that antagonist systems should so suit themselves with champions; but if the world had been picked for the most fair, adequate, and expressive specimens of German-religionism and Catholicism (specimens that each side would have acknowledged), it could not well have produced better ones for the purpose than Dr. Arnold and Mr. Froude. Arnold, gushing with the richness of domestic life, the darling of Nature, and overflowing receptacle and enjoyer, with strong healthy gusto, of all her endearments and sweets,—Arnold, the representative of high joyous Lutheranism, is describable: Mr. Froude, hardly. His intercourse with earth and Nature seemed to cut through them like uncongenial steel, rather than mix and mingle with them. Yet the polished blade smiled as it went through. The grace and spirit with which he adorned this outward world (and seemed, to an undiscerning eye, to love it), were but something analogous in him to the easy tone of men in high life, whose good-nature to inferiors is the result either of their disinterested benevolence, or sublime unconcern. In him, the severe sweetness of the life divine not so much rejected as disarmed those potent glows and attractions of the life natural: a high good temper civilly evaded and disowned them. The monk by nature, the born aristocrat of the Christian sphere, passed them clean by with inimitable ease, marked his line, and shot clear beyond them into the serene ether, toward the far-off Light, toward that needle’s point on which ten thousand angels and all Heaven move…. The Catholic system, as it advanced from the worlds beyond the grave, came with some of the colour and circumstance of its origin. It contrasted strangely with the light, hearty, and glowing form of earth that came from wood and mountain, sunshine and green fields, to meet [it]. And the unearthly, supernatural, dogmatic Church opposed a ghostly dignity to the Church of Nature and the religion of the heart….

* * * * *

‘The notion of the Church being an independent body, and able to keep her own succession going on, apart from the State, is [to Arnold] “all essentially anarchical and schismatic,” and he is only defending, he says, “the common peace and order of the Church, against a new outbreak of Puritanism, to oppose it.” It appears a curious objection at first sight, from a man like Arnold, to urge against a particular religion the claim that it would have been considered treasonable in the days of Queen Elizabeth. But this … is the period of English History to which he always goes for his ecclesiastical principles. Another point of accusation, more of a moral one, does not come with peculiar grace from Arnold, viz., the charge of immodesty and impudence in personally daring to go so counter to received opinions in their views of things and persons. “I have read Froude’s volume,” he says, “and I think that its predominant character is extraordinary impudence. I never saw a more remarkable instance of that qualification than the way in which he, a young man, and a clergyman of the Church of England, reviles all those persons whom the accordant voice of that Church, without distinction of party, has agreed to honour, even perhaps with an excess of admiration.”[317] Now, let it be ever so true that “the accordant voice of the Church of England” has taken one view of Cranmer and the Reformers, whereas Mr. Froude took another, Arnold was not precisely the person to found a charge of impudence upon such a fact. A man who without a vestige of internal scruple or misgiving, unchristianised the whole development of the Church from the days of the Apostles; who made the very disciples, friends and successors of the Apostles teachers of corruption; who made the priesthood an Antichrist, and had just himself shocked the whole Church of England by the promulgation of a religious theory repugnant to the feeling and ideas of almost all her members to a man,—was certainly not a person to be tender in requiring compliance with received views from another, or quick to call impudence in another what in himself was the necessary adjunct of philosophy.’

From ‘Memoir of Joshua Watson,’ edited by Edw. Churton, Archdeacon of Cleveland. 2 vols. Oxford: J. H. Parker, 1861.

[By the kind permission of Messrs. J. Parker & Co.]

‘… The first clear indication of this new principle [a theory of Catholic union, to which all other considerations were to bow] was seen in the publication of the Remains of R. H. Froude, a young man of great promise, Fellow of Oriel College, who died at the early age of thirty-two, and of whose stray papers, letters, and remnants of conversation, a full collection was published by J. H. Newman, then a Fellow of the same College, now for some years past a member of the Society of the Oratory in the Church of Rome. The first two volumes of these Remains were published early in 1838. The work never obtained a wide circulation; but enough was done to give deep offence to many minds, and to unsettle the principles of many more.

‘Those who know Richard Froude best knew that he was in the habit of expressing himself, both by writing and in conversation, in strong, pungent sentences, such as are not altogether uncommon with young men of brilliant minds and vivacious temperament, and are often used by them as much with the design of provoking answer and contradiction, as that of conveying the speaker’s real sentiments. But when the Editor, in his Preface to an unlimited and indiscriminate accumulation of such winged words, claimed for them the consideration due to the deliberate opinions of a matured reason, it was a mode of treatment which stamped them with an importance not properly their own, and justified the censure of those who without concerning themselves much for the reputation of the dead, or making allowance for what was with too little decorum brought before the public, saw the publication announcing itself as an expansion of the principles of the Tracts. And this claim was made, although poor Froude again and again declared himself, in the pages of these volumes, as one whose mind was in a state of progress and puzzle, sympathising at one time with Roman, at another with Puritan, till, in a lengthened illness, and absence in foreign lands, it fed upon its own solitary musings, with that morbid dissatisfaction at all things which sometimes accompanies the decay of vital power. However, the appearance of such an unreserved exposition of distracted fancies was a great discouragement to the hopes which had for a while found their centre at Oxford; and the disease of Richard Froude’s mind seemed to have communicated itself to his more distinguished Editor.’

From ‘William George Ward and the Oxford Movement,’ by Wilfrid Ward. London: Macmillan & Co., 1889.

[By the kind permission of Wilfrid Ward, Esq., and of Messrs. Macmillan & Co.]

‘… The scheme which Newman proposed, to restore to the Anglican Church in some measure the discipline and doctrine of the Fathers, was bold and captivating to [Mr. Ward’s] imagination; but it seemed to [him] to be bolder and more drastic in the change it must in consistency require, than its authors were aware. It was plain to him that nothing short of an explicit avowal that the principles of the Reformation were to be disowned, and its work undone, could meet the logical requirements of the situation. And the leaders hesitated to go thus far…. On the appearance of the first part of Froude’s Remains early in 1838, in which the Reformation was avowedly condemned, and its condemnation tacitly[318] adopted by the two Editors, Newman and Keble, Mr. Ward acknowledged to himself the direction which his views were taking. “From that time,” he wrote to Dr. Pusey, “began my inclination to see Truth where I trust it is.” The final influence which determined his conversion was the series of lectures by Newman on The Scripture Proof of the Doctrines of the Church, published afterwards as Tract 85. Newman, in these lectures, dealt with the philosophical basis of latitudinarianism on the one hand, and of the Anglo-Catholic view of the Church on the other, with a power which did not fail to give satisfaction to his new disciple, and to justify, on intellectual grounds, the position which was now invested, in Ward’s mind, with all the charm of Froude’s romantic conception of Catholic sanctity, the fire of his reforming genius, the unhesitating completeness of his programme of action…. Dean Scott (the late Dean of Rochester), who saw Mr. Ward daily in the Common Room at Balliol, notes some points of interest as to the impression produced on his friends by the change which Froude’s Remains wrought in his attitude:—“I can speak with perfect assurance of their purport [the purport of Mr. Ward’s remarks on the volumes published in 1838]. They were substantially these: ‘This is what I have been looking for. Here is a man who knows what he means, and says it. This is the man for me! He speaks out.’ But though we were amused, and gave him credit for having achieved the feat which the pseudo-scholastic doctor ascribes to the angels, of passing from one extreme to the other without passing through the middle, I do not really think that those words indicated the actual turning-point. As I look back on them, they seem to me to imply that the turn had taken place, but that he was looking for a pledge, on the part of those to whom he was attaching himself, that they were in earnest, and knew what they meant.” The appearance of Froude’s Remains was indeed an epoch in Mr. Ward’s life. “The thing that was utterly abhorrent with him,” writes Lord Blachford, “was to stop short”; and this was precisely what the via media, with all its attractiveness, had hitherto appeared to do. All this was changed when Froude’s outspoken views were adopted by the leaders. “Out came Froude,” writes Mr. Ward to Dr. Pusey, “of which it is little to say that it delighted me more than any book of the kind I ever read.” “He found in Froude’s Remains,” continues Lord Blachford, “a good deal of his own Radicalism (though nothing at all of his own Utilitarianism or Liberalism), and it seemed literally to make him jump for joy.”

‘… There was a good deal in Froude’s open speech and direct intellect which resembled Mr. Ward’s own characteristics, different as the two men were, in many respects. Newman describes him as “brimful and overflowing with ideas and views”; as having “an intellect as critical and logical as it was speculative and bold”; as “professing openly his admiration for Rome, and his hatred of the Reformers”; as “delighting to think of the Saints,” “having a vivid appreciation of the idea of sanctity, its possibilities and its heights”; “embracing the principle of penance and mortification”; “being powerfully drawn to the MediÆval Church, but not to the Primitive.” All this might be said, with great truth, of Mr. Ward himself. The boldness and completeness, the uncompromising tone of the Remains, took hold of Mr. Ward’s imagination. A clear, explicit rule of faith was thus substituted for perplexing and harassing speculation. There was no temporising, or stopping short. Mr. Ward’s dislike of the current system was echoed in the plain statement which he was for ever quoting. “At length, under Henry VIII., the Church of England fell. Will she ever rise again?”[319] Froude’s writing, then, recommended itself to Mr. Ward as having the attribute of Lord Strafford’s Irish policy: it was thorough. And in opposition to this, Arnold’s system stopped short at every turn. Froude’s picture of the MediÆval Church was that of an absolute, independent, spiritual authority, direct, uncompromising, explicit in its decrees, in contrast with the uncertain voice of the English Church, with its hundred shades of opinions differing from, and even opposed to, each other. Instead of groping with the feeble light of human reason amid texts of uncertain signification, he interpreted Scripture by the aid of constant tradition, and of the Church’s divine illumination. The stand for moral goodness against vice and worldliness was witnessed in the highest and most ideal types of sanctity in Church history. The personal struggle of the ordinary Christian against his evil inclinations was systematised and brought to perfection in Catholic ascetic works. The doctrine of a supernatural world and supernatural influences was not minimised, as though one feared to tax human powers of belief: it was put forth in the fullest and most fearless manner. Angels and Saints, as ministers of supernatural help, were recognised; and their various offices in aiding and protecting us, and listening to our prayers on all occasions, forced on the attention constantly in the Catholic system. There was no mistiness, or haze, or hesitation. All was clear, complete, definite, carried out to its logical consequences….

* * * * *

‘Ward himself speaks in no doubtful terms of union with Rome as the ideal vision which inspired him. “Restoration of active communion with the Roman Church”, he writes to a friend in 1841, “is the most enchanting earthly prospect on which my imagination can dwell.” His remarks, too, on Froude’s book (in a letter written in the same year to Dr. Pusey) indicate the same line of sympathies. “The especial charm in it to me,” he wrote, “was … his hatred of our present system and of the Reformers, and his sympathy with the rest of Christendom.” The love of Rome and of an united Christendom, which marked the new school, was not purely a love for ecclesiastical authority. This was indeed one element, but there was another yet more influential in many minds: admiration for the Saints of the Roman Church, and for the saintly ideal, as realised especially in the monastic life. We have already seen how this element operated in Mr. Ward’s own history. Froude had struck the note of sanctity as well as the note of authority. He had raised an inspiring ideal on both heads; and behold, with however much of practical corruption and superstition mixed up with their practical exhibitions, these ideals were actually reverenced, attempted, often realised! in the existing Roman Church. The worthies of the English Church, even when sharing the tender piety of George Herbert or Bishop Ken, fell short of the heroic aims, the martial sanctity, gained by warfare unceasing against world, flesh, and devil, which they found exhibited in Roman hagiology. The glorying in the Cross of Christ, which is the keynote to such lives as those of St. Ignatius of Loyola, and St. Francis Xavier, while it recalled much in the life of St. Paul, had no counterpart in post-Reformation Anglicanism.[320] The state of things which made this directly Romeward movement tolerable to any considerable section of the English Church was, however, sufficiently remarkable. The Anglicanism of the party must have receded very considerably from the views of the early Tracts before such a thing could be possible. Perhaps two events were especially instrumental to such a preparation: the first was the language used with respect to the English Reformers by Newman and Keble, in the Preface to the second part of Froude’s Remains, early in 1839. However guarded and measured the expressions were, such language expressed a definite view, with far-reaching consequences; and the extraordinary weight attaching to Newman’s lightest utterances gave the words additional significance. “The Editors,” one passage ran, “by publishing [Mr. Froude’s] sentiments … so unreservedly … indicated their own general acquiescence in the opinion that the persons chiefly instrumental in [the Reformation], were not, as a party, to be trusted on ecclesiastical and theological questions, nor yet to be imitated in their practical handling of the unspeakably awful matters with which they were concerned.” Again, the differences between the Reformers and the Fathers, both in doctrine and in moral sentiment, were insisted on by the Editors. “You must choose between the two lines,” they wrote; “they are not only diverging, but contrary.” And certain questions as to the practical Christian ideal are specified as instances: “Compare the sayings and manner of the two schools on the subjects of fasting, celibacy, religious vows, voluntary retirement and contemplation, the memory of the Saints, rites and ceremonies recommended by antiquity.” The conclusion which, though unspoken here, was undeniable once it was suggested, the conclusion “in these matters Rome has preserved what England has lost; in these matters we may take Rome for our model if we would return to antiquity,”—could not but gain a footing in the minds of Newman’s disciples.’

From ‘A Narrative of Events connected with the Publication of The Tracts for the Times,’ by William Palmer, Author of Origines LiturgicÆ, etc. Rivingtons, 1883. [From the Introduction.]

‘The publication of this work [Origines LiturgicÆ] had the effect of introducing the author to the acquaintance of some of the leading spirits who afterwards exercised a decisive influence on the foundation of the Oxford Movement of 1833, usually called “Tractarian.” He had, in this work, vindicated the Church of England on what are sometimes called High Church principles, affirming the divine institution of the Church, and its essential independence, in creed and jurisdiction, of merely temporal powers. He had also argued against the Nonjurors, and sustained the harmony of Church and State. He had vindicated the Reformation. He had defended the Catholicity and continuity of the Church in England, and had opposed the pretensions of the See of Rome. No one could mistake his principles, and these principles were felt by the great mass of Churchmen to be in harmony with their own. In forming the acquaintance of Newman and Froude, then very distinguished Fellows of Oriel, and amongst rising men in the University, the author knew that his principles, at least, were fully known to, and approved by, these eminent men….

‘… The autumn and winter of 1832 passed away, but early in 1833 Froude returned to Oxford in better health, and I had once more a friend with whom I could work with entire sympathy in Church questions. For never did I meet with a more cordial response to all that I felt upon these matters, or a fuller sympathy. The only point on which I could not concur with him was the manner in which he spoke of the union of Church and State, which he esteemed unlawful per se, while I only objected to its abuses. His language as to the Reformation, too, I could not concur in, having considered with some attention the point as urged in Nonjuring works, and arrived at the conclusion that the Reformation did not merit the unfavourable judgment pronounced. After some months, in July we were joined by Newman, who had been detained by illness in France; and this greatly strengthened our hands.

‘In an article in the Contemporary Review[321] on the Oxford Movement, I have ventured on the remark that I was not aware of an incident mentioned in Froude’s Remains, illustrative at once of the absence of elementary knowledge of the Roman Catholic system, and of the disposition to frame ingenious hypotheses upon the most important practical subjects. The incident referred to I described thus: “Froude had, with Newman, been anxious to ascertain the terms upon which they could be admitted to communion by the Roman Church, supposing that some dispensation might be granted which would enable them to communicate with Rome without violation of conscience”; and I elsewhere remarked on Newman [that] “those who conversed with him did not know that while in Italy he had sought, in company with Froude, to ascertain the terms on which they might be admitted to communion with Rome, and had been surprised on learning that an acceptance of the decrees of Trent was a necessary preliminary”; and I added: “had I been aware of these circumstances, I do not know whether I should have been able to co-operate cordially with him.” Nay, if I had supposed him to be willing to forsake the Church of England, I should have said that I could, in that case, have held no communion with him. As to his knowledge of the Roman Catholic system at that time, it was not grounded on the critical examination of Roman Catholic works of controversy. It was, I think, superficial, at that time and long after….

‘The passage on which my remarks were based was in Froude’s Remains, pp. 304, 307, in which he says: “The only thing I can put my hand on as an acquisition [at Rome] is having become acquainted with a man of some influence at Rome, Monsignor [Wiseman], the head of the [English] College, who has enlightened [Newman] and me on the subject of our relations to the Church of Rome. We got introduced to him to find out whether they would take us in on any terms to which we could twist our consciences, and we found, to our dismay, that not one step could be gained without swallowing the Council of Trent as a whole.” Mr. Newman, in editing this passage, in Froude’s Remains, represents it as merely “a jesting way of stating to a friend what was really the fact: viz., that he and another availed themselves of the opportunity of meeting a learned Romanist to ascertain the ultimate points at issue between the Churches.” Cardinal Newman insists upon it that this is the true version of the affair. I merely ask the reader to compare the two statements: that of Froude, made at the time, and distinctly, and that of Newman, made some years after, to explain it. I ask whether the explanation is not throughout inconsistent with the statement, whether it is not a plain attempt to explain away the statement of Froude, whether Froude’s is not evidently the true version? No doubt Newman thought such explanation quite within his province as Editor. This little piece of finesse merits no grave animadversion, and I trust that I have so explained the point … as to relieve me from the imputation of accusing of dishonesty an old friend so much honoured for virtue and honour.’

[From the Narrative.]

‘I had not been very intimately acquainted with Mr. Newman and Mr. Froude, and was scarcely known to Mr. Keble, or Mr. Perceval, when our deep sense of the wrongs sustained by the Church in the suppression of Bishoprics, and our feeling of the necessity of doing whatever was in our power to arrest the tide of evil, brought us together in the summer of 1833. It was at the beginning of Long Vacation when, Mr. Froude being almost the only occupant of Oriel College, we frequently met in the Common Room, that the resolution to unite and associate in defence of the Church, of her violated liberties and neglected principles, arose. This resolution was immediately acted on; and while I corresponded with Mr. Rose, Mr. Froude communicated our design to Mr. Keble. Mr. Newman soon took part in our deliberations, on his return from the Continent. The particular course which we were to adopt became the subject of much and anxious thought; and as it was deemed advisable to confer with Mr. Rose on so important a subject, Mr. Froude and myself, after some correspondence, visited him at Hadleigh, in July; where I also had the pleasure of becoming personally acquainted with Mr. Perceval, who had been invited to take part in our deliberations…. On our return to Oxford, frequent conferences took place at Oriel College, between Mr. Froude, Mr. Newman, Mr. Keble, and the writer, in which various plans were discussed…. I prepared a draft of the third formulary printed by Mr. Perceval, which was revised and improved by a friend, and was finally adopted as a basis of our further proceedings.[322] The formulary thus agreed on was printed and was privately and extensively circulated amongst our friends in all parts of England, in the autumn of 1833. Our intention was not to form a society merely at Oxford, but to extend it throughout all England, or rather, to form similar societies in every part of England. But finding that jealousy was expressed in several high quarters at the formation of any associations, and the notion being also unacceptable to Froude and others (Newman), at Oxford, we ceased, after a time, from circulating these papers, or advising the formation of societies. Some permanent effects, however, were produced….

‘The publication of the Tracts commenced and was continued by several of our friends,[323] each writer printing whatever appeared to him advisable or useful, without the formality of previous consultation with others…. I confess that I was rather surprised at the rapidity with which they were composed and published, without any previous revision or consultation; nor did it seem to me that any caution was exercised in avoiding language calculated to give needless offence…. The respect and regard due to the authors of the Tracts rendered me anxious to place the most favourable construction on everything which they wrote, and to hope that my apprehensions might be ill-founded. In the course, however, of the extensive correspondence of the autumn and winter of 1833 which has been mentioned, so many objections were raised by the clergy against parts of the Tracts, and so many indiscretions were pointed out, that I became convinced of the necessity of making some attempt to arrest the evil. With this object, I made application in a direction (Newman) where much influence in the management of the Tracts was exercised, and very earnestly urged the necessity of putting an end to their publication, or at least of suspending them for a time. On one occasion, I thought I had been successful in the former object, and stated the fact to several correspondents; but the sequel proved that I was mistaken.[324] … Certainly, I had, in private conversation with Mr. Froude, and one or two others, felt that there were material differences between our views, on several important points. I allude more particularly to the question of the union of Church and State, and of the character of the English and the foreign Reformers. Mr. Froude occasionally expressed sentiments on the latter subject which seemed extremely unjust to the Reformers, and injurious to the Church; but as his conversation generally was of a very startling and paradoxical character, and his sentiments were evidently only in the course of formation, I trusted that more knowledge and thought would bring him to juster views….

* * * * *

‘I will not say that the writers of the Tracts have not been in any degree instrumental in drawing forth this spirit;[325] I will not inquire how far it is traceable to the publication of Froude’s Remains, and to the defence of his views contained in the Preface to the second series of the Remains; nor will I examine how far it may be a reaction against ultra-Protestantism: it is unnecessary now to enter on this painful and complicated question, on which different opinions may be entertained.’

From ‘Oxford High Anglicanism and its chief Leaders,’ by the Rev. James H. Rigg, D.D. London: Charles H. Kelly, 1899.

[By the kind permission of the Rev. James H. Rigg, D.D., and of Mr. Charles H. Kelly.]

‘Newman’s principles as the active leader of the Oxford Movement were imbibed from his intercourse with Keble and Hurrell Froude. Newman himself says expressly and emphatically that Keble was the real father of the Oxford Movement, and it was the influence of Froude which brought together Keble and Newman. It was Froude who effected that blending and focussing of the sympathies and aims of Keble, Newman, and himself which furnished the first inspiration and impulse of the Oxford Neo-Anglican Movement. Newman, that is to say, though afterwards the leader, was first the disciple of Keble and even of Froude, and Keble and Froude derived their Anglican indoctrination and inspiration not assuredly from the Evangelical Revival, which they were brought up to hate, and did, both, sincerely hate through life, but from the High Church school of the early years of the eighteenth century, of which Dr. Routh was a living representative at Oxford for many years after Keble obtained his Fellowship at Oriel…. Keble was the tutor and the loving and sympathetic friend of the bitter and contemptuous Froude, who “hated the Reformation,” and reserved his utmost scorn and antipathy for “irreverent Dissenters.” … His personal opinions were extreme, so extreme as to lead him to admire the character of Froude, in spite of his immodesty, his intolerance, and his puerile asceticism, because there was in the young man such heartiness, such good fellowship, such zeal, such talent; and all consecrated to the cause of “Catholic” restoration and Christian progress, as he understood it.

‘… The characters of [Newman and Keble] were not likely to blend, except under the influence of some common solvent, some medium of overpoweringly strong affinity with both, through which characters so sharply contrasted might be combined in sympathy and united in counsel…. Nor could a fitter instrument have been found for bringing about the union on this basis than Hurrell Froude. He was himself, in several respects, as great a contrast to Keble in character as even Newman. But then he had been Keble’s pupil, and he remained his devoted and admiring friend…. Moreover, though Newman in his Apologia speaks of Froude as “speculative,” he was not metaphysically sceptical, and his speculations appear to have been confined within theologically safe regions. Froude, in fact, stood in fear of Newman’s speculative tendency; and in one place, whilst expressing his delight in his companionship, expresses his doubt whether he is not more or less of a “heretic.”[326] In no sense was Hurrell Froude doctrinally or metaphysically speculative. He had seemingly, from the first, bound himself to tradition. His affections went after antiquity, but, in particular, he doted upon the MediÆval Church. His “speculations” never led him towards the verge of unbelief. Whilst his zeal was hot, and his mind active, his intellect seemed to make good its safety by servility to traditional dogma. If he mocked at the Reformers, he held fast by the “Saints.” Furthermore, although such a zealot for traditional Church authority, and so bold and hot against all Protestants and Puritans, he was to his friends gentle, tender, playful, pleasant, and most open-hearted. It is easy to see by what ties such a man would be attached to Keble and to Newman. The former regarded him somewhat as a mother regards a high-spirited, spoilt, but frank, true-spoken and affectionate son. She is proud of him, while she disapproves of some of his proceedings. She reproves him, but gently, lovingly: too gently by far. She views all his conduct with a partial eye; his very faults seem to her but the exuberances of a noble spirit. It must be remembered also that Froude’s animosities correspond to Keble’s dislikes, and that his enthusiastic and passionate admiration was bestowed in accordance with Keble’s preferences. The tempers of the teacher and pupil were very different, but their tastes and opinions were well agreed; and, in fact, those of Froude had been formed by Keble. What Keble instilled by gentle influence became in Froude a potent and heady spirit. Keble, accordingly, forgave the violence of his pupil, in part for the sake of his orthodoxy, and in part because of his dutifulness and affection to him personally. His excesses were but the excesses of a fine young nature on behalf of what was good and right. “E’en his failings leaned to virtue’s side.” While such were the ties which attached Keble to Froude, Newman was drawn to him both by agreement in theological and ecclesiastical opinions and tendencies, and also by a strong natural affinity of disposition. No one can read Newman’s description of Froude and himself in the Apologia without feeling that he and such a man as Froude must have been most congenial companions. Both were, intellectually, what he describes Froude as being: “critical and logical,” “speculative and bold.” Newman, no less than Froude, “delighted in the notion of an hierarchical system of sacerdotal power, and of full ecclesiastical liberty.” “Hatred of the Reformers,” “scorn” of Protestantism, are noted by Newman as characteristics of Froude. And, as to himself, “I became fierce,” “I was indignant,” “I despised every rival system,” “I had a thorough contempt for the Evangelicals,”—such expressions as these abound in his delineation of his own character at this period of his life. It is no wonder, therefore, that Froude and Newman clave to each other…. Froude was the energetic and wilful partner of Newman in the new enterprise: Froude, who with far less genius, far less personal tact and persuasiveness, and no gift of public or pulpit suasion, such as Newman possessed in a wonderful degree, was a man of intense and resolute character, of great logical daring, of unsparing pugnacity, of far-reaching ideas, whom Newman, and, as we have seen, Keble also, greatly admired and even loved, though he was loved by few besides. These two men, Newman and Froude, were mutually complementary: together they planned the first lines of the Tractarian Movement…. For his characteristic work at Oxford, Newman had been prepared by the influence of Keble and Froude. To quote Dean Church, “Keble had given the inspiration, Froude had given the impetus; then Newman took up the work.” If Froude had lived a few years longer, it cannot be doubted that he would have gone over the imaginary line of division, and would have found himself consciously and professedly at Rome. Keble had neither logic nor courage to take him across the line…. Newman, alone of the three, slowly and reluctantly, but by force of sincere and overmastering convictions, followed his principles out to the complete end.

‘… To the Movement, as a Movement, Keble seems to have actively contributed no momentum whatever, although his reputation (like Pusey’s later on) lent it a powerful sanction. To Newman belongs all the merit or demerit of the Tractarian line of policy and action. Without him, the Movement would never have taken form or gathered way. Froude was, very early, a powerful and energetic colleague: indeed, without him, Newman would not have been what he was, nor done what he did…. The chief interest attaching to Froude is that being what he was, he so powerfully influenced Newman, who said of him in his Lectures on Anglicanism,[327] that “he, if any, is the author of the Movement altogether”: a saying hardly, however, consistent with the statement already quoted from the Apologia as to Keble’s relation to the Movement. Froude was a man of much force of will, and superior natural gifts; he was handsome and attractive, a bright and lively companion, a warm and affectionate friend, a “good fellow,” but very free indeed of his tongue. He was ignorant, self-conscious, and audacious; as intense a hater as he was a warm friend; a bitter bigot, a reckless revolutionist; one who delighted to speak evil of dignitaries, and of departed worthies and heroes reverenced by Protestant Christians at home and abroad. Church, who did not know him, but took his estimate of him mainly from Newman, makes a conspicuous figure of him, giving much more space to him than to Pusey,[328] more even than to Keble. That this should be so, shows how deeply Church had drunk into the spirit that prompted and inspired the Tractarians. Even his friendly hand, however, cannot omit from his picture certain features which, to an outsider who is not fascinated by the camaraderie of the Tractarian clique … will be almost sufficient, without further evidence, to warrant the phrase, “a flippant railer,” in which Julius Hare (himself, assuredly, no Evangelical bigot or narrow sectary) describes the man whose Remains were edited and published by his two great friends, that Anglican Churchmen might be led to admire the zeal and devotion, and to drink into the spirit, of this young hero of the new party. According to their view, his early death in the odour of sanctity (although of true Christian saintliness in temper or spirit he seems to have had as little tincture as any persecuting Spanish saint), left an aureole of glory upon his memory.

‘Such was Froude’s hatred of Puritanism that, as may be learnt from Dean Church, he was “blind to the grandeur of Milton’s poetry.” Church speaks, himself, of his “fiery impetuosity, and the frank daring of his disrespectful vocabulary.” He quotes James Mozley as saying: “I would not set down anything that Froude says for his deliberate opinion, for he really hates the present state of things so excessively that any change would be a relief to him.” He says that “Froude was made for conflict, not to win disciples.” He admits his ignorance. “He was,” he tells us, “a man strong in abstract thought and imagination, who wanted adequate knowledge.” He quotes from the Apologia Newman’s admission of two noticeable deficiencies in Froude: “he had no turn for theology”; “his power of entering into the minds of others was not equal to his other gifts.” Such a power, we may note, is very unlikely to belong to men of fierce and hasty arrogance and self-confidence. It finds its natural home in company with “the wisdom from above,” which is not only “pure,” but “gentle and easy to be entreated,” the characteristics of a saintliness of another sort than that of Froude. Dean Church admits that the Remains contain phrases and sentiments and epithets surprisingly at variance with conventional and popular estimates: “as, for example, we may explain, when Froude speaks of the illustrious Bishop Jewel, whom Hooker calls ‘the worthiest divine that Christendom hath bred for the space of some hundreds of years,’ as ‘an irreverent Dissenter,’ Church adds that ‘friends were pained and disturbed,’ while ‘foes exulted,’ at such a disclosure of the spirit of the Movement.” The apology he offers is that “if the off-hand sayings of any man of force and wit and strong convictions were made known to the world, they would, by themselves, have much the same look of flippancy, injustice, impertinence, to those who disagreed with the speaker or writer…. The friends who published Froude’s Remains knew what he was; they knew the place and proportion of the fierce and scornful passages; they knew that they did not go beyond the liberty and the frank speaking, which most people give themselves in the abandon and understood exaggeration of intimate correspondence and talk.” To which the reply is obvious: if the Editors (who were no other than Newman and Keble) had disapproved of the tone and style of these Remains, as it is evident that Dean Church himself, notwithstanding his strong friendly bias, could not help disapproving of them, they would either not have published them, or would at least have suggested some such apology as that suggested by Dean Church. But, in fact, they published them without any such apology, and it cannot be seriously doubted that they rather rejoiced in than condemned such gross improprieties. Further, if this sort of writing is common in the intimate correspondence of responsible clergymen, how is it that it is so hard, if it is at all possible, to match the flippancy and insolence of these Remains in any other correspondence or remains of men of Christian culture and character, known to modern literature? Dean Church, indeed, cannot but admit that “Froude was often intemperate and unjust,” and that “his strong language gave needless exasperation.” He endeavours, however, to make one point in favour of the Movement, from the publication of the Remains. Whether it was wise or not, he argues that “it was not the act of cunning conspirators: it was the act of men who were ready to show their hands and take the consequences; it was the mistake of men confident in their own straightforwardness.” I have no wish to revive against the first leaders of the Movement, as represented by Froude and the admirable Editors of his Remains, the charge of being conspirators, though, as I have already stated, Froude himself was the first to describe the Tractarian Movement as a “conspiracy.” Certainly Froude, in the earlier stage of the Movement, like Ward in its later stages, had little in him of the conspirator’s subtlety or craft, whatever may be said as to Newman. But an unbiassed historian would hardly describe the act of publication as Dean Church does: he would rather say that it was the act of men whose honesty may be admitted, but who were sanguine partisans, men strongly biassed by their sectarian temper, by their over-weening self-confidence….

‘But it was a strange little world, that world of Oxford, in which Froude was regarded as a bright and leading character, sixty years ago. It seems, as we look back upon it, to be very much farther away than half a century, and to belong almost to a different planetary sphere…. It was, in fact, a young and ignorant, as well as bigoted circle, in which the idea of the Oxford Movement first germinated…. It was a school-boyish sort of clique, and in wildness, enthusiasm, ignorance of the actual forces and the gathering movements of the world outside, their projects and dreams remind us of schoolboy plans and projects for moving the world and achieving fame and greatness….

‘Schoolboys’ friendships are often intense and romantic. Those of Newman and his circle were passionately deep and warm, more like those of boys, in some respects, than of men; perhaps still more like those of women who live aloof from the world in the seclusion of mutual intimacy: intimacy suffused with the fascinating but hectic brightness of a sort of celibate consecration to each other, apart from any thought of stronger or more authoritative human ties that might some time interfere with their sacrament of friendship. This morbidezza of moral complexion and temperament, this more or less unnatural and unhealthy intensity of friendship, was a marked feature in Newman’s relations with those around him. There is no doubt a touching side to this feature in the Tractarian Society of Oxford. Dean Church speaks of “the affection which was characteristic of those days.” … Of the mutually feminine attachment which bound Newman and Froude together, there is no need to say more…. The Apologia sets it forth all the more fully because Froude was no longer living…. Newman’s was a characteristically feminine nature: it was feminine in the quickness and subtlety of his instincts, in affection and the caprices of affection, in diplomatic tact and adroitness, and in a gift of statement and grace of phrase which find their analogies in the conversation, in the public addresses, and not seldom in the written style, of gifted women…. Hurrell Froude, his chosen and most congenial friend, was more feminine still than Newman, feminine in his faults as well as in his gifts and his defects. For sympathy and mutual intelligence the two were wonderfully well assorted…. It was a saying of Charles Kingsley … that all the Tractarian leaders were wanting in virility: i.e., not so much effeminate as naturally more woman-like than masculine.’

From ‘Historical Notes on the Tractarian Movement, A.D. 1833-1845,’ by Frederick Oakeley, M.A., Oxon., Priest of the Archdiocese of Westminster. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1865.

[By the kind permission of Sir Charles W. A. Oakeley, Bart., and of Messrs. Longmans, Green & Co.]

‘The only one of these remarkable men who has passed into the region of history[329] is he who, though the youngest of the whole number in years, deserves to be commemorated as the first who took a comprehensive view of the bearings and character of the Movement. Mr. Froude was a College contemporary of my own, and I enjoyed at one time the privilege of constant intercourse and familiar acquaintance with him. Those who have formed their impression of him from his published Remains will scarcely, perhaps, be prepared to hear how little there appeared, in his external deportment, while he was at Oxford, of that remarkable austerity of life which he is now known to have habitually practised, even then. To a form of singular elegance, and a countenance of that peculiar and highest kind of beauty which flows from purity of heart and mind, he added manners the most refined and engaging. That air of sunny cheerfulness which is best expressed by the French word riant, never forsook him (at the time when I knew him best), and diffused itself, as is its wont, over every circle in which he moved. I have seen him in spheres so different as the Common-Rooms of Oxford, and the after-dinner company of the high aristocratic society of the West of England; and I well remember how he mingled even with the last in a way so easy, yet so dignified, as at once to conciliate its sympathies and direct its tone. He was one of those who seemed to have extracted real good out of an English Public School education, while unaffected by its manifold vices. Popular among his companions for his skill in all athletic exercises, as well as for his humility, forbearance, and indomitable good temper, he had the rare gift of changing the course of dangerous conversation without uncouth abruptness or unbecoming dictation; and he almost seemed, as is recorded of St. Bernardine of Sienna, to check, by his mere presence, the profane jibe, or unseemly Équivoque. To his great intellectual powers his published Remains bear abundant witness; nor do we, in fact, need any other proof of them than the deference yielded to his opinions by such men as those who have acknowledged him for their example and their guide. Let it not be supposed that this high panegyric is prompted by the partiality of friendship. Although I enjoyed constant opportunities of intercourse with Mr. Froude, and made his character a study, yet I have no claim whatever to be considered his intimate friend. We were not, indeed, at that time, in anything like complete religious accord; and I remember his once saying to me, in words which subsequent events made me regard as prophetic: “My dear O., I believe you will come right some day; but you are a long time about it.” Poor Hurrell Froude! May it be allowed to one who was your competitor in more than one academical contest, and your inferior in everything (save in his happy possession of those religious privileges which you were cut off too early to allow of your attaining), to pay you, after many years, this feeble tribute of gratitude and admiration! Never again will Anglicanism produce such a disciple; never, till she is Catholic, will Oxford boast of such a son.

As I have begun this quotation, I may as well go on with it:

To adjust such a character with Catholic facts and Catholic principles is no part of my present object. The reader who takes an interest in this question will find it discussed in Dr. Newman’s Lectures on Anglican Difficulties. For me it will be sufficient to take leave of this gifted person in the well-known words: Cum talis sis, utinam noster esses!

* * * * *

‘The estimate taken [of the Reformers and] of their work by Mr. Froude, Mr. Keble, and Mr. Newman became sufficiently manifest on the publication of Mr. Froude’s Remains, with the remarks prefixed to them by the friends just mentioned. Mr. Froude had described the English Reformers in general, as “a set with whom he wished to have less and less to do.” He declared his opinion that Bishop Jewel was no better than “an irreverent Dissenter,” and expressed himself as sceptical whether Latimer (of whom, as a “Martyr,” he did not wish to speak disrespectfully) were not “something in the Bulteel line.” Dr. Pusey was too humble and forbearing to enter any kind of public protest against statements and views so different from his own. But he was generally believed not to go along with the tenour of these expressions, nor to approve, otherwise than by passive acquiescence, of the publication of those parts of the work in which they were contained…. [Living,] Mr. Froude’s frankness and attractive personal qualities gained from the rising generation of Oxford a favourable hearing for the (to them) original views, which he so ably and dashingly inculcated…. No one can read Mr. Froude’s Remains … without seeing that with him and with those with whom he corresponded, the ethical system of Oxford had exercised no small influence in the formation of mental habits. Those who, like myself, were personally acquainted with Mr. Froude, will remember how constantly he used to appeal to [the] great moral teacher of antiquity, “Old ‘Stotle,” as he used playfully to call him, against the shallow principles of the day. There is a sense, I am convinced, in which the literature of heathenism is often more religious than that of Protestantism. Thus, then, it was that the philosophical studies of Oxford tended to form certain great minds on a semi-Catholic type.

* * * * *

‘Towards the close of his mortal career, his opinions appear to have undergone some change which was perceptible to many of his friends even in his outward demeanour. He associated less than formerly with the old High Church party of the Establishment, as he became convinced that the ills of the Church must be cured by sterner and more unworldly methods of discipline than that party was prepared to accept. An air of gravity, and a tone of severity, even in general society (so far as he mixed with it), had replaced that bright and sunny cheerfulness which was characteristic of his earlier days; and this change of exterior was greater than could be explained by his declining health, against which he bore up with exemplary fortitude. Together with a more anxious view of the state and prospects of the Establishment, he had apparently taken up a less favourable opinion of the Catholic Church, at least in its actual manifestation. A visit to the Continent had operated (from whatever cause) unfavourably upon his judgment of Catholics, whom he now first stigmatised as “Tridentines”: a strange commentary, certainly, on the view put forth later by Mr. Newman, to the effect that the prevalent Catholic system was erroneous in that it had deviated from the Tridentine rule, not in that it represented that rule! This and similar dicta, some of a still more painful import, have led such of Mr. Froude’s friends as have clung to the Established Church to believe that, had he lived, he would have remained on their side. Such a question will naturally be determined, to a great extent, according to the personal views and wishes of those who speculate upon it. Certain at any rate it is, that had he come to us, the Church would have secured the humble obedience and faithful service of a rarely gifted intellect; while, had he stayed behind, he would have added one more to the number of those whose absence is the theme of our lamentation, and whose conversion, the object of our prayers. It is part, however, of the historian’s office to investigate such questions according to the evidence at his disposal; and in the instance before us, that evidence is far more accessible and far more satisfactory than is usually the case in posthumous inquiries. Mr. Froude’s Letters to Friends, published in his Remains, give an insight into his character and feelings, with all their various developments and vicissitudes, such as is commonly the privilege of intimate personal acquaintance, and of that alone. His bosom friends could hardly have known him better than the careful student of these Letters may know him, if he desire it: indeed, it is to such friends that he discloses himself in those Letters with almost the plain-spokenness of the Confessional.

‘Now, it must be admitted that these Letters leave the question as to the probability of his conversion very much in that evenly-balanced state in which, as I have just said, the wishes of friends or partisans come in to determine it on either side. His Letters contain, on the one hand, many passages from which, if they stood alone, it might be concluded that he was, at certain times, almost ripe for conversion. They also contain others apparently of an opposite tenour. In the former class must be reckoned those indications of antipathy, continually deriving fresh fuel from new researches, to the English Reformation and Reformers.[330] Mr. Froude’s theological sentiments had long passed the mark of the Laudian era, and settled at the point of the Nonjurors.[331] He thinks one might take for an example Francis de Sales, whom, by the way, he classes with “Jansenist Saints.”[332] Again, he was most deeply sensitive to the shortcomings and anomalies of his communion: he calls it an “incubus” on the country, and ascribes to it the blighting properties of the “upas-tree.” It is evident that he was in advance both of Mr. Keble and Mr. Newman: he twits the former, in friendly expostulation, with the Protestantism of his phraseology in parts of The Christian Year, and laments the backwardness of the latter on some questions of the day. On the other hand, and in the same direction of thought, he expresses admiration of Cardinal Pole; he scruples about speaking against the Catholic system, even its “seemingly indifferent practices”;[333] he can understand, on the principle of reverence, the Communion under one species,[334] perhaps the greatest of all practical difficulties to many Anglican minds. Moreover, when at Rome, he evidently opened the subject of reconciliation to a distinguished prelate whom he met there.[335] Per contra, we have painful sayings against supposed practical abuses in the Church. “He really thought,” as he tells us, that “certain practices which he witnessed abroad are idolatrous”; he charges priests with irreverence, ecclesiastical authorities with laxity, etc.[336] Yet even these opinions he partially qualifies, and is disposed to attribute to defective information.[337] He shrinks from speaking against Rome as a Church.[338]

‘Unwilling as I am to hazard conjectures on the subject, especially against the judgement of any among his more intimate friends, I do not think it unreasonable to conclude, from a comparison of these passages, that Mr. Froude’s objections were chiefly directed against imaginary abuses, or possible relaxations of discipline, which time and reflection would have shown him to be entirely independent of the real merits of the controversy. I find it also difficult to believe that, as the principle of the English Reformation received these illustrations in the Established Church which we have lived long enough to see,—as her constituted tribunals were found to give up, in succession, the grace of the Sacraments, the authority of the Church, and even the inspiration of Holy Scripture itself, as necessary truths,—his clear and honest mind would not have accepted some or all of these tokens of apostasy as a summons to enter the True Fold. Assuredly, too, we have known no instance of a mind equally candid, intelligent, and instructed, whose advances in the direction of the Truth (especially when assisted by extraordinary acuteness of conscience and purity of life) have stopped short, as time has gone on, of the logical conclusions, except in cases where the progress of such a mind has been arrested by conflicting tendencies of deeply ingrained Protestant or national prepossession: such as in his case were singularly absent.

‘There is, however, one phase of Mr. Froude’s mind with which it is far more difficult to reconcile the belief of his probable conversion than any other. This phase, indeed, seems to have been a characteristic of himself as compared with nearly all of those who took a leading part in the Movement, including even Mr. Keble, who was the nearest to Mr. Froude in general character. The peculiarity to which I refer is that of an extraordinary leaning to the side of religious dread, and a correspondent suppression of the sentiments of love and joy. Mr. Froude’s religion, as far as it can be gathered from his published Journal, seems to have been (if the expression be not too strong) more like that of a humble and pious Jew under the Old Dispensation, than that of a Christian living in the full sunshine of Gospel privileges. The apology for this feature in his religious character, and for any portion of it which appears in those of other excellent men of the same period,[339] is to be found in the ungraceful and often irreverent form in which the warmer side of the Christian temper was exhibited in the party called Evangelical: whose language, based as it often was upon grievous errors of doctrine, had a tendency to react, in religious minds, on the side of severity and reserve. Such a form of religious spirit, however, where exhibited in the somewhat unusual proportions which it assumes in Mr. Froude, must undergo almost a complete revolution before it can be naturally susceptible of the impression which Catholic devotion has a tendency to produce, or even tolerant of the language which pervades our approved Manuals. It is certainly difficult to find in the Mr. Froude of the Remains, a compartment for devotion to Our Blessed Lady,[340] for instance, or even to the Sacred Humanity of Our Lord, in all its attractive and endearing fulness. Yet, taking the phenomena of his case as a whole, and duly estimating the respective powers of the two conflicting forces, I cannot help thinking that the Church would more easily have conquered his prejudices than the Establishment have retained his allegiance.’

From ‘The British Critic,’ Jan., 1838, Vol. xxiii., pp. 200 et seq., by Frederic Rogers, Esq., M.A., afterwards Lord Blachford.[341]

‘… The first volume of this book, to which the following observations will be confined, presents an unusually perfect history of as remarkable a mind as it is often our lot to fall in with. It is remarkable, not merely for its talent, energy, and depth of religious feeling, but because the character in which these qualities issue, is one almost new to the eyes of this generation; and with this unusual tone of thought and feeling, is joined a deep reality and consistency which forces attention, and perhaps deference, even when the author’s views least coincide with our own settled prejudices….

‘… There is a wide intermediate range of character among those who neither neglect nor rest in their fellow-men. With some, those feelings of reverence and admiration, which seem like the voice of God assigning to every man his province, are more deeply touched by the quiet holiness of domestic life, its little delicate self-sacrifices, its affectionate attentions and glad confidence. The idol of their hearts is one whom men love even when he is most severe, or, if they love him not they dare not avow it, knowing that the world would hold them self-condemned; whose enjoyment it is to confer enjoyment, who moves about with a heart and sympathies open to all he meets, expecting no evil; and, when encountered by vice, rebukes it with a mixture of horror, pity, and simplicity, which, if they fail to convince, at least never irritate or harden. Not that such an one need be wanting in the expression of just indignation, but he shows no intention to punish, no assumption of superiority. He speaks either by way of affectionate remonstrance, or to disburden his own conscience; and those who are too bad to be affected by mere goodness, only say of him “that he is as kind-hearted a man as can be; pity he should let his fancies run away with him.”

‘It need hardly be said that this is Christian love, but not its only form. Minds more bitterly alive to the unsatisfying nature of earthly things, will thirst after some more immediate form of self-devotion to God: and the same feelings which render their brethren less adequate representatives of their Heavenly Father in their hearts, imply capacities which render them less necessary. They will press as close to God as He will let them, anxious, if it were possible, to anticipate His purposes concerning them, watching for permission to throw away earthly comforts in His service, if He will give them the signal to take to themselves that honour; laborious, by meditation and mortification of the flesh, to root out from their hearts every idle desire that interferes with His presence there, and to bend to His direct service every high taste and faculty which He has given them: who would sing songs to His glory though there were none to hear them, and would adorn holy places though there were none to see them; anxious for no result, but for the mere happiness of devoting heart, head, and hand to His honour, if they have but an instinct or a word of His to tell them that He will be pleased with their little offering. These men will no more forget their brethren than the others will forget God; they will have their words of encouragement for the penitent, of courtesy for the stranger, of deep affection for their friends. But they do not go about, overflowing with kindness and confidence to all men. Perhaps circumstances have thrown upon them one of those great works which ever lie about the world unappropriated, and they are “straitened till it be accomplished.” Perhaps the work of their own salvation lies heavier on their spirits than on theirs who live and die in happy, quiet, uniform thankfulness. Perhaps their own renunciation of the lesser pleasures of life makes them less understand the value which others set on them. At any rate, their constant endeavour to realise within themselves their own high aspirations, tends to unfit them for sympathising with buoyant earthly merriment, or sanguine earthly wishes, except it be with the passing interest which we give to the careless gaiety of a child.

‘Again, the stern examination by which they purge their own hearts, that they may be worthy of God, opens to them the secrets of others. It shows them what is their own meanness in the sight of God, and what it may be in the sight of their fellow-men; but it lays upon them the painful power of seeing through profession and self-deceit, and it teaches them how, by word and eye, to silence and chastise as well as protest.

* * * * *

‘These men, it need scarcely be said, are not talked of as “kind-hearted fellows”; they are felt to be partisans, and are reverenced or hated accordingly. Their presence, when it does not deepen the interest of conversation, is apt to impose a check on its freedom. Men are afraid of being frivolous and unreal in their presence; doubtful what will offend them; or what degree of forbearance they may reckon on; suspicious of their motives, as of men who do not speak freely, unless they speak with authority, of what they most deeply mean; and cautious in accepting their friendship, for it is only firmly given to similarity of religious aim. But the loftiness of sentiment which confines, deepens also the flow of their sympathies; their power of severity gives meaning to their affection, and their singleness of aim a high harmony to their thoughts and tastes. Those who will take their hand and walk with them will find the fruit of their friendship rich according to its noble origin and tenure.

‘Now of these two characters it would perhaps be overbold to say which is holiest; at any rate, the loveliness of one is very different from the majesty of the other: different, not indeed in essentials, but in the hopes, fears, tastes, and sentiments, which it forces uppermost…. The later Church of England character is very decidedly of the former cast. Ours is the Church of Walton and Herbert, not of Athanasius and Ambrose. And truly we have been born into a beautiful inheritance. Our fathers have bequeathed to us the appreciation of a kindly and a holy spirit; a spirit of affectionate unobtrusive meekness, of considerate friendliness, of calm cheerfulness. And these are in their measure not only appreciated but realised amongst us: the domestic and social virtues of our clergy are in the mouths of every panegyrist of the Church of England, and are hardly denied by her enemies…. And it is true, that there are passages of Scripture which address themselves to a very different class of minds: passages which ? d???e??? ???e??, ???e?t?, which “all men cannot receive, but they to whom it is given.” There are a whole class of expressions in the New Testament, which though surely they do not condemn the English Church, yet seem somehow not to have received their natural development in it.[342] “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast … and come, follow Me.” “Blessed are ye when men shall hate you.” “Woe unto you that laugh now, for ye shall mourn and weep.” “????? ?????p? ???a???? ? ?ptes?a?.” “Every one that hath forsaken brethren or sisters, or father or mother, or wife or children, for My Name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.” We seem afraid of these.

* * * * *

‘Within our own Church, we are over-careful to soothe enthusiasm, and somewhat helpless in directing it. In judging foreign Churches, or other ages, we talk of a “misguided zeal for what they consider the glory of God,” “the fantastic rigours by which men render themselves callous to the sufferings of others,” “the extinction of the domestic affections to aggrandise one ambitious Church,” words which may be true or not, as they are applied, but which, as commonly used, are rather rashly bandied about, considering all the hints and recommendations that Scripture contains.[343] We can be warm enough in our censures of those who would call down fire from Heaven, or sit at the right hand of Christ, but have perhaps too much fellow-feeling with him who went away sorrowful when he found he must not only obey the law, but sell his property. The book now before us is, most unquestionably, not of the peculiar Church of England character, but of that cast which we are somewhat apt to depreciate, or to look on as a romantic unreality….

‘In his Private Journal, which was written chiefly in 1826, when he was about twenty-four, the feeling round which all others seem to group themselves, is a craving after an ideal happiness, real and attainable, though not yet, of which all our refined perceptions of beauty, nobility, and holiness are but indications and foretastes, and in which, as our character becomes equal to our capacities, they must eventually converge. With this is joined, as perhaps its necessary condition, a sensitive and pure taste for all that is beautiful or lofty to sight or mind; high, though unpractised, poetical powers; and an earnest appreciation of the reverence due to holy things, even to our own higher thoughts and deeper emotions.

‘This itself explains why these powers and feelings, lying, it seems, deepest, were unknown, almost unsuspected, by more than two or three of his nearest friends. His acquaintance more readily perceived and appreciated an unusually deep and true mode of dealing with mathematical questions; a subtlety, boldness and ingenuity of reasoning; a frank and accurate apprehension of the full force of an adverse argument; and a definiteness of conception and expression which seemed to cut through an intricate question, throwing off, rather than grappling with objections, with a clearness which one could hardly believe not to be sophistry.

‘But this book derives its commanding interest from the stern self-chastisement of body and mind, from which both reason and imagination receive their tone and substance. With this the Journal acquaints us; and there is something which really cows an ordinary reader, in the unsparing steadiness with which faults are sought for, the bitter self-abasement with which they are felt, and the unrelenting determination with which they are punished; all being recorded, except when addressed to God, with a plain and sometimes contemptuous homeliness of expression, which seems as if the author wished to do dishonour to himself and his thoughts, or held that a feeling which claimed to be deep and true, should not disdain to buy, by humiliation, the privilege of utterance….

‘… In 1825, in which year he took his degree, passages in his letters show the existence of those romantic views of religion which occupy so prominent a place in his character from that time forward. Of part of the intervening time, he speaks often in his Journal with very deep contrition: but anyone who observes the deep humiliation with which he confesses faults of which ordinary persons would think but little, (common indeed to all who have really high views of Christian excellence,) will be very cautious in inferring much as to the facts themselves, from this most bitter recollection of them. The Journal itself may perhaps be best introduced by some letters, giving an account of the first part of the time which it records.’

[To the Rev. John Keble, but not sent.]

Sept. 28, 1826.

‘“I have been meaning to write to you every day for a long time, and I do not suppose you would wish me to be influenced in putting off longer by the sad thing we have just heard.[344] At least, if I may judge from myself, there is so little difference between what are called real afflictions and imaginary ones, that it seems just as rational to go on in the common way when under the former as the latter. With me, this last summer, both at the time, and looking back on it, seems to have gone very strangely; and I do not see any ground why my reason should contradict my feelings, because the things which affect me are either, in their nature, confined to the person who feels them, or are thought trifles by people in general. I have been trying almost all the Long [Vacation] to discover a sort of common-sense romance: I am convinced there must be such a thing, and that Nature did not give us such a high capacity for pleasure without making some other qualification for it besides delusion. But the speculation has got much more serious, and runs out into many more ramifications than I expected at first; and it seems to me as if I might make it the main object of a long course of reading, the first step of which would be to follow your advice in learning Hebrew and reading the early Fathers. This I have determined upon doing immediately upon my return to Oxford; and the intervening space I shall pass away as I can, with I. and P.,[345] among the mountains and waterfalls. Since I wrote this in the morning, I have been walking with P., whose quietness of mind makes me quite ashamed of my speculations, and I hardly like sending you this letter; however, if I have been making myself a fool all the summer, it is better I should not go on brooding on it by myself; for letting somebody know the state of my thoughts is the only way of keeping them straight; and I know no one but you who would make sufficient allowance for me to venture on such things with. Perhaps you may think it very odd, but this is the first time I have had resolution to ask for the papers which they found of my mother’s after her death.”

‘The writer seems to have shrunk from allowing this letter to reach his friend. In its stead, the following was sent:

‘“I have made three attempts to write, but all of them ran off into something wild, which, upon reflection, I thought would be better kept to myself. The fact is, that I have been in a strange way all the summer, and having had no one to talk to about the things which have bothered me, I have been every now and then getting into fits of enthusiasm or despondency. But the result has been in some respects a good one, and I have got to take very great pleasure in what you recommended me when we were together at F.,[346] the evening before I left you, our first summer, i.e. good books; and I feel [I] understand places in the Psalms in a way I never used to. I go back to Oxford with a determination to set to at Hebrew and the early Fathers, and to keep myself in as strict order as I can: a thing which I have been making ineffectual attempts at for some time, but which never once entered my head for a long time of my life….

‘“And now I must drop back to myself. I wish you would say anything to me that you think would do me good, however severe it may be. You must have observed many things very contemptible in me, but I know worse of myself, and shall be prepared for anything. I cannot help being afraid that I am still deceiving myself about my motives and feelings, and shall be glad of anything on which to steady myself.”

‘It is exceedingly interesting to trace in the Journal the actual working day by day of the feelings to which these letters refer. The following extract is, in effect, its opening:

‘“July 1, 1826.—I think it will be a better way to keep a Journal for a bit, as I find I want keeping in order about more things than reading. I am in a most conceited way, besides very ill-tempered and irritable. My thoughts wander very much at my prayers, and I feel hungry for some ideal thing of which I have no definite idea. I sometimes fancy that the odd bothering feeling which gets possession of me is affectation, and that I appropriate it because I think it a sign of genius: but it lasts too long, and is too disagreeable to be unreal.”

‘“July 5.—I do not know how it is, but it seems to me as if the consciousness of having capacities for happiness, with no objects to gratify them, seems to grow upon me, and puts me in a dreary way. Lord, have mercy upon me!”

‘These feelings continue occasionally to appear, assuming, more and more, a distinct and practical shape, till his return to Oxford in October, 1826 (the period when the Letters before quoted were written), when they gave rise to the following resolutions:

‘“I have been coming to a resolution, that as soon as I am out of the reach of observation, I will begin a sort of monastic austere life, and do my best to chastise myself before the Lord; that I will attend Chapel regularly; eat little and plainly, drink as little wine as I can, consistently with the forms of society; keep the fasts of the Church, as much as I can, without ostentation; continue to get up at six in the winter; abstain from all unnecessary expenses, in everything; give all the money I can save in charity, or for the adorning of religion. That I will submit myself to the wishes of the [Provost?] as to one set over me by the Lord, but never give in to the will or opinion of anyone from idleness, or false shame, or want of spirit. That I will avoid society as much as I can, except those I can do good to, or from whom I may expect real advantage; and I will, in all my actions, endeavour to justify that high notion of my capabilities of which I cannot divest myself. That I will avoid all conversation on serious subjects, except with those whose opinions I revere, and content myself with exercising dominion over my own mind, without trying to influence others. The studies which I have prescribed to myself are Hebrew and Ante-Nicene Fathers….”

‘We extract the following philosophical reflections, taken from the Occasional Thoughts of about the same date, as similarly characteristic of the author’s steady and systematic procedure:

‘“Dec. 1, 7, and 17.—It is the object of our lives, by patient perseverance in a course of action prescribed to us, so to shape and discipline our desires that they may, through habit, be excited to the same degree by the objects which are presented to our understanding, as they would by nature, if we had senses to relish them; that is, that the degree of our appetites for these objects should so far exceed that which we feel for sensible objects, as the known value of the former exceeds that of the latter. The former field of existence is what I think St. Paul had in his mind when he spoke (Heb., vi. 19) of ‘that which is within the veil,’ into which Jesus Christ had gone before us: the veil signifying our unconsciousness, in spite of which, ‘by two immutable things, in which it was impossible that God should lie, we might have strong consolation who have fled to lay hold of the hope set before us.’ All this seems the real meaning of faith, as insisted on so much in the New Testament.

‘“Of the objects which we pursue or avoid, some we immediately perceive to be either present or absent; some we only believe to be so through the intervention of the understanding. The various dispositions of our fellow-creatures towards us are of the latter sort. We have no faculties for perceiving love or admiration; but being conscious of the feeling ourselves, and recognising in others the effects which we know to proceed from them, we believe their presence upon evidence, and are affected therewith. Of being in society we cannot be conscious, if by society we mean not that of certain shapes doing certain things, but of beings which feel in some respects as we do. The existence of such beings we only believe on evidence, having observed effects like those which proceed from our own feelings, in so many instances as to make it appear that the causes are likewise similar. The same sort of evidence we have of the existence of other beings, in some respects like, and in others different from ourselves. That a Being exists endued with power and wisdom, the limits of which we cannot reach to, is, I think, more certain than that we have fellow-creatures.[347] All men, whether they know it or not, act as if they believed in a Being endued with intelligence and power and will, superior to any interference. They count on the course of Nature continuing as it is, because they know that what they have long continued to do they go on with; and rely without any doubt on its skill and ability for perfecting their undertaking, where their own skill and ability fall short. That this Being has any other attributes, we have not the same evidence. These are the ‘things within the veil’; they are ??????, the objects of faith. But consideration will show that the difference is not in kind but in degree, and that among what we call the things visible, motives are proposed to us to be acted on, approaching to it by degrees imperceptible.”

‘“Isa. xxv. 7, 9. ‘And He will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the veil that is spread over all nations…. And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us; this is the Lord; we have waited for Him: we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation….’

‘“The business of our life seems to be, to acquire the habit of acting in such a manner as we should do, if we were conscious of all we know; and in this respect no action of our lives can be indifferent, but must either tend to form this habit or a contrary one: so that those whose attempt to act right does not commence with their power of acting at all, have much to undo, as well as to do. The craving, and blankness of feeling, which attends the early stages of this habit (‘show some token upon me for good’), makes anything acceptable which can even in fancy fill it; and it is delightful to see things turn out well, whose case seems, in some sort, to represent to us our indistinct conceptions of our own. Animals fainting under the effect of exercise, and then again recovering their strength, which that very exercise has contributed to increase; the slow and uncertain degrees in which this exercise is effected, and yet the certainty that it is effected;—the growth of trees sometimes tossed by winds and checked by frosts, yet, by the evil effects of these winds directed in what quarter to strike their roots, so as to secure themselves for the future, and by these frosts hardened and fitted for a new progress the next summer:—in things of this sort I am [altered in the MS. from ‘we are’] so constituted, as to see brethren in affliction evidently making progress towards release….”

* * * * *

‘The impression left on the mind after a first perusal of the Journal is doubtless a depressing one, both from the unhappiness which it records, and (it may be) from a fear that if we would exercise the same strict vigilance over our own hearts, or would aim at the same high mark, we might find cause for disquiet too. It is a real satisfaction to find, both at the end of the Journal that the author considers himself to have passed into a happier state, and in his Letters, that he gradually ceases to speak of his own despondency, either openly to his nearest friend, or in those half-jesting hints of which his other friends must only now feel the meaning. His external demeanour, both from natural disposition and from his contempt for any display of feeling, seems always to have been so full of life and energy, that from it alone, perhaps, no change in this respect could have been inferred. This despondency we have not attempted to show in the extracts, though it does slightly appear there; but rather his high desires to “enter within the veil,” to be “hidden in the presence of the Lord,” and the mode which he took to realise them. This forms a remarkable contrast with the self-confidence and unreality which too frequently springs from the consciousness of high views. It is, unfortunately, not often that we see men of bold and independent minds, subtle and comprehensive powers of reasoning, and romantic desires, giving up, till they shall be fit for it, all notion of “influencing others”; checking, without throwing aside, their own high feelings; subduing, with a systematic humility, their impulses to express them, and submitting to learn their duty by the slow and common-sense process of “following great examples,” “studying Hebrew and the Ante-Nicene Fathers,” and in the meantime obeying scrupulously the voices of those whom they feel to be better than themselves….

‘The volume before us touches the magic keys with a bold hand; and though some of the notes which come forth are rather startling, and may be untruly struck, yet there is a meaning in them which deserves to be analysed by those defenders of the English Church who are looking about for weapons to wield, and ground to stand on. Two principal wants, then, the author seems to have felt in the English Church: authority, and richness; and that not in the spirit of a dreaming philosopher, but of one who knew that we were here not to think only, but to act; that evil was given us that we might strive against it; Truth, that we might uphold or restore it; Revelation and moral instincts, that we might know both one and the other; Talent and energy, that we might form projects, recommend, and execute them. Nor would the restraints he set on his impulses to influence others, till circumstances and a conscious fitness should call him to it, make him likely to shrink from his task when he felt it given him. He seems early to have thought that his powers would enable him to serve the Church more effectually as a reader and writer than as a parochial clergyman: by acting on those minds which are to guide the masses, [rather] than on the masses themselves. To this his position as College Fellow seemed also to invite him; and the following extracts illustrate part of the spirit in which he devoted himself to this task, and the tastes he sacrificed to it.

‘“July 27, 1827.—

‘“July 28.—This stagnant effusion was enough for one day, and I must not put off any longer,” etc.

‘“Sept. 9, 1832.—Also I am getting to be a sawney, and not to like the dreary prospects which you[348] and I have proposed to ourselves. But this is only a feeling; depend upon it, I will not shrink, if I buy my constancy at the expense of a permanent separation from home.”

‘“Sept. 27.—As to my sawney feelings, I own that home does make me a sawney, and that the first Eclogue runs in my head absurdly; but there is more in the prospect of becoming an ecclesiastical agitator than in—At nos hinc, alii,” etc.

‘And this introduces us to a side of his character on which we have as yet scarcely touched: the fertility, buoyancy, boldness, and versatility of his mind. It has been left unnoticed, partly because no one who was ever so little acquainted with the author, or who would read ever so cursorily the book before us, could well overlook it, partly because the peculiarities on which we have dwelt seem to have exercised a far deeper influence in making him what he was. Both the Journal and the Occasional Thoughts, though principally interesting as showing the processes by which his character and opinions formed themselves, and the depth of thought and determination of purpose on which they were based, cannot but in part show those too; but in the Letters we are flooded with the pointed suggestions, the bold historical views of a keen-sighted politician, the vigorous statements and earnest queries of one who was seeking and contending for divine Truth, and the ingenious hints, on questions of taste or science, of a man of genius who thought nothing unworthy to employ his powers which could be pressed into the service of religion….

‘From what has been already said, some general notion may be gained of the author’s formal opinions. It may be added, that he was one of those who, feeling strongly the inadequacy of their own intellects to guide them to religious Truth, are prepared to throw themselves unreservedly on Revelation wherever found, in Scripture or Antiquity. Any more definite account it would be difficult to give without unfairness either to the author or to the reader: to the reader, if we omitted his more startling views; to the author, if we stated them detached and unsupported. His Letters seem to show that his opinions ran somewhat in advance of those to whom he was most closely bound. Still less should we venture to pledge ourselves to every statement and suggestion contained in the two volumes; yet we cannot but express our hope that they will be very generally read and weighed, as likely to suggest thoughts on doctrine, on Church policy, and on individual conduct, most true, and most necessary for these times.’

From ‘The Autobiography of Isaac Williams, B.D.’ Edited by his Brother-in-Law, the Ven. Sir George Prevost. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1892.

[By the kind permission of the Rev. G. A. Williams, and of Messrs Longmans, Green & Co.]

‘Keble took us into his house,[349] where I formed a most valued friendship with Froude. He was an Eton man, and at Oriel of a little older standing than myself. [We found] religion a reality, and a man wholly made up of love…. Here were many of us, taught with much pains and care by one till then a stranger, and altogether gratuitously…. Each of us was always delighted to walk with him, Wilberforce,[350] to gather instruction for the Schools, and the rest of us for love’s sake…. I spent all this vacation [1823] at Southrop, and, I think, all my subsequent ones. It was, I think, on this occasion that John Keble said: “Since you have shown me your Latin poems, I shall be vain enough to show you my English ones,” and he then lent me to read what has since been called The Christian Year. It was carefully written out in small red books. I read it a great deal, but did not much enter into it. No more did Froude, when he saw it; and, I think, even long after he was averse to the publication of it. Among other things he said: “People will take Keble for a Methodist!” At that time I told Keble my favourite poet was Collins: he said there was not enough thought in him to please himself. Froude was always maintaining some argument with Keble, occasionally some monstrous paradox. He was considered a very odd fellow at College, but clever and original; Keble alone was able to appreciate and value him. If he had not at this time fallen into such hands, his speculations might have taken a very dangerous turn; but as his father, the Archdeacon, told me, from this time it was much otherwise: he continued to throw out strong paradoxes, but always for good.

‘On returning to Oxford, Froude had now taken the place of my former companions, Keble being a great bond between us. I think he took more to me than I did to him, because I had been used to more of worldly refinement and sentiment, whereas he was unworldly, and real. But still, we were much united, and became more and more so…. Froude told me, many years after, that Keble once, before parting from him, seemed to have something on his mind which he wished to say, but shrunk from saying. At last, while waiting, I think, for a coach, he said to him before parting: “Froude, you said one day that Law’s Serious Call was a clever” (or “pretty,” I forgot which) “book: it seemed to me as if you had said the Day of Judgement would be a pretty sight.” This speech, Froude told me, had a great effect on his after-life; and I observed that in the published Letters in Froude’s Remains, he twice alludes to it…. Henry Ryder (like Wilberforce) had been brought up in a strict Evangelical school of the better kind; and on one occasion got up and left a College party in consequence of something that Froude had said that seemed to him to be of a light kind. But when he afterwards came to know the deep self-humiliation and depth of devotion there was in Froude’s character, which was engaged in the discipline of the heart, he became so shocked with himself and his own opinions, that he adopted the opposite course….

‘It was in August, 1825, that I first went with Froude into Devonshire. We went by a steamer from Cowes to Plymouth, as described in a letter in Froude’s Remains (Part i., Vol. i., p. 181). From Totnes, we walked up the Dart by Dartington House to the Parsonage: that place which ever since has been to me dearer than my native vales, of which I always say:

‘Ille terrarum mihi prÆter omnes Angulus ridet.

‘The Froudes were eight in family, and the Archdeacon became a great friend. But the people after my own heart were at Dartington House.[351] … With the Archdeacon and Hurrell we rode along the coast, being very hospitably entertained at different houses; and at last, from the Holdsworths’ house at Dartmouth we came up the river Dart by boat…. Prevost, [the] summer of 1826, came to Cwm,[352] and was engaged to my sister; and afterwards Froude came there too, and gives an account of his stay there in his published Journal, where I am mentioned under the letter I., and Prevost under that of P. All this time I was very unwell, and preying on my own mind. I went to Oxford to reside my Bachelor’s term, and lived with Sir Charles Anderson, and saw much of Froude, who was very kind to me. I went to Dartington, with the Archdeacon, from Oxford, and spent the Easter there…. When I went to reside in Oxford, in October, [1831], as College Tutor, I felt what a great change had come on my mind since residing there before, on account of the influence of Bisley[353] and Windrush,[354] and I found this the more on returning to the society of Froude, for I was become so much more soft and practical, and he more theoretical and speculative…. Yet this change that had been going on, from difference of circumstances, in no way lessened my friendship and intimacy with Froude, but rather increased it; for though naturally inclined to speculation, he was himself entirely of the Keble school, which in opposition to the Oriel or Whatelian, set ???? above intellect…. Living at that time so much with Froude, I was now, in consequence, for the first time, brought into intercourse with Newman; we almost daily walked and dined together. Newman and Froude were just then turned out of their tutorships at Oriel, together with Robert Wilberforce, who left Oxford for his living of East Farleigh. Their course had, as yet, been chiefly academical, but now, released from College affairs, their thoughts were more open to the state of the Church…. I was greatly charmed and delighted with Newman, who was extremely kind to me; but [I] did not altogether trust his opinions. Although Froude was in the habit of stating things in an extreme and paradoxical manner, yet one always felt conscious of a thorough foundation of truth and principle in him, a ground of entire confidence and agreement; but this was not so with Newman, even although one appeared more in unison with his more moderate statements.[355] … At this time he was coming to look to Keble altogether, as he received him second-hand through Froude…. But I always thought Froude an unfair exponent of Keble’s opinions: they were stated by him in a manner so much his own, so startling and original, and put in so extreme a light, that I could hardly recognise them as the same, so different was his from Keble’s manner of expressing himself. [Note.—Froude used to defend his startling way of putting facts and arguments on the ground that it was the only way to rouse people, and get their attention; and he said that when you had once done this, you might modify your statements. There is, of course, some truth in this, but it always seemed, and still seems to me, a dangerous line. John Keble could not do so: his great humility and diffidence would prevent it, and that strict conscientiousness which hindered him from even willingly overstating any fact, or pressing any argument, beyond what he said it really did prove….]

‘… The circumstance which I most remember about that time[356] was a conversation with Froude which was the first commencement of the Tracts for the Times. He returned full of energy and of a prospect of doing something for the Church; and we walked in the Trinity College gardens, and discussed the subject. He said, in his manner: “Isaac, we must make a row in the world! Why should we not? Only consider what the Peculiars” (i.e. the Evangelicals) “have done with a few half-truths to work upon! And with our principles, if we set resolutely to work, we can do the same.” I said: “I have no doubt we can make a noise, and may get people to join us; but shall we make them really better Christians? If they take up our principles in a hollow way, as the Peculiars” (this was a name Froude had given the Low Church party) “have done theirs, what good shall we do?” To this Froude said: “Church principles, forced on people’s notice, must work for good. However, we must try; and Newman and I are determined to set to work as soon as he returns, and you must join with us. We must have short tracts, and letters in The British Magazine, and verses (and these you can do for us), and get people to preach sermons on the Apostolical Succession and the like. And let us come and see old Palmer” (i.e. the author of the Origines LiturgicÆ) “and get him to do something.” We then called on Palmer, who was one of the very few in Oxford (indeed, the only one at that time) who sympathised with us; and although he did not altogether understand Froude, or our ways and views (the less so as he was not himself an Oxford, but a Dublin man), yet he was extremely hearty in the cause, looking more to external visible union and strength than we did, for we only had at heart certain principles. We, i.e., Froude, Keble, and myself, immediately began to send some verses to The British Magazine, since published [in] the Lyra Apostolica….

‘… From this time forth, after Newman’s return, I was thrown more and more entirely into his society for about seven years, Froude waning more and more away, and disappearing from Oxford….

‘… I much regretted not being with poor Froude at or nearly before his death…. Poor Froude! he was peculiarly vir paucorum hominum: I thought that knowing him, I better understood Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Froude was a person most natural, but so original as to be unlike anyone else, hiding depth of delicate thought in apparent extravagances. Hamlet and the Georgics of Virgil, he used to say, he should have bound together. Many have imagined, and Newman endeavoured to persuade himself, that if Froude had lived he would have joined the Church of Rome, as well as himself. But this I do not at all think. There was a seriousness and steadfastness, at the bottom, in Froude, so that I had always confidence in him:[357] Newman told me once, half-seriously, that the publication of Froude’s Remains was owing to me, as I had said to him, if persons could have so much brought before them that they could thoroughly understand Froude’s character, then they might enter into his sayings; but unless they knew him as we did, they could not understand them. For, indeed, one constantly trembled for him in mixed society, both in Common Rooms and in other places, feeling that he would not be understood…. On the day of the book coming out, I went into Parker the bookseller’s with Copeland; and there we were startled at seeing one who then was the chief opponent of the Church principles of Newman and ourselves. It was Ward of Balliol, author of the Ideal. He sat down with the book in his hands, evidently much affected; and then we afterwards heard, to our astonishment, that he had been very much taken by the book, had bought a copy for himself and another to give away, and was, in fact, quite converted.’

From ‘Origin of the Tracts for the Times,’ a poem in the 1852 edition of ‘Thoughts in Past Years,’ by Isaac Williams.[358]

From ‘Cardinal Newman,’ by Richard H. Hutton. London: Methuen & Co., 1891. [English Leaders of Religion.]

[By the kind permission of the executors of Mr. Hutton, and of Messrs. Methuen & Co.]

‘The friendship between Newman and Mr. Hurrell Froude, the elder brother of the historian, which commenced in 1826, and became intimate in 1829, lasting thence to Mr. Froude’s death from consumption in 1836, was certainly one of the most important influences which acted on Newman’s career at the most critical period of his life. Newman’s was one of the minds which mature slowly; and it was not till he was twenty-six years of age that it became clear whether he would be, in the main, a religious leader, or one of the pillars of the Whately party; that is, the party who threw their influence into the scale of minimising the spiritual aspect and spiritual significance of Revelation, rather than of maximising it. Newman himself mentions that for two or three years before 1827, he was “beginning to prefer intellectual excellence to moral,” or, in other words, “drifting in the direction of Liberalism.” “I was rudely awakened from my dream, at the end of 1827, by two great blows, illness and bereavement.” And then, in 1829, came fuller intimacy with Hurrell Froude, which seems to have fully determined, if anything were then needed to determine, the direction in which his mind would proceed. Mr. Hurrell Froude was, as Newman describes him, a man of the highest gifts, gentle, tender, playful, versatile and “of the most winning patience and considerateness in discussion.” … I feel little doubt that Dr. Newman’s wrath against “Liberalism” (as for many years afterwards he always called it, identifying, as he did, Liberalism with Latitudinarianism) was, to a very considerable extent, a moral contagion caught from Hurrell Froude.

‘There are a few singularly beautiful lines, added by Newman after Hurrell Froude’s death, to the exquisite poem called “Separation of Friends,” written in 1833; and these sufficiently prove the tenderness of Newman’s friendship for Hurrell Froude, and the intimacy of the relation between them. The poem, as it was first written, on the separation of friends caused by death, ran thus:

‘This was an abrupt close. Nearly three years later, it appeared that the true close had but been reserved till the friend with whom, in his illness, Newman had been travelling, had left him alone here to offer this “speechless intercession” on behalf of him who had departed. Then, after Froude’s death on February 28, 1836, Newman added the final lines:

‘Such was Newman’s feeling for the friend (already suffering from the commencement of the consumption of which he died three years later) with whom he visited the Mediterranean between December, 1832, and April, 1833, when they separated at Rome…. They visited Ithaca, but in his poems written “off Ithaca” Newman never mentions the name of Ulysses, though in passing Lisbon he had recalled that strong pagan figure, in the lines which he headed “The Isles of the Sirens”:

‘There you see some trace of the influence of Froude’s high ascetic nature speaking in the heart of a devotee of music, but a devotee of music of the most exalted kind. Hurrell Froude, in a letter home, mentions that the commander of the steamer in which they sailed sang several songs, accompanying himself on the Spanish guitar, and it must have been these songs which suggested to Newman “The Isles of the Sirens.” When the friends reach Ithaca, Newman seems to forget “the man of many woes” altogether; he is musing on the difficulty of keeping himself “unspotted from the world”: which is the last thing, I suppose, that Homer’s Ulysses ever thought about; while Byron, in the same scenes, thought only of how he could spot himself most effectually…. Newman’s nostalgia was more in sympathy with that of Moses than with that of Ulysses: the home he longed for was a home he had never yet gained. There is something very strange in the connection between these classical scenes and the thoughts they excited in the travellers, for I cannot help thinking that most of these poems must have owed their origin almost as much to Froude’s suggestion as to Newman’s pen. The lines, for instance, on England,[359] in which Newman calls her “Tyre of the West,” and accuses her of trusting in such poor defences as the fortified rock of Gibraltar, and such poor resources as her rich commerce supplied, look as if they had owed a good deal of their inspiration to Froude’s cavalier contempt for the wealth earned by trade, as well as his scorn for any ostentatious display of power not rooted in a devout theocratic Faith…. There is, to me, something very striking in the contrast between the class of thoughts which the old Greek and Roman localities suggest to a Whig poet like Byron, with a broad dash of licence in his Whiggery; to classical scholars like Clough, imbued with what is now called “the modern spirit” (as well its moral earnestness as its intellectual scepticism), and to grave spirits like Newman’s and Hurrell Froude’s, dominated not only by a religious, but by a strongly-marked ecclesiastical bias…. As regards the influence of this journey on Newman’s future career, it appears that while, in many respects, it diminished his horror of Romanism, in consequence especially of the influence of Hurrell Froude, it had a contrary effect on Hurrell Froude’s own mind, and later (again, through him, to some extent, I suppose) on Newman’s. Hurrell Froude writes from Naples[360] on February 17, 1833: “I remember you told me that I should come back a better Englishman than I went away: better satisfied not only that our Church is nearest in theory right, but also that practically, in spite of its abuses, it works better; and to own the truth, your prophecy is already nearly realised. Certainly, I have as yet only seen the surface of things, but what I have seen does not come up to my notions of propriety. These Catholic countries seem, in an especial manner, ?at??e?? t?? ????e?a? ?? ?d???a, and the priesthood are themselves so sensible of the hollow basis on which their power rests, that they dare not resist the most atrocious encroachments of the State upon their privileges.” And after detailing the abuses of the Roman Catholic system in Sicily, he goes on: “The Church of England has fallen low, and will probably be worse before it is better; but let the Whigs do their worst, they cannot sink us so deep as these people have allowed themselves to fall, while retaining all the superficials of a religious country.” When it is considered that this was the impression of Roman Catholicism, judged by its fruits, which that one of the two friends who was by far the more inclined to the Roman system brought away from his life in a Roman Catholic country, we cannot wonder that Newman should have remained for eight more years a zealous Anglican, before he even began to foresee clearly whither he was tending.’

From ‘The Anglican Revival,’ by J. H. Overton, D.D., Rector of Epworth and Canon of Lincoln. London: Blackie & Son, 1897.

[By the kind permission of Messrs. Blackie & Son.]

‘The fact is that [in 1833] Rose, Palmer, and perhaps Perceval on the one hand, Froude, Keble, and Newman on the other, represented, not exactly two different parties, but two different classes of mind. The former group were essentially conservative: they did not share the dissatisfaction with the Church as it was, which was so strongly felt by Keble, Newman, and Froude; they only desired to see it freed from what they regarded as the oppression of the State. They were very different types of men, Rose representing the brilliant and fascinating, Palmer the learned, and Perceval the aristocratic or territorial element. But none of them was prepared to follow what Newman calls the “go-ahead” course, for which he and Froude were ready, and from which Keble was not at all averse…. As a matter of fact, the Movement was carried on by the latter, not by the former group.

‘… Pusey’s adherence was an instance of the right man coming in just at the right time. The public had now [1835] been fairly aroused; they had had sufficiently impressed upon them the duty of maintaining Church principles; they had now a right to demand that those principles should be fully and definitely explained to them in detail. The time for short, stirring appeals was over; the time for solid, sober treatises on divinity had arrived…. [Pusey’s] mild and conciliatory spirit introduced a healing element into the Movement which was certainly needed. The “fierceness” (to use his own expression) of Newman, and especially of Newman when “kept up to the mark by Froude,”[361] had the very natural effect of raising opposition; and even in Keble, the gentle, humble Keble, there was a strong spice, if not exactly of fierceness, yet of a tendency to give vent to the most unpopular sentiments in the most uncompromising way, without the slightest attempt to tone them down. Pusey, again, was far more apt to recognise two sides of a question than was Keble, Newman, or Froude…. The Movement gained Pusey, and lost Hurrell Froude, almost at the same time. When Pusey joined the party, Froude was practically a dying man; and in February 28, 1836, to the infinite regret of his many friends, he died at his native Dartington. With Froude passed away the most daring and “go-ahead” spirit connected with the whole Movement. Newman was enthusiastic, but Froude was far more so; Newman waged war against the complacency which was so characteristic of the old Church party, but Froude was still more exasperated against it; Newman was not over-cautious in his invectives against the fallacies and prejudices of the age, but Froude was ten times less so. With an intense earnestness and thoroughness of conviction, with a fiery energy which would ride over anything, with a courage which sometimes amounted to audacity, and with an irresistibly attractive personality, there is no saying what would have happened if his short life had been prolonged! But it is not a very profitable speculation to conjecture what might have been. Suffice it to say that in one respect the influence of Froude was likely to have had exactly the opposite effect to that of Pusey. The one seemed, of all men, the most calculated to trouble the waters, the other, to pour oil upon them; and the fact that Froude dropped out just when Pusey began to make his influence felt, seemed to promise that henceforth the Movement would create less hostility. After events, however, proved that this was not to be the case; and the causes are not far to seek….

‘One of the most startling … events was the appearance, in 1838, of the first series of Froude’s Remains, edited by Keble and Newman jointly. It is not surprising that this publication raised a violent outcry: it gave to the world the off-hand utterances of a young enthusiast whose opinions would probably have toned down with age, but were here expressed with all the recklessness of inexperience, and were only intended, in the first instance, to be read by sympathetic friends.

‘His views on the English Reformation and Reformers were sufficiently startling. “The present Church system is an incubus upon the country”; “the Reformation was a limb badly set: it must be broken again in order to be righted”; the English Reformers generally were “a set of men with whom [I wish] to have less and less to do”; Jewel, in particular, was “an irreverent Dissenter”; Latimer, “a Martyr somewhat in the Bulteel line.” One can conceive the horror with which such sentiments would be read by men with whom “our happy Establishment in Church and State,” “our glorious Reformation,” and “our martyred Reformers” were almost articles of faith!

‘It has been thought that the Editors miscalculated the effect which the book would produce; but the theory is not very complimentary to their judgement. Surely must they have known that the glamour of Froude’s personality would not affect the general, still less the hostile, reader (and his name was legion), who would greedily seize upon any handle which could be turned, as Froude could so easily be, against the Movement. Moreover, how does it agree with the fact that when they found out their mistake, they nevertheless published in the following year, 1839, a second series as outrÉ as the first? And this they introduced with a Preface pointing out how Froude’s sagacity had anticipated all the improvements that had taken place, and representing him, not as a disturber of the people, but as a prophet indeed. This Preface is said to have been chiefly the work of Keble, and it is highly characteristic of the man, though not of the popular conception of him: for Keble was always for the bold course.

‘The other Editor, Newman, writing to his friend Frederic Rogers in July, 1837, gives six reasons why Froude’s private letters should be published; and to his Co-editor he writes at the same time: “We have often said the Movement must be enthusiastic. Now here is a man fitted above all others to kindle enthusiasm.” May it not have been that both Editors put forth the Remains with their eyes perfectly wide open as to what the result would be? that they were not unwilling the enfant terrible of the Movement should say his say, and startle the public? The public was startled: it took in all seriousness the audacious dicta of Froude as if they were stamped with the approval of the whole party, which it denounced with increased vigour, accordingly.

‘It is impossible to help connecting with the publication of Froude’s Remains the starting of that project which gave to Oxford one of the most beautiful of its many beautiful monuments, the “Martyrs’ Memorial,” opposite Balliol College, on the spot on which Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer had been burnt.[362] The greatest offence of Froude was that he had spoken disparagingly of the English Reformers generally, and of these men in particular. The project of the Memorial originated in a small meeting held towards the close of 1838, at Oriel, in the rooms of Mr. Golightly, who, having begun as a friend of the Movement, had soon become its bitterest and most persistent foe. Everybody seems to have connected the Memorial with the Remains; but there was some division of opinion as to the course which should be pursued. Keble and Newman were from the first opposed to the project, and so were moderate men like Palmer and Benjamin Harrison. But Hook and S. Wilberforce were in favour, and so, strange to say, was Pusey, to a certain extent, at first, until he was persuaded otherwise by Keble and Newman…. Keble writes to Pusey … “I am not at all prepared to express a public dissent from Froude in his opinion of the Reformers as a party.” On the other hand, S. Wilberforce writes to Hook, regretting that “our good Oxford friends run down Reformers, and will not subscribe to the Martyrs’ Memorial.” It was said of the Memorial, “it will be a good cut against Newman”: but it was not a cut which made him smart.’

From ‘Essays on Various Subjects,’ by Nicholas Cardinal Wiseman. London: Dolman, 1853, 3 vols.[363]

[By kind permission of the Executors of His Eminence Cardinal Vaughan.]

‘It is not often that the leaders of opinions let the public into a view of their secret counsels and feelings; but when they do, we think it does credit to the uprightness and sincerity of their intentions…. Nay, the more unreservedly the human weaknesses of the individuals are revealed, and the more the feeling is expressed that with their exposure, or in spite of it, their cause will succeed, the more highly we shall estimate their confidence in the correctness of their views, and the disinterestedness of their zeal in propagating them. These reflections have been suggested to us by the perusal of Mr. Froude’s Remains. He was, while living, one of the most enthusiastic members of the theological school from which the Tracts for the Times have emanated. He died in 1836, having attained only the age of thirty-three;[364] and was thus prevented from arriving at that full maturity of religious ideas which was evidently preparing in his mind, and bearing him onwards towards the perception of Catholic truths.

‘A preface of twenty-two pages betrays the Editors’ anxiety to repel a twofold charge: one against themselves, the other against their deceased friend…. When one whose noble and public proofs of great virtue far outweigh the errors of youth, or whose public reputation makes his example, when evil, a warning; and when repentant, a reparation and an encouragement,—when one, in short, like St. Augustine, boldly but humbly reveals to the eyes of the Church the wretchedness of his early sinful life, we admire, in awe, the strange manifestation of a sublime spirit of Christian virtue, and we bless the Divine Wisdom that hath caused it to be vouchsafed to us. But the struggles of one who has not compensated his weaknesses by any noble results, who withdraws from our sight a combatant, and not a victor; who only presents us the spectacle of a frail nature, such as we all may have, wrestling with daily and anxious trials, and not overcoming them; (these, too, not spontaneously exhibited, but transferred from the closet to the public arena)—have neither the grandeur nor the instruction of the other lesson. Still, there may be reasons unknown to us who are not in the secrets of the party, to justify, certainly in their own eyes, this sacrifice of private feeling to a sense of public utility…. [The Editors] would have materially strengthened their reasoning by the following passage in [Mr. Froude’s] Letters to Friends: “There was a passage in a letter I have just received from my father, which made me feel so infinitely dismal that I must write to you about it. He says you have written to him to learn something about me, and to ask what to do with my money. It really made me feel as if I was dead, and you were sweeping up my remains: and by the by, if I were dead, why should I be cut off from the privilege of helping on the Good Cause? I don’t know what money I have left,—little enough, I suspect; but whatever it was, I am superstitious enough to think that any good it could do in honorem Dei et sacrosanctÆ matris ecclesiÆ, would have done something, too, in salutem animÆ meÆ.” From these words, it appears that the author did contemplate his power of doing good to the cause wherein he was so ardently engaged, even after his death.

‘The censure of their friend which the Editors foresee, is that which forms their bugbear in all their theological researches: that of approaching too near the Catholic, or, as they call it, Romanist doctrines. But we must express our conviction that the Editors have not done much credit to their friend by the manner in which they have thought it right to shield his memory from the charge. It consists in a careful collection of some of the most hasty, unhandsome, and decidedly unreasonable judgements and opinions of the author, respecting chiefly what he saw in his travels…. We think we are justified in saying that proof of Mr. Froude’s disinclination to Catholicity must have been very scarce, to have led the Editors to bring together these superficial observations made during a brief residence in a Catholic city[365] not generally reputed the most edifying in its conduct! These, however, will not bear comparison with the growing and expanding tendency of his mind towards everything Catholic….

‘… The extracts from [his] Journal present us a picture at once pleasing and distressing, of a mind yearning after interior perfection, yet at a loss about the means of attaining it; embarked on an ocean of good desires, but without stars or compass by which to steer its course. The minute scrutiny into the motives of his actions, the distress occasioned by discovering his relapses into faults which most would overlook, show a sensitiveness of conscience in the youthful writer, far more honourable to him, and far more interesting to us, than abilities of a much higher order than what he really possessed could ever have appeared…. How far it may be advisable to commit to paper, even for personal benefit, these investigations of our most secret tribunal, we have considerable doubt; and instructive as is their record in the case before us, in nothing is it more so than in the proof it gives us of the necessity of guidance for the conscience and heart such as the institutions of the Catholic Church alone provide. In the account which he gives of his own infirmities, of his almost fruitless attempts to subdue them, and of the pain and anxiety produced by his solitary struggles, he presents a picture familiar to the experienced eye of any spiritual director in our Church, and a state fully described and prescribed for by the numerous writers whom we possess upon the inward life and the direction of consciences. Many are they who are tossed in the same billows of secret tribulation, many are they who are bewildered in the same mazes of mental perplexity; but they have not at least the additional horrors of darkness and night. Ere they can sink, a hand is stretched out, if they will only grasp it. The troubles and trials which haunt minds constituted as Mr. Froude’s, many a skilful guide would have shown him to be mere illusive phantoms that only serve to turn the attention away from serious dangers, or from solid good: snares cast by a restlessness of spirit upon the path, to entangle the feet that tread it…. The consequence of all his irregular and undirected austerity, into which, with youthful eagerness, he rushed, was, that instead of deriving thence vigour of thought, and closer intimacy with some spiritual feelings, his spirit, on the contrary, flagged and at length grew weary, and so fell into that despondency which failure will produce in sensitive minds. This discouragement is visible in many parts of his Journal…. In fact, Mr. Froude discovered that most important principle, that obedience to the ordinances of authority gives the great merit to the first degrees of penitential works, those which belong to ordinary Christians: such, that is, as have not reached the perfection of ascetic life…. While he seems so taken up, through his Journals, with examination of his fasts and austerities, we miss from his pages those cheerful views of religion which result from confidence and love, from the consciousness of a strong will to do [God] service, and an humble reliance on His mercy which will measure that, rather than our success. What snatches there are of prayer, bear more the character of one sinking under the fatigue of foiled attempts, and troubled with anxiety from hopelessness of success, than of a young and trusting mind that presses forward to a work it deems glorious: the work of God and His religion….

‘We certainly think that his ardent way, more perhaps of expressing himself than of feeling, leads him often to a harsh and reckless manner of speaking of others, that must give an unfavourable impression regarding his character, which we have every reason to believe was amiable and gentle. Still, there are so many fine points about him: so much distrust of himself, blended with no inconsiderable powers of genius; so much independence of thought, coupled with deference to the sentiments of others, those he esteemed more learned or more virtuous than himself; so much lightness of spirit, united to such seriousness of mind upon religious truths;—in fine, so earnest and sincere a desire to improve and perfect himself, that our feelings lead us to pass lightly over his faults, and dwell with pleasure upon his finer qualities. If we have dilated somewhat upon the former, it has been that we considered them the result of the system to which he was by education attached, and which is alone accountable for them.

‘As, however, he increased in years, his mind began to open to the defects and wants of that system, and boldly to conceive the necessity of correcting them. In this he ran manifestly before his fellows, and seems only to have been prevented by his premature death from reaching the goal of Catholic Unity…. First, as to the Blessed Eucharist, we find him early desirous of going beyond the timid phraseology of his party, and attributing to the priesthood such power as the Catholic Church alone claims…. In 1835, he condemns what he calls the Protestant doctrine of the Eucharist in strong terms. These are his words: “I am more and more indignant at the Protestant doctrine on the subject of the Eucharist, and think that the principle on which it is founded is as proud, irreverent, and foolish as that of any heresy, even Socinianism.”[366] Still more, writing to the author of The Christian Year, he blames him for denying that Christ is in the hands of the priest or the receiver, as well as in his heart.[367] These passages show how far prepared he was to outstrip his friends in approximation to Catholic doctrines and Catholic expressions…. The state of celibacy, and with it the monastic life, seems also to have been an object of his admiration…. The last fragment published of his attests how anxiously, how candidly, and how powerfully his mind was at work with the great subject [of Church authority], the hinge on which the differences between us and these new divines may be justly said to turn. This piece[368] is a letter dated Jan. 27, 1836, a month before his death; and as his last illness was of some weeks’ duration, this document may be considered as his theological will and testament, the last declaration of his yet unbroken mind…. After this, what more can we desire in proof of what we asserted at the beginning of this article, that these Remains prove Mr. Froude’s mind to have been gradually discovering more extensive and more accurate views of religious truths and the principles of Faith, with such steady and constant growth as gives us every reason to believe that longer life alone was wanting, to see him take the salutary resolve to embrace the conclusions of his theories to their fullest legitimate extent? While the writings of the new divines seem to represent their theories as perfectly formed, and their views quite fixed, the extracts we have just made show them to be but the shifting and unsettled opinions of men who are yet discovering errors in what they have formerly believed, and seeking further evidence of what they shall henceforth hold. Our concluding extract shall give fuller evidence of this fact: it is a letter to Mr. Newman, dated All Saints’ Day, 1835. “Before I finish this, I must enter another protest against your cursing and swearing at the end of the [Via Media] as you do. What good can it do? And I call it uncharitable to an excess. How mistaken we may ourselves be, on many points that are only gradually opening on us! Surely, you should reserve ‘blasphemous,’ ‘impious,’ etc., for denial of the articles of Faith.”[369]

‘With this passage we close Mr. Froude’s Remains. Peace be to him! is our parting salutation. The hope which an Ambrose expressed for a Valentinian,[370] who died yet a Catechumen, we willingly will hold of him. His ardent desires were with the Truth; his heart was not a stranger to its love. He was one, we firmly believe, whom no sordid views, or fear of men’s tongues, would have deterred from avowing his full convictions, and embracing their consequences, had time and opportunity been vouchsafed him for a longer and closer search. He is another instance of the same mysterious Providence which guided a Grotius and a Leibnitz to the threshold of Truth, but allowed them not the time to step within it, into the hallowed precincts of God’s Visible Church.’[371]

From ‘The Anglican Career of Cardinal Newman,’ by Edwin A. Abbott. London: Macmillan & Co., 1892.

[By the kind permission of Dr. Abbott and of Messrs. Macmillan & Co.]

‘Newman was now [1826] on the point of making a new friend who would do more than any other human being, perhaps more than any other single external influence, to direct his course, or to determine its final direction. “Bye-the-bye,” says Newman to his mother, telling her of the election to the Oriel Fellowship, March 31, 1826, “I have not told you the name of the other successful candidate: Froude of Oriel. We were in grave deliberation till near two this morning…. Froude is one of the acutest and clearest and deepest men in the memory of man.” Clearly, Froude had had, not only Newman’s vote, but also his strenuous advocacy in that prolonged deliberation. And it was no bad preparation for the reception of Froude’s influence into Newman’s heart, that the latter should thus have favoured and befriended him…. What took Newman, in Froude, was his originality and suggestiveness, his hatred of shams, his downright and aggressive earnestness, and perhaps, too, some glimpse of what was afterwards revealed in him: an anxious, ascetic, and almost superstitious aspiration after a mediÆval type of holiness…. There were walks that Froude tells us of, in which the two talked a good deal together. Froude complains that he allowed himself to say to Newman more than he intended, revealed too much, suffered himself to be drawn into argument, and was puzzled … but if the older beat the younger in argument, that would rather help than hinder the influence of the latter. Expert in logical fence, Newman could not help gaining victories which he disdained as soon as won; but Froude was effective in protests, and all the more with one who, most vulnerable when victorious, had just achieved a dialectical triumph.

* * * * *

‘… To get at Newman, a friend had to appeal to him through the imagination; … indeed, one of the friends whom we shall have before us, did actually, though indirectly, influence Newman’s action at so many points in his career that if we omitted a sketch of him here, we should have to be constantly digressing for explanations afterwards. The three friends are: Edward Bouverie Pusey, John Keble, and, as a climax in respect of influence, Richard Hurrell Froude…. Froude’s opinions, [Newman] says, arrested him, even when they did not gain his consent…. In all these beliefs [enumerated in the Apologia] Froude certainly preceded, and evidence will hereafter clearly prove that he also led, the friend who had been gradually disengaging himself from the Evangelical School. Even in other matters where, at first, Newman and he differed, Newman, in the end, came round to him. Froude was “powerfully drawn to the MediÆval Church,” Newman to the Primitive; but the MediÆval finally triumphed. He set no great store on theological detail, nor on the writings of the Fathers, but “took an eager courageous view of things as a whole.”[372] Omit “courageous,” perhaps also the “eager,” and the sentence will describe the nature of Newman’s final decision. He, too, took “things as a whole”: it was the personified majesty of the vision of Rome that ultimately took him captive. Recognising the difficulty of enumerating all the additions to his creed which Newman derived from a friend to whom he owed so much, the Apologia selects four: admiration for Rome, dislike of the Reformation, devotion to the Blessed Virgin, belief in the Real Presence. But there is perhaps not one in the long list of Froude’s other opinions [on sacerdotal power, ecclesiastical liberty, acceptance of tradition, the intrinsic excellence of virginity, miraculous interferences, delight in the Saints, and the principle of penance and mortification: see the passage in the Apologia] in which his influence on Newman is not perceptible. If not first planted, some of them were at all events “fixed deep,” and firmly rooted, by the friend who had previously received them. If, therefore, we would understand Newman’s development, we should spare no trouble in attempting to understand that one of all his friends who is shown by evidence, direct and indirect, to have contributed most to it. For this purpose all the more pains are needed, because the very friends who loved him best dealt somewhat hardly with his reputation. In his literary Remains, they gave to the world the most secret records of his private life, in which, besides hinting at deeper “vilenesses,” he sets down in detail, with unflinching severity, if not with exaggeration, the very smallest infirmities of will and deed. The Apologia speaks of “the gentleness and tenderness of nature, the playfulness, the free elastic force and graceful versatility of mind, and the patient winning considerateness in discussion which endeared him to those to whom he opened his heart”; and other testimony enables us to believe that in the small circle of those who knew him well, he was really such as he is there described; but if we are to judge from his Remains, it is a question whether this gentleness and considerateness reached far beyond the close company of those who were struggling for the religious cause which he had at heart.

‘… The Journal begins in the year 1826, when he was elected to the Oriel Fellowship. The second line is as follows: “Feb. 1, Oxford. All my associations here are bad, and I can hardly shake them off.” He determines to wrestle with his conceit, affectation, wandering of mind, lassitude…. Then follows an allusion which Newman, devoted by a kind of inward vow to celibacy since the age of sixteen, would well understand: “The consciousness of having capacities for happiness, with no objects to gratify them, seems to grow upon me. Lord, have mercy upon me.” This is the mood which he elsewhere describes to Newman as “sawney”: natural at times to those who are under a kind of vow to serve a cause, without domestic distractions or encumbrances.

‘The problem exhibited in these pages … is the old but never antiquated one: “How to keep the human machine in order.” Roughly speaking, we may say that there are two solutions. Men can be delivered from the beast within them by love, or by fear. The second may be called no deliverance at all by those who have a keen appreciation of the first, but it is deliverance, of a sort; and Froude’s Journal shows us a man of immense strength of will: of acute intellect, and of high imaginations; restless and masterful almost to the extent of tyrannical malignity, in his youth; conscious of grievous lapses in the past and of something (he hardly knew what) terribly wanting in his present moral condition; now at last goaded by bitter remorse, and urged by the pressure of new responsibilities, to reform his corrupt nature, and attempting to work out his salvation through an asceticism dictated, at first, by something like terror…. In 1826, Froude had sent a letter to Keble, curiously tingeing with his own gloom the language of the Psalmist, who prays to be hidden under the “shadow of the wings” of the divine Protection: he speaks of God as a Being whose presence is mainly manifested by control, and by a holy “terror”:

‘… Froude’s religion, then, so far as it depended upon his conception of God, was a religion of almost unmixed fear. So far as it was of something better, it was purified, first, by a love and admiration for “the holy men of old,” such as the founders of the Oxford Colleges, in whose steps, after his election to his Fellowship, he aspired to tread; secondly, by his affection for Keble, for whom, in the prayer written at the same time, he thanks God, as one who had convinced him of the error of his ways, and in whose presence he tasted happiness; but above all, by his devotion to his mother, in whose recollection he found a consciousness of that blessedness which he had been taught to look for in the presence of Saints and Angels. These were feelings which were better than his religion, and which, if they could have developed and grown with the latter, might have delivered it from fears, and have converted it into a source of peace as well as of activity: but whether from the irremediable taint of the past, or owing to influence that proved too strong for Keble’s, this growth did not go on.

‘Newman … taught at an early period that self-knowledge is the basis of all religious knowledge. Whether Froude adopted or originated this doctrine, it must have stimulated his fears: for it was a proverb with him that “everyone may know worse of himself than he possibly can of Charles the Second.” In less than six months after the thanksgiving recorded above, we find him protesting (January 10, 1827) that he dares not now utter the prayers of wise and holy men, and that God has affrighted him with hideous dreams, and disquieted him with perpetual mortifications…. It is to Keble that he owes his release, for how long he knows not, from the misery in which he has been recently bound. At the same time Keble advises him to give up his ascetic self-denial, and Froude acquiesces. Though it had the colour of humility, it now appears to him to have been in reality the food of pride: self-imposed, it seems to him “quite different from imposed by the Church.” What sort of self-denials they were, and what Froude’s self-introspection implied, the reader ought to be informed for two reasons: first, because they show the fierce determination and almost bitter self-hatred with which the young man turned against himself, in his resolution to suppress his own egotism and conceit; and secondly, because Newman and Keble (or perhaps Keble instigated by Newman), thought it worth while to record the minutest of these details, and spoke of the Journal as a most valuable contribution to Tractarian literature. Froude sets down, for example, (and they print!) that he was ashamed, on one occasion, to have it known that he had no gloves; that he was ashamed, on another, that he had muddy trousers (although he would not go to the length of concealing them); that he was pleased, on another, when there was no Evening Prayer; that he felt an impulse of pleasure on finding that W. was not at Chapel one morning; that he ostentatiously hinted to S. that he got up at six o’clock; that he read affectedly in evening Chapel; that he felt an inclination to make remarks with a view to showing how much he had thought upon serious subjects; and that once, after accidentally breaking one of W.’s windows, he felt a disposition to “sneak away.” … He seriously argues the pros and cons (“bothering” himself about it for three days), concerning the purchase of a great-coat. On the one side, there is the fact that he “wants,” i.e., needs it, which one would have thought would have been conclusive; but against this he sets the fact that he “wishes” it; and therefore it will be well to deny himself the satisfaction…. By his own confession, he occasionally made himself stupid and sleepy through his ascetic habits. But to the last he retained his admiration for them, at all events when they were imposed by external authority….

‘Why did the Editors of Froude’s Remains give to the world these extraordinary confessions?… If, indeed, Froude had taken Keble’s advice, they could not thus have made his secrets the property of posterity; for he had advised his pupil not only to give up his self-imposed asceticisms, but also to burn his confessions. But this advice was given in 1826; whereas the Remains were published in 1838. Are we wrong in inferring that during this interval, Keble may have been pushed forward by Newman his Co-editor, who taught that all religious knowledge must be based on self-knowledge? From the Letters, this seems probable…. It follows, at once, that there is very little thankfulness in Froude’s form of Christianity. The visible world seemed so full of delusion, mockery, and temptation, that a hostile or ironical attitude towards it was the only one possible. “This irony,” says James Mozley, “arose from that peculiar mode in which Froude viewed all earthly things, himself and all that was dear to him not excepted.” What was this peculiar mode? To define it briefly would be difficult. It must have recognised something of reality and goodness in those friends and allies towards whom his heart went out, and with whom he was ready to labour, to the end, for what he considered the “Truth,” freely placing his fortune, his faculties, and his last breath, at their disposal. But still, it was not the “mode” of St. Paul, nor of Keble; it was more like, though not quite like, that of Newman. It was certainly not the “mode” of the author who wrote that “God giveth us all things richly to enjoy.” Indeed, “irony” is perhaps hardly the right word to use of the superficial self-mockery, but more profound self-hatred and self-contempt, approaching sometimes to despair, with which, in some of his self-introspective moods, Froude smites and rends himself, and his faults; yes, and his resolves to correct his faults, sometimes even pouring scorn upon himself for writing down his own good resolutions, and for thinking well of himself, in the act of doing it. “The chief reason,” he says, “for my being interested in any object, is the fact that I happen to be pursuing it,” “nor can I look with serious feeling on the miseries of anyone but my own. The blight of God is on me for my selfish life.” … Is “irony” a term quite strong enough to denote this savage, sarcastic self-laceration, which, if persisted in, would result in moral and spiritual suicide? So far, it would seem that the two friends resembled each other in almost every one of their principles of religious thought. A religion of fear; a profound sense of an awful Holiness; an absence of general loving-kindness and human-heartedness; a vast and almost servile respect for power as power; an inclination to asceticism, in the older of the two as a test of sincerity, but in the younger, rather as a means of suppressing the passions; a dread of wilfulness, and a rooted suspicion of self,—these feelings appear to have been, in both, so powerful and original, that whatever influence either might exert upon the other would result, not in changing, but in confirming and hardening; or at most, in suggesting some new application of the theories common to both.

‘We now pass to the only principle in which the two seem first to have differed, but ultimately to have agreed. This principle (if it may be so called) is that of tact or management, especially in the diffusion, colouring, and sometimes in the reservation or suppression, of religious doctrine, with a view to surmounting prejudice and instilling truth. To this, Newman (though not the first to use the word in this sense) gave the name of “economy.” There are many reasons for concluding that in this one respect Froude was passive, a simple recipient from Newman…. Froude anticipated, and endeavoured to develop precipitately, the logical results, both of the principles which they held in common, and of those which he instilled into his friend, and also of this particular principle which alone his friend seems to have instilled into him. Such a development may be often noticed, when a strong-willed man who sees only one side of a question, takes up a plan invented by another who sees many. The inventor may be moderate; the adopter carries the invention to excess. Froude was at that time (1834) dragging Newman onwards towards Roman doctrine; but he may have submitted to learn from Newman the best method of diffusing it. He did not like the method, and therefore he called it by bad names, such as “undermining,” “poisoning,” and the like….

‘Newman’s formal usual doctrine [was] that as we cannot be sure about our own salvation, so neither can we about that of others; that we have enough to do with thinking and fearing about our own eternal concerns; that, as before God, no man can help another, for we must not only die alone but live alone, nor can there be any spiritual contact between soul and soul, in this life. Yet at least on one occasion his feelings were too strong for his dogma. When Froude drew near to death, Newman refused to fear for his sake. With him in his mind, he would not use his favourite metaphor of “grovelling worms,” to describe the relation between the human and the divine. Casting away all reserve, all doubts, and all terrors, he shoots up to a Miltonic height, in the confidence that God cannot waste this immortal soul which He has made. Thus he writes to Froude himself:

‘“It made me think how many posts there are in His kingdom, how many offices, Who says to one Do this, and he doeth it. It is quite impossible that, some way or other, you are not destined to be the instrument of God’s purposes. Though I saw the earth cleave and you fall in, or Heaven open and a chariot appear, I should say just the same. God has ten thousand posts of service. You might be of use in the central elemental fire; you might be of use in the depths of the sea.”[373]

‘The same passionate conviction, based not upon Authority or upon Scripture, but upon his own sense of what must be right, finds expression also in a sermon written about the same time.[374]

‘“They are taken away for some purpose, surely; their gifts are not lost to us: their soaring minds, the fire of their contemplations, the sanctity of their desires, the vigour of their faith, the sweetness and gentleness of their affections, were not given without an object. Yea, doubtless they are keeping up the perpetual chant in the Shrine above, praying and praising God day and night in His Temple like Moses upon the mount, while Joshua and his host fight with Amalek.”

‘… Deprived of Froude, and now of his mother, with one sister married, and the other to be married a few months afterwards, Newman must have felt alone indeed. How much this feeling of communion with the departed had been growing in Newman may be seen from the only two poems of 1835[375] (the last until we come to the Roman period), both of which bring before us the intercession of the dead for the living. There can be no doubt whose voice Newman was henceforth to hear most distinctly amid all the earthly din and uproar of the conflict of the Tracts: it was that of the man whose Breviary (assigned to him by a chance utterance of some friend, which he accepted as a message from Heaven) lay always on his study table, destined to lie there for half a century; to the possession of which he attached such importance, that besides minutely describing the incident in the Apologia, he records it in the Letters, along with his mother’s death, as one of nine important events of this critical year: “My knowing and using the Breviary.”[376]

‘Froude (not Froude’s opinions, but Froude himself, or his personality, Froude first, living, and then, as a posthumous influence, still more powerful after death), did more than any other external thing to make Newman what he became, and to shape, through Newman, the Tractarian Movement. Some of Newman’s most important steps dated from the year of their intimacy. It was in 1829 that the two became close friends: Newman the non-political, and Froude the High Tory…. A priori, we ought to be prepared to believe that Froude pushed Newman on. Froude was a High Churchman from the first, with an inclination towards the MediÆval Church, and from this he never swerved: Newman was an Evangelical, extricating himself from Evangelicalism. The former had no doubts; the latter was at that time perpetually doubting. How could it be otherwise than natural that the former should take the lead of the latter?

‘… Froude is not quite fairly, or at least fully, represented in the Remains. The Journal, and even the Letters, fail, perhaps, to express some latent feeling which might have softened apparent harshness. To those who knew him well, his words were interpreted by his personality, which all concur in describing as bright, graceful, and even “beautiful.” … It was this brilliant and graceful embodiment, in one so earnest, so ascetically strict, so clear-headed, and so confident, [one] of definite consistent imaginations about spiritual things (which imaginations Newman describes as “intellectual principles”) that first arrested, and ultimately captivated the older friend, who was at first disposed to smile at, even while admiring, the erratic, “sillyish,” “red-hot” High Churchman….

‘… Fundamentally agreeing with Froude, from the first, in the principles of religious fear, obedience, and self-distrust, Newman differed from him only in the expression and application of them; and on these points Froude’s mind was settled while Newman’s was still in flux. No wonder that, by degrees, Newman lost confidence in any utterance of his own unless Froude first stamped it with his approval. Did not Froude always take the lead, experimenting, as it were, on himself? And had not Newman repeatedly to confess that Froude was right, and he himself wrong? One reason for this was, that Froude, being of an Æsthetic bent, instinctively turned from the Primitive Church, which was, to him, an affair of books, and of which he knew very little, to the MediÆval Church, with which he was in complete harmony, or to the Anglican Nonjurors, about whom he had some sympathetic knowledge. This gave to his notions a naturalness and a practicableness in which Newman’s were deficient. For this, and for other reasons, Froude seemed to be a seer in regions where Newman was only a groper; and so, in time, the latter came naturally not only to depend on the former, but also to avow his dependence so far as to declare his unwillingness to commit himself to anything definite till the man who could see had given it his imprimatur. Still, the brighter and more pleasing side of Froude’s character must not allow us to forget that his search after holiness implied not only something bordering on abjectness towards God, but also strife on earth, and the appearance of ill-will towards a great multitude of men. These qualities explain in part the secret of his power over Newman, who would not have allowed himself to be influenced by any but a detached soul holding aloof from all the world, and especially, perhaps, from the rabble, that “knoweth not the law.” But Froude was by far the more combative of the two, and appears to have acted on Newman, as on Keble, in the way of an inciting cause, or, to use his own metaphor, a “poker.”

‘We find here depicted [in the Remains] a Christian in whose most secret records, self-examinations and prayers, there appears scarcely any mention of Christ as a Person, and very little trace of any love of Christ (who hardly appears at all in them except in some reference to the sacramental Body and Blood); yet one who with all his heart and soul is seeking after that salvation which he supposes to be derivable from Christ’s Church; a man who obstinately detested, first in himself, then in others, the least vestige of affectation, cant, and hypocrisy: who spoke what he meant, as he meant it, and would always have gone, if his friends had allowed him, by the straightest of ways towards what he deemed the best of objects; a man, therefore, of an essentially truth-loving disposition, searching for Truth in all sincerity, but restricted by a “system” to a search within certain limits and through certain methods; shut out from the great world of men, and shut into the comparatively small world—not indeed, as Newman was, of books, but—of ecclesiastical traditions and imaginations; by nature, without any deep feeling of human-hearted sociality, without love of man as a fellow-man; by ecclesiasticism led rather to hate than to love; loving indeed a few, but only as a Spartan might love his companions-in-arms, loving those select spirits by whose side he could battle for the interests of “the Church.”

‘Such a picture, though “instructive,” is not pleasing. Yet those who feel inclined to ridicule, or to give way to disgust, as they peruse records of one whom they may be disposed to call the Minute Ascetic,—telling us of his shame at feeling ashamed that he had muddy trousers, or no gloves, or of his remorse for talking “flash,” or for not finding it easy to keep awake during a sermon, or for wanting to win sixpences at cards, will, if they read a little further, generally find other entries of a different character, as, for example, touching a certain offertory: “Intended £2: 10s., but thought I should be observed, so vowed £5 to the —— Mendicity Society.” We cannot smile at the man who, beneath under-statements conveyed half in slang, half in the language of Tractarian reserve, concealed a resolution not only to deny himself, but even, so far as he could, to suppress himself; who so hated his own individuality, and was so alarmed at the least touch of the self-will of genius within him, that he made it his “great ambition to become a humdrum.” Doomed to an early lingering death, and to leave others to continue the religious conflict in which he, of all the combatants, took the keenest and most passionate pleasure, he drops no word of self-commiseration and repining; and in the last month of his life, having contributed the proceeds of his Fellowship to the cause, he asks Newman to use it at his pleasure, and to make people infer that the money was being contributed by a large number of subscribers. “Spend away, my boy, and make a great fuss, as if your money came from a variety of sources.” If this was “economy,” it cannot, at all events, be scoffed at. Nothing is here for contempt, least of all from commonplace, compromising, half-way-halting semi-Christians or quasi-Christians. Manifestly, we have here a man: no mere word-bag or lump of sensations, but a being with a will, and with a controlling purpose; one who knew his own mind, and therefore had a right to lead those who did not know theirs; a fine specimen of the ecclesiastic militant, essentially a champion of holiness, though essentially, if charity be essential, not a Christian. Such was Richard Hurrell Froude, who, while living, influenced Newman much, and after his death, more; “re-touching the faith,” and “deepening every line,” not as Newman’s poem suggested, of himself, but of the poet, his survivor, his second self. When [Froude] died, a book of his, by what most people would call an accident, passed into Newman’s possession. Newman deemed it more than an accident. From that time forward it lay on his study table; and by it, though dead, his friend continued to speak to and to guide him: always in one direction. Rightly does Newman record as one among nine important events of the “cardinal” spring of 1836, “my knowing and using the Breviary.”’

‘Oriel College,’ by David Watson Rannie, M.A. London: F. E. Robinson & Co., 1900.

[By kind permission of D. W. Rannie, Esq., M.A., and of Messrs. Robinson & Co.]

‘The chief aim of the Fellowship [at Oriel] was to test dialectical power; a chief occupation of the Common Room was to practise it…. Newman himself, who did more than any other man to divert the College from criticism to submission, has left a vivid picture … of his own argumentative brusquerie in the congenial atmosphere of the Oriel Common Room. And it is noticeable, both in his case and that of Richard Hurrell Froude, his chief coadjutor in sowing the seed of the coming Tractarianism in College, that their method was essentially dialectic and modern, even though its effect, on themselves and others, was to lead them into “fierce thoughts” against the modern spirit and the modern trend of things. Pusey might bury himself in theology, and Keble might be the singer and sweet saint of a revived devotion; but Newman and Froude, even when the gates of authority seemed about to close on them for ever, were questioners and controversialists and gladiators, striving to rationalise reason out of its own supremacy.

* * * * *

‘In hurrying on the birth of the new issue, both at Oriel and beyond it, the influence of Richard Hurrell Froude was very great. We have seen that he was elected a Fellow of Oriel in 1826. He was an Oriel man throughout, and had taken a double second in 1824. He was the eldest son of the Archdeacon of Totnes, and the eldest of three eminent brothers, all Oriel men: William, the engineer, born in 1810, and James Anthony, the historian, born in 1818. Hurrell was born in 1803. Always delicate, he fell into consumption early in the Thirties, and died in 1836. But though his career was short and enfeebled, and though there is little of him in print but what the affectionate appreciation of his friends put there, it is certain that Hurrell Froude had in his College an influence both intense and peculiar, which radiated widely, and was answerable for some of the most marked phenomena of Tractarianism. Froude was perhaps the most convinced, the most outspoken, the most throughgoing MediÆvalist among the young men who thought the Church of England in an unsatisfactory condition; and he had the incommunicable and inexplicable gift of great personal influence, which, in his case, took the most irresistible of all its forms: that of impressing others with his equal pre-eminence in intellect and character. While the other Tractarian propagandists of the immediate future were recoiling in fear and anxiety from the advance of the Liberal and Erastian tide, Froude was ardently counselling reaction, loudly and scornfully proclaiming the loveliness and rightness of at least a large number of Roman opinions and practices, and laying a zealous axe at the root of the Protestantism of the Church of England.

* * * * *

‘In fact, one can plainly see that the religious revival which was coming to the English Church was the real cause of the tutorial quarrel at Oriel in 1830. The Tutors had the new wine of it in their veins; they were the subjects of an enthusiasm which they were impelled to communicate, and which was intolerant of restraint; whilst the Provost [Hawkins] was, and was to remain, outside the range of the new ideas. In such a situation compromise was impracticable…. This change had certain important and well-marked results on the College. In the first place, it riveted the authority of Provost Hawkins, and made him for the rest of his life the dominant force in Oriel. In the second place, as the deprived Tutors remained Fellows and attached members of the College, it did nothing to reduce the spread of their influence in Common Room, and indirectly, in College generally, but rather tended to increase it, by opposition. Lastly, and most important of all, it dealt a blow to the intellectual prestige of the College, from which it never recovered during Hawkins’s long reign.’

From ‘The Oxford Counter-Reformation’ in ‘Short Studies on Great Subjects.’ Series IV. By James Anthony Froude. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1883.

[By the kind permission of Miss Froude and of Messrs. Longmans.]

‘… The last forty or fifty years will be memorable hereafter in the history of English opinion. The number of those who recollect the beginnings of the Oxford Revival is shrinking fast; and such of us as survive may usefully note down their personal recollections as a contribution, so far as it goes, to the general narrative. It is pleasant, too, to recall the figures of those who played the chief parts in the drama. If they had not been men of ability, they could not have produced the revolution that was brought about by them. Their personal characters were singularly interesting. Two of them were distinctly men of real genius. My own brother was, at starting, the foremost of the party; the flame, therefore, naturally burnt hot in my own immediate environment. The phrases and formulas of Anglo-Catholicism had become household words in our family, before I understood coherently what the stir and tumult was about.

‘We fancy that we are free agents. We are conscious of what we do; we are not conscious of the causes which make us do it; and therefore we imagine that the cause is in ourselves. The Oxford leaders believed that they were fighting against the spirit of the age. They were themselves most completely the creatures of their age. It was one of those periods when conservative England had been seized with a passion for reform. Parliament was to be reformed; the municipal institutions were to be reformed; there was to be an end of monopolies and privileges. The Constitution was to be cut in pieces and boiled in the Benthamite caldron, from which it was to emerge in immortal youth. In a reformed State there needed a reformed Church. My brother and his friends abhorred Bentham and all his works. The Establishment, in its existing state, was too weak to do battle with the new enemy. Protestantism was the chrysalis of Liberalism. The Church, therefore, was to be unprotestantised. The Reformation, my brother said, “was a bad setting of a broken limb.” The limb needed breaking a second time, and then it would be equal to its business.

‘My brother exaggerated the danger, and underestimated the strength, which existing institutions and customs possess, so long as they are left undisturbed. Before he and his friends undertook the process of reconstruction, the Church was perhaps in the healthiest condition which it had ever known…. The average English incumbent of fifty years ago was a man of private fortune, the younger brother of the landlord perhaps, and holding the family living; or it might be the landlord himself, his advowson being part of the estate. His professional duties were his services on Sunday, funerals and weddings on week-days, and visits, when needed, among the sick. In other respects he lived like his neighbours, distinguished from them only by a black coat and white neckcloth, and greater watchfulness over his words and actions. He farmed his own glebe; he kept horses; he shot and hunted moderately, and mixed in general society. He was generally a magistrate; he attended public meetings, and his education enabled him to take a leading part in county business. His wife and daughters looked after the poor, taught in the Sunday school, and managed the penny clubs and clothing clubs. He himself was spoken of in the parish as “the master,” the person who was responsible for keeping order there, and who knew how to keep it. The labourers and the farmers looked up to him. The family in the “great house” could not look down upon him. If he was poor, it was still his pride to bring up his sons as gentlemen; and economies were cheerfully submitted to at home to give them a start in life at the University, or in the Army or Navy.

‘Our own household was a fair representative of the order. My father was Rector of the parish. He was Archdeacon, he was Justice of the Peace. He had a moderate fortune of his own, consisting chiefly in land, and he belonged, therefore, to the “landed interest.” Most of the magistrates’ work of the neighbourhood passed through his hands. If anything was amiss, it was his advice which was most sought after; and I remember his being called upon to lay a troublesome ghost. In his younger days, he had been a hard rider across country. His children knew him as a continually busy, useful man of the world, a learned and cultivated antiquary, and an accomplished artist. My brothers and I were excellently educated, and were sent to School and College. Our spiritual lessons did not go beyond the Catechism. We were told that our business in life was to work, and to make an honourable position for ourselves. About doctrine, Evangelical or Catholic, I do not think that in my early boyhood I ever heard a single word, in Church or out of it. The institution had drifted into the condition of what I should call moral health. It did not instruct us in mysteries, it did not teach us to make religion a special object of our thoughts; it taught us to use religion as a light by which to see our way along the road of duty. Without the sun, our eyes would be of no use to us; but if we look at the sun we are simply dazzled, and can see neither it nor anything else. It is precisely the same with theological speculations. If the beacon lamp is shining, a man of healthy mind will not discuss the composition of the flame. Enough if it shows him how to steer, and keep clear of shoals and breakers. To this conception of the thing we had practically arrived. Doctrinal controversies were sleeping. People went to Church because they liked it, because they knew that they ought to go, and because it was the custom. They had received the Creeds from their fathers, and doubts about them had never crossed their minds. Christianity had wrought itself into the constitution of their natures. It was a necessary part of the existing order of the universe, as little to be debated about as the movements of the planets or the changes of the seasons.

‘Such the Church of England was, in the country districts, before the Tractarian Movement. It was not perfect, but it was doing its work satisfactorily. It is easier to alter than to improve, and the beginning of change, like the beginning of strife, is like the letting out of water. Jupiter, in Lessing’s fable, was invited to mend a fault in human nature. The fault was not denied, but Jupiter said that man was a piece of complicated machinery, and if he touched a part he might probably spoil the whole.

‘But a new era was upon us. The miraculous nineteenth century was coming of age, and all the world was to be remade…. History was reconstructed for us. I had learned, like other Protestant children, that the Pope was Antichrist, and that Gregory VII. had been a special revelation of that being. I was now taught that Gregory VII. was a Saint. I had been told to honour the Reformers. The Reformation became the Great Schism, Cranmer a traitor, and Latimer a vulgar ranter. Milton was a name of horror, and Charles I. was canonised and spoken of as the holy and blessed Martyr St. Charles. I asked once whether the Church of England was able properly to create a Saint? St. Charles was immediately pointed out to me. Similarly, we were to admire the Nonjurors, to speak of James III. instead of The Pretender; to look for Antichrist, not in the Pope, but in Whigs and revolutionists and all their works. Henry of Exeter,[377] so famous in those days, announced once, in my hearing, that the Court of Rome had regretted the Emancipation Act as a victory of Latitudinarianism. I suppose he believed what he was saying….

* * * * *

‘These were the views which we used to hear in our home-circle, when the Tracts were first beginning. We had been bred, all of us, Tories of the old school. This was Toryism in ecclesiastical costume. My brother was young, gifted, brilliant, and enthusiastic. No man is ever good for much who has not been carried off his feet by enthusiasm, between twenty and thirty; but it needs to be bridled and bitted; and my brother did not live to be taught the difference between fact and speculation. Taught it he would have been, if time had been allowed him. No one ever recognised facts more loyally than he, when once he saw them. This I am sure of, that when the intricacies of the situation pressed upon him, when it became clear to him that if his conception of the Church, and of its rights and position, was true at all, it was not true of the Church of England in which he was born, and that he must renounce his theory as visionary or join another Communion, he would not have “minimised” the Roman doctrines that they might be more easy for him to swallow, or have explained away plain propositions till they meant anything or nothing. Whether he would have swallowed them, or not, I cannot say; I was not eighteen when he died, and I do not so much as form an opinion about it; but his course, whatever it was, would have been direct and straightforward; he was a man far more than a theologian: and if he had gone, he would have gone with his whole heart and conscience, unassisted by subtleties and nice distinctions. It is, however, at least equally possible that he would not have gone at all….

* * * * *

‘The terminus, however, towards which he and his friends were moving, had not come in sight in my brother’s lifetime. He went forward, hesitating at nothing, taking the fences as they came, passing lightly over them all, and sweeping his friends along with him. He had the contempt of an intellectual aristocrat for private judgement and the rights of a man. In common things, a person was a fool who preferred his own judgement to that of an expert. Why, he asked, should it be wiser to follow private judgement in religion? As to rights, the right of wisdom was to rule, and the right of ignorance was to be ruled. But he belonged himself to the class whose business was to order rather than obey. If his own Bishop had interfered with him, his theory of episcopal authority would have been found inapplicable in that particular instance.

* * * * *

‘… The triumvirs who became a national force, and gave its real character to the Oxford Movement, were Keble, Pusey, and John Henry Newman. Newman himself was the moving power; the two others were powers also, but of inferior mental strength. Without the third, they would have been known as men of genius and learning; but their personal influence would have been limited to and have ended with themselves. Of Pusey I knew but little, and need not do more than mention him. Of Keble I can only venture to say a few words…. The inability to appreciate the force of arguments which he did not like saved him from Rome, but did not save him from Roman doctrine. It would, perhaps, have been better if he had left the Church of England, instead of remaining there to shelter behind his high authority a revolution in its teaching. The Mass has crept back among us, with which we thought we had done for ever, and the honourable name of Protestant, once our proudest distinction, has been made over to the Church of Scotland and the Dissenters.

‘Far different from Keble, from my brother, from Dr. Pusey, from all the rest, was the true chief of the Catholic revival—John Henry Newman. Compared with him, they were all but as ciphers, and he the indicating number.’

Controversy from ‘The Contemporary Review’ and ‘The Nineteenth Century’ between Prof. E. A. Freeman and Mr. James Anthony Froude.

[From The Contemporary Review for March, 1878, xxxi., 822 et seq. By E. A. Freeman.][378]

‘… Mr. Froude, in his present attempt to paint the picture of the great men of the twelfth century, puts on the outward garb of one who has read and tested his materials, and has come to a critical judgement on what he has read and tested. But he happily leaves a little cranny open which enables us to look within. The very first words of Mr. Froude’s Life and Times of Thomas Becket are enough to show us that the seeming historical inquiry is really designed as a manifesto against a theological party which once numbered its author among its members. To those who know the whole literature of the subject, it has a look more unpleasant still. Those whose study of twelfth-century history goes back to times when those who are now in their second half-century were young, will not fail to remember a time when the name of Froude reminded them of another, an earlier, and (I have no hesitation in saying) a worthier treatment of the same subject. And some of those who go back so far may be tempted to think that natural kindliness, if no other feeling, might have kept back the fiercest of partisans from ignoring the honest work of a long-deceased brother, and from dealing stabs in the dark at a brother’s almost forgotten fame…. [Mr. Froude] is controversial, something more than controversial, from the beginning. He undertakes the study, not to throw fresh light on the history of the twelfth century, but to deal a blow at a party in the nineteenth. His first words are: “Among the earliest efforts of the modern sacerdotal party in the Church of England was an attempt to re-establish the memory of the Martyr of Canterbury.” It is not everybody who reads this who will fully take in what is here meant. The first attempt made, within the memory of our own generation, to examine and compare the materials for the great controversy between King and Primate, was made by Richard Hurrell Froude of Oriel College: the Froude of the once famous Remains, the elder brother of the man who makes this somewhat unbrotherly reference. The elder Froude doubtless belonged to what the younger calls “the sacerdotal party.” His wish undoubtedly was “to re-establish the memory of the Martyr of Canterbury.” To those with whom historic truth comes foremost, and who have no special fanaticism, sacerdotal or anti-sacerdotal, the effort of a “sacerdotal party” to re-establish the memory of Thomas of Canterbury may seem at least as worthy an object as to re-establish the memory of Flogging Fitzgerald, or of King Harry himself. To re-establish the memory of Thomas is, at the worst, a question of words and names, and of a certain law: it does not, like the other two re-establishments, imply the defence of any matter of wrong, or wicked lewdness. And the elder Froude’s history of controversy, if undertaken with a purpose of theological partisanship, was still a piece of creditable historical work. Done forty years or so ago, it was, of course, not up to the level of modern criticism on the subject. But it was the beginning of modern criticism on the subject. The elder Froude is entitled, at the hands of everyone who writes or reads the story of Thomas, to that measure of respectful thanks which belongs to a pioneer on any subject. As for his spirit of partisanship, those who stand outside the arena of all such partisanship might say that when the elder Froude wrote, it was time that the other side should be heard, in its turn. The name of Thomas À Becket had been so long the object of vulgar and ignorant scorn; his character and objects had been treated with such marked unfairness, even by historians of real merit, that fair play might welcome a vindication, even if it went too far the other way. Such a vindication was the object of the elder Froude: in the course of it, he got rid of several prevalent errors, and made ready the way for more impartial and critical examination at the hands of others. The elder Froude did something to put one who, whatever were his objects, whatever were his errors, was still a great and heroic Englishman, in a historic place more worthy of him. At all events, he deserves better than to have his work thus sneeringly spoken of by his own younger brother: “And while Churchmen are raising up Becket as a brazen serpent on which the world is to look to be healed of its incredulities, the incredulous world may look with advantage at him from its own point of view; and if unconvinced that he was a Saint, may still find instruction in a study of his actions and his fate.” This way of speaking may seem startling to those who know the relation between the long-deceased champion of the one side, and the living champion of the other…. The point of view of those whose sole object is historic truth may well be different either from the point of view of “Churchmen,” or from that of the “incredulous world.” At all events, historic truth has nothing to do with the point of view of either.’

From The Nineteenth Century for April, 1878, iii., 621. ‘A Few Words on Mr. Freeman,’ by J. A. Froude.

‘Mr. Freeman commences with a sentence which is grossly impertinent. “Natural kindliness,” he says, “if no other feeling, might have kept back the fiercest of partisans from ignoring the work of a long-forgotten brother.” How can Mr. Freeman know my motive for not speaking of my brother in connection with Becket, that he should venture upon ground so sensitive? I mentioned no modern writers, except, once, Dean Stanley. Natural kindliness would have been more violated if I had specified my brother as a person with whose opinions on the subject I was compelled to differ. I spoke of rehabilitation of Becket as among the first efforts of the High Church school. My brother’s Remains were brought out by the leaders of that school after his death, as a party manifesto; and, for my own part, I consider the publication of the Remains the greatest injury that was ever done to my brother’s memory. But this is venial, compared with what follows. He goes on: “And from dealing stabs in the dark at a brother’s almost forgotten fame.” “Stabs in the dark?” Can Mr. Freeman have measured the meaning of the words which he is using? If I had written anonymous articles attacking my brother’s work, “stabs in the dark” would have been a correct expression; and Mr. Freeman has correctly measured the estimate likely to be formed of a person who could have been guilty of doing anything so discreditable. Irrespective of “natural kindliness,” I look back upon my brother as, on the whole, the most remarkable man I have ever met in my life. I have never seen any person,—not one! in whom, as I now think of him, the excellences of intellect and character were combined in fuller measure. Of my personal feeling towards him I cannot speak. I am ashamed to have been compelled, by what I can describe only as an inexcusable insult, to say what I have said.’

From The Contemporary Review, May, 1879, xxxv., 218 et seq. ‘Last Words on Mr. Froude,’ by E. A. Freeman.

‘… With regard to Mr. Froude’s treatment of his brother’s writings, I see that what I have said has pained Mr. Froude. I am so far sorry for it; but I do not admit that I said anything beyond fair criticism. I know that the friends of Mr. R. H. Froude were deeply pained by what Mr. J. A. Froude wrote in his Life and Times of Thomas Becket. I cannot say that I was pained, because I never knew Mr. R. H. Froude. He was, to me, neither a friend nor a kinsman, nor a man in whom I had any personal or party interest. But as a student of twelfth-century history, I do owe him a certain measure of thanks as a pioneer in one of my subjects of study. Therefore, if not pained, like his personal friends, I was indignant: because I thought that he was unworthily treated, and that the treatment was the more unworthy because it came from the hands of his own brother. When I spoke of “stabs in the dark,” I meant that the victim (I must use the word) was in the dark. Very few of Mr. Froude’s readers would know that it was his own brother of whom Mr. Froude was speaking, in a way which, brother or no brother, I hold to be wholly undeserved.

‘But if any impartial judge thinks that I ought not to have mentioned the fact of the kindred between the two writers, I regret having done so.’

From ‘The Remains of the Rev. Richard Hurrell Froude, M.A., Fellow of Oriel’ [edited by the Rev. John Henry Newman and the Rev. John Keble]. London: Rivingtons, 1838. 2 vols.

‘[Richard Hurrell Froude] was the eldest son of the Venerable Robert H[urrell] Froude, Archdeacon of Totnes, and was born, and died, in the Parsonage House of Dartington, in the county of Devon. He was born in 1803, on the Feast of the Annunciation; and he died of consumption, on the 28th of February, 1836, when he was nearly thirty-three, after an illness of four years and a half. He was educated at Eton and Oxford, having previously had the great advantage, while at Ottery Free School, of living in the family of the Rev. George Coleridge. He went to Eton in 1816, and came into residence as a Commoner of Oriel College in the spring of 1821. In 1824 he took the degree of Bachelor of Arts, after having obtained, on his examination, high, though not the highest honours, both in the LiterÆ Humaniores and the DisciplinÆ MathematicÆ et PhysicÆ. At Easter, 1826, he was elected Fellow of his College, and, in 1827, was admitted to his M.A. degree. The same year he accepted the office of Tutor, which he held till 1830. In December, 1828, he received Deacon’s Orders, and the year after, Priest’s, from the last and present Bishops of Oxford.[379] The disorder which terminated his life first showed itself in the summer of 1831; the winter of 1832, and the following spring, he passed in the south of Europe; and the two next winters, and the year between them (1834), in the West Indies. The illness which immediately preceded his death lasted but a few weeks.

‘He left behind him a considerable collection of writings, none prepared for publication: of which the following two volumes form a part. The Journal, with which the first commences, and which is continued in the Appendix, reaches from the beginning of 1826, when he was nearly twenty-three, to the spring of 1828. The Occasional Thoughts are carried on to 1829. The Essay on Fiction was written when he was twenty-three; the Sermons, from 1829 to 1833, when he was between twenty-five and thirty.[380] His Letters begin in 1823, when he was twenty, and are carried down to within a month of his death.

‘Those on whom the task has fallen of preparing these various writings for publication, have found it matter of great anxiety to acquit themselves so as to satisfy the claims of duty, which they felt pressing on them in distinct, and, sometimes, apparently opposite directions.

‘Some apology may seem requisite, in the first place, for the very magnitude of the collection: as though authority were being claimed, in a preposterous way, for the opinions of one undistinguished either by station or by known literary eminence.

‘That apology, it is believed, will be found in the truth, and extreme importance, of the views to the development of which the whole is meant to be subservient; and also in the instruction derivable from a full exhibition of the author’s character as a witness to those views. This is the plea which it is desired to bring prominently forward; nothing short of this, it is felt, would justify such ample and unreserved disclosures: neither originality of thought, nor engaging imagery, nor captivating touches of character and turns of expression.

‘Still more is this apology needed, on the more serious grounds of friendship and duty. The publication of a private Journal and private Letters is a serious thing. Too often it has been ventured on, in a kind of reckless way, with an eye singly to the good expected to be accomplished, no regard being had to the author himself, and his wishes. It is in itself painful, nay, revolting, to expose to the common gaze papers only intended for a single correspondent; and it seems little less than sacrilege to bring out the solitary memoranda of one endeavouring to feel, and to be, as much as possible alone with his God: secretly training himself, as in His presence, in that discipline which shuns the light of this world. To such a publication, it were objection enough that it would seem to harmonise but too well with the restless unsparing curiosity which now prevails.

‘No common motive, then, it may be well believed, was required to overcome the strong reluctance which even strangers of ordinary delicacy, much more kinsmen and intimate friends, must feel on the first suggestion of such a proceeding. It may be frankly allowed that gentle and good minds will naturally be prejudiced, in the outset, against any collection of the sort. But the present is a peculiar case, a case in which, if the survivors do not greatly deceive themselves, they are best consulting the wishes of the departed by publication, hazardous as that step commonly is. Let the reader, before he condemns, imagine to himself a case like the following.

‘Let him suppose a person in the prime of manhood (with what talents and acquirements is not now the question) devoting himself, ardently yet soberly, to the promotion of one great cause; writing, speaking, thinking on it for years, as exclusively as the needs and infirmities of human life would allow; but dying before he could bring to perfection any of the plans which had suggested themselves to him for its advancement. Let it be certainly known to his friends that he was firmly resolved never to shrink from anything, not morally wrong, which he had good grounds to believe would really forward that cause: and that it was real pain and disquiet to him if he saw his friends in any way postponing it to his supposed feelings or interests. Suppose, further, that having been for weeks and months in the full consciousness of what was soon likely to befall him, he departs, leaving such papers as make up the present collection in the hands of those next to him in blood, without any express direction as to the disposal of them; and that they, taking counsel with the friends on whom he was known chiefly to rely, unanimously and decidedly judged publication most desirable for that end which was the guide of his life, and which they too esteemed paramount to all others; imagine the papers appearing to them so valuable, that they feel as if they had no right to withhold such aid from the cause to which he was pledged: would it, or would it not, be their duty, as faithful trustees, in such case to overcome their own scruples? would they, or would they not, be justified in believing that they had, virtually, his own sanction for publishing such parts even of his personal and devotional memoranda, much more, of his letters to his friends, as they deliberately judged likely to aid in the general good effect?

‘This case of a person sacrificing himself altogether to one great object, is not of everyday occurrence: it is not like the too frequent instances of papers being ransacked and brought to light, because the writer was a little more distinguished, or accounted a little wiser, or better, than his neighbours: it cannot be fairly drawn into a precedent, except in circumstances equally uncommon.

‘On the whole, supposing what in this Preface must be supposed, the nobleness, and rectitude, and pressing nature of the end which [Mr. Froude] had in view, the principle of posthumous publication surely must, in this instance, be conceded? The only question remaining will be whether the selection has been judicious. On this, also, it may be well to anticipate certain objections not unlikely to occur to sundry classes of readers. If there be any who are startled at the strong expressions of self-condemnation occurring so frequently, both in the Journal and in the more serious parts of the Correspondence, he will please to consider that the better anyone knows, the more severely will he judge himself; and since this writer sometimes thought it his duty to be very plain-spoken in his censure of others, in fairness to him it seemed right to show that he did not fail to look at home; that he tried to be more rigid to himself than to anyone else.

* * * * *

‘Censure may be expected … [on] what will be called the intolerance of certain passages: the keen sense which the author expresses of the guilt men incur by setting themselves against the Church. In fact, both this and the alleged tendency to Romanism,[381] are objections, not to the present publication, but to the view which it is designed to support, and do not therefore quite properly come within the scope of this Preface. To defend the severe expressions alluded to would be in a great measure to defend the old Catholic writers for the tone in which they have spoken of unbelievers and corrupters of the Faith. The same portions of Holy Scripture would be appealed to in both cases; those, namely, which teach or exemplify the duty of austere reserve towards wilful heretics, and earnest zeal against heresiarchs. Perhaps it may be found that [Mr. Froude’s] demeanour and language on such subjects is a tolerably striking and consistent illustration of that sentiment of the Psalmist: “Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate Thee?” He hated them in their collective character, as God’s enemies, as the antichristian party; but to all who came in his way individually, he was, as many of his acquaintance can testify, full of unaffected, open-hearted kindness; entering into their feelings, and making allowance for their difficulties, not the less scrupulously because he sometimes found himself compelled to separate from them, or declare himself against them.

‘To judge adequately of this point, we must, further, take into account a certain strong jealousy which he entertained of his own honesty of mind. He was naturally, or on principle, a downright speaker, avoiding those words of course and of compliment, which often, it may be feared, serve to keep up a false peace at the expense of true Christian charity. His words, therefore (playfulness and occasional irony apart), may in general be taken more literally than those of most men. It is easy to see that this would make his criticisms, whether literary or moral, sound more pointed and unsparing than those in which a writer of less frankness would indulge himself. And this introduces another point, not unlikely to be animadverted on as blameable, in the present selection. Many, recoiling from his sentences, so direct, fearless, and pungent, concerning all sorts of men and things, will be fain to account them speeches uttered at random, more for present point and effect, than to declare the speaker’s real opinion; and, so judging, will of course disapprove of the collecting and publishing such sayings, especially on high and solemn subjects, as at best incautious, and perhaps irreverent. But they who judge thus must be met by a denial of the fact. The expressions in question were not uttered at random: he was not in the habit of speaking at random on such matters. This is remarkably evinced by the fact that to various friends, at various times, conversing or writing on the same subjects, he was constantly employing the same illustrations and arguments, very often the same words: as they found by comparison afterwards, and still go on to find. Now maxims and reasonings of which this may be truly affirmed, whatever else may be alleged against them, cannot fairly be thrown by as mere chance sayings. Right or wrong, they were deliberate opinions, and cannot be left out of consideration, in a complete estimate of a writer’s character and principles. The off-hand unpremeditated way in which they seemed to dart out of him, like sparks from a luminous body, proved only a mind entirely possessed with the subject; glowing, as it were, through and through.

‘Still, some will say, more selection might have been used, and many statements at least omitted, which, however well considered by himself, coming now, suddenly, as they do, on the reader, appear unnecessarily startling and paradoxical. But, really, there was little option of that kind, if justice were to be done either to him or to the reader. His opinions had a wonderful degree of consistency and mutual bearing; they depended on each other as one whole: who was to take the responsibility of separating them? Who durst attempt it, considering especially his hatred of concealment and artifice? Again: it was due to the reader to show him fairly how far the opinions recommended would carry him. There is no wish to disguise their tendencies, nor to withdraw them from such examination as will prove them erroneous, if they are so. Any homage which it is desired to render to his memory would indeed be sadly tarnished, were he to be spoken or written of in any spirit but that of an unshrinking openness like his own. Such also is the tone of the Catholic Fathers, and (if it may be urged without irreverence), of the Sacred Writers themselves. Nothing, as far as we can find, is kept back by them, merely because it would prove startling: openness, not disguise, is their manner. This should not be forgotten in a compilation professing simply to recommend their principles. Nothing, therefore, is here kept back, but what it was judged would be fairly and naturally misunderstood: the insertion of which, therefore, would have been, virtually, so much untruth.

‘Lastly, it may perhaps be thought of the Correspondence in particular, that it is eked out with unimportant details, according to the usual mistake of partial friends. The compilers, however, can most truly affirm that they have had the risk of such an error continually before their eyes, and have not, to the best of their judgement, inserted anything, which did not tell, indirectly perhaps but really, towards filling up that outline of his mind and character, which seemed requisite to complete the idea of him as a witness to Catholic views. It can hardly be necessary for them to add, what the name of Editor implies, that while they, of course, concur in his sentiments as a whole, they are not to be understood as rendering themselves responsible for every shade of opinion or expression.

‘It remains only to commend these fragments, if it may be done without presumption, to the same good Providence which seemed to bless the example and instructions of the writer while yet with us, to the benefit of many who knew him: that “being dead,” he may “yet speak,” as he constantly desired to do, a word in season for the Church of God: may still have the privilege of awakening some of her members to truer and more awful thoughts than they now have, of their own high endowments and deep responsibility.’

‘Remains of the Rev. Richard Hurrell Froude, M.A., Fellow of Oriel’ [edited by the Rev. J. H. Newman and the Rev. John Keble]. London: Rivingtons, 1839. Part II.

‘It was of course impossible but that the quantity and variety of censure, which was elicited by the publication of the former part of these Remains, should be felt by the Editors as a call for much calm and patient consideration, before proceeding, in further fulfilment of their trust, to offer these additional volumes to the world. One thing has at least become evident, which was at first very uncertain: that it was a publication of some importance for good or for evil. The notice which it has attracted, favourable or otherwise, is at least a token that the Editors were not mistaken, as partial friends are so apt to be, in their estimate of the force and originality of [Mr. Froude’s] character, or of the keen, courageous, searching precision, with which he had, though it were but incidentally, put forth his ecclesiastical and theological opinions, and applied them to things as they are.

‘But in such measure as all doubt on the importance of the publication is removed, the responsibility of it is doubtless enhanced; and it seems right to preface it with something like a fair and full statement of the reasons why the Editors have judged it, on the whole, their duty to persist in this step: not wilfully slighting any man’s scruples or remonstrances, but still thinking that the cause of the Church, which is paramount to everything else, leaves them not at liberty either to withdraw any important portion of what has been already made public, or to suppress what remains. And what will be alleged for perseverance now, will be found, perhaps in a good measure, to justify the original publication; taken, as it must be, in aid and in enforcement of the considerations offered in the Preface to the first volume.

‘And first, if there be any persons, as undoubtedly there are not a few, who think, more or less explicitly, that the mere circumstance of a book’s raising an outcry constitutes a strong objection to it, they are requested to put themselves for a single moment so far in the position of the Editors, as to imagine the case of [Mr. Froude’s] views being mainly and substantially true; and then to consider how such outcry could have been avoided. For if it be found that uneasiness, discontent, clamour, nay, if you will, permanent unpopularity, are the necessary results of a certain statement, supposing it to be true, then the actual prevalence of such feelings, however undesirable in itself, is no objection to the truth of the statement, but rather an argument in its favour, as far as it goes.

‘Suppose, for example, that the common opinions of the Protestant world concerning the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist were indeed verging as near to a profane rationalism, as these Remains in several passages assume: would not the charge of superstition, mysticism, and Popery be echoed all around, against both Author and Editors, much in the same way as it has been heard for the last few months? Suppose it again true, that there is some secret but real and fatal connection between the aforesaid faithless rationalism, and those views regarding the great doctrines of Christianity and their application to individual Christians, which have of late arrogated to themselves exclusively the name of vital religion: is it not certain that the disregard (for it is rather that than actual opposition) which those views constantly meet with, at the hand of this Author, would unite against him the champions of those apparently opposite schemes, just in the manner in which we see them actually united? If it should so be that there is a large portion of Churchmen whom the circumstances of these or of former times have led to form an exaggerated opinion of the necessity and sacredness of the alliance of Church and State; to sacrifice more or less of the very being of the Church, in order, as they think, to secure its well-being: could it fail to happen that such as these would be alarmed and disgusted at the fearless uncompromising tone in which the inviolability of the Church is here asserted, and the past and present tyranny of the State, in every part of Christendom, denounced? Lastly, should there be any considerable number of decent religionists in the land, who would themselves make no scruple of professing that hatred of “asceticism” is a main ingredient in their notion of Christianity, it were little trouble to point out the pages, in this work, at which they are likeliest to be startled and disgusted: and yet it might be true, all the while, that the writer’s views are Scriptural and Catholic, and those which they have glided into, discountenanced by the Bible and the Church.

‘So far, then, as the unfavourable criticism, with which these Remains have been visited, may be set to the account of any or all of the four classes now mentioned, it was of course to be expected, nor is any particular deference due to it; and the bitterer and louder it is, and the longer it lasts, the more reason may it, perhaps, give, to a considerate person, for suspecting that the words which provoked it were not altogether unseasonable. But there seems to be a fear entertained, among persons worthy of all respect, of no less an evil than encouragement given to irreverence and lightness on sacred subjects, partly by certain opinions of [Mr. Froude], which would lead Englishmen (it is feared) to disparagement of their Church as it is; partly by something, in his tone and manner of writing, which many find startling, and can hardly reconcile to themselves. To these persons, and these feelings, a more particular explanation seems due: and such will, therefore, be now attempted, though in no sanguine expectation of satisfying them to any extent; yet not altogether without hope that in some instances they may be led to suspect their own misgivings, as arising from impulse and habit, rather than from sound and true views of sacred things.

‘The best way, perhaps, will be to commence by calmly recalling a few plain facts. It is no long time ago, and yet the career of events has been so rapid, that it seems far removed from us: but let us endeavour to realise for a moment the posture of mind in which sincere Churchmen found themselves, in 1832 and 1833, when the Constitution of the country had been changed by threats of violence, and the cry of Church Reform was being raised with a view to a similar process, and no person knew how much strength it might gather, or by what unscrupulous means it might be enforced. The Liturgy, in particular, seemed to be an object of attack; and the authority of Bishops was so slighted, both in and out of Parliament, as to make men apprehend that in no long time the whole functions of the Church would be usurped by the State. At that crisis, the writer of these Remains felt in common with not a few others, but with a vividness and keenness of perception almost peculiarly his own, that a call was given, and a time come, for asserting in their simplicity the principles of the only Primitive and True Church: those essential rights and duties which seemed in danger of being surrendered, in mere ignorance, to preserve certain external trappings. He surrendered himself to this feeling, without reserve: he spoke, and wrote, and acted from it continually; he devoted to it what remained of life and health; and it seems to have been this, more than anything else (excepting, perhaps, an unaffected mistrust concerning the sincerity and depth of his own repentance), which caused the sort of anxiety to recover, many times traceable in his correspondence. To use the words which Walton has reported of Hooker, “he could have wished to live longer, to do the Church more service.”

‘This being so, it cannot but be interesting and useful, now that Providence has brought us a stage or two further on in the warfare which he was among the foremost to commence, to have the means of consulting such a record as the present volumes supply, of the wishes, counsels, and anticipations of a mind so rare as his, concerning the conduct and probable course of the struggle. Those who have been sharers or approving witnesses of the several gatherings (so to call them) which the events of the last six years have occasioned, tending more or less to the revival of old Church principles, will here find many a sentiment which animated them half-unconsciously at the time, not only expressed in a way to sink into men’s hearts, but brought out in its full bearings and pursued to its legitimate consequences: it was wild inarticulate music before, but now we have the words and the meaning. And conversely, events have been continually happening, which have tended in a remarkable manner to illustrate [Mr. Froude’s] remarks and confirm his prognostications: so that, already, many things which sounded paradoxical and over-bold when he first uttered them, may be ventured on with hope of a reasonable degree of acceptance. His sagacity, it begins to be found, did but anticipate the lessons of our experience. If he loved to dwell on the noble act of Convocation in censuring Hoadly, and to forebode the rising of the sun which set so brightly, the great majority of the University of Oxford has since judged a like warning, however painful on personal grounds, yet most necessary, in regard of certain opinions not very unlike Hoadly’s. If he speaks what some would call bitterly concerning any party in the State, on account of an hostility to the Church, whether conscious or instinctive, which he thought he discerned in them, it seems now to be generally acknowledged that the subsequent proceedings of that party have been such as to justify a Churchman’s aversion. If he had what were then esteemed exaggerated feelings about Parliamentary suppression of Bishoprics, we have since seen the sense of the Church so strongly expressed on that subject, as to force from the Legislature the restoration of a See which had been actually extinguished, as far as any act of theirs could extinguish it. If he deprecated the current notions about the necessity of clerical endowments, good connections, and the like, as the most effectual bar to all projects for true Church Extension; is not the Church in our Colonies, even now, applying for Bishops without endowment? and are not new Churches being everywhere consecrated, at home, with only bare nominal endowment? If he had learned of other times to regard each Bishopric as a divinely instituted monarchy, and therefore to condemn all intrusion on episcopal authority, by Parliaments or otherwise, as not only disorderly, but profane, are not the clergy of England even now, in the case of the Church Discipline Bill, asserting that same principle against the authority which, personally, they would most revere? If he had brought himself habitually to contemplate the separation of Church and State as not necessarily a fatal alternative, there have been recent declarations, lay and ecclesiastical, to the same effect, in quarters which cannot be suspected. The Church has been congratulated on having “recovered herself” so far as “to feel her own strength and look to her own resources”; on having “become sensible that however desirous to act in unison with the State, she can boast of an independent origin, and can, as she has done before, exist in a state of independence.”[382] And (to go no further in enumeration at present), if the writer of these Remains thought very seriously of the importance of those arrangements in Divine Service which tend most to remind the worshipper that God’s house is a house of prayer and spiritual sacrifice, not of mere instruction, we have but to look around us on the new Churches, and new internal fittings-up of Churches, which are in progress in most parts of the country, to be convinced that on this point, also, men sympathise with him to a much greater extent than they did.

‘Other instances might be mentioned, in which his judgement, both of persons and things, has been remarkably verified, even in so short a time; but these may be sufficient to explain in some measure why his Editors should have been more than usually scrupulous in suppressing any of his deliberate opinions or forebodings, however lightly he might have chosen to express them. Long experience had taught them how much meaning and truth lay hid even in his most casual observations on such subjects; and how probable it was that those who were at first startled by them, would, on mature consideration, find them reasonable and right. And whereas it has been truly observed, both in friendly and unfriendly quarters, that the development of old principles, which now seems to be advancing, is not such as to be accounted for by the efforts of any particular individuals (it is something in the air, something going on in all places at once, and in spite of all precautions); it seemed a circumstance worth remarking, that it should have been thus anticipated and rehearsed in a single mind: a mind of itself inclined to rationalism, but checked first in that process, and finally won from it, by resolute and implicit submission to the lessons and rules of the Church in England, and rewarded (if we may humbly judge) for such submission, by a more than ordinary insight into the true claims of the Universal Church, and the means of improving to the utmost our high privilege of being yet in her Communion.

‘One who knew and appreciated him well (whatever subordinate differences might exist between them), and whose honoured name it is now more than ever a satisfaction to join with his,—the late lamented Mr. Rose,—used to say of him, that he was “not afraid of inferences”: meaning, as it would seem, that he was gifted with a remarkable fearlessness in regard of conclusions, when once his premisses were thoroughly made good. To see his way rapidly and acutely, was common to [Mr. Froude] with many: but to venture along it with uncompromising faith, was, in a degree, peculiar to himself. Perhaps it was this quality, humanly speaking, which kept him always somewhat in advance of his time, and of those with whom he most cordially acted. However, since it was in him consistent, bearing fruit in action as well as in speculation, and causing him to deny himself as unsparingly as he contradicted popular opinions, it does seem to give all views of his a peculiar claim to consideration, on the part of those who agree with him in first principles. There will always be a fair presumption, previous to inquiry, that his conclusions are the legitimate result of propositions which we admit in common with him, but which we have not as yet the courage to follow up as he did: not to dwell on the moral nobleness of such fearless and devout adherence to the Truth. It is the very description of Faith “to obey and go out, not knowing whither it goes”; and a character of which that is the principal mark, is surely not ill-fitted to exemplify what the whole Church may soon be called on to practise. So far, in his papers and life we seem to have, as it were, embodied a type of the kind of resistance due to the spirit of this age on the part of the Catholic Church, and of all her dutiful children. Could it be right, merely through dread of censure incurred, or disturbance given, to suppress such a document, providentially coming into our hands?

‘Now when the great principle of Catholicism, Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus, had once rooted itself in the mind of a person thus determined not to flinch from results; when he had once come to be convinced that the only safe way for the Church is to go back to the times of universal consent, so far as that is possible, inasmuch as such universal consent is no doubtful indication of His Will, in Whom we are all one Body,—would he not naturally go on and say to himself: “If I lay down this rule on one question, I shall not be dealing fairly with myself, honestly with my opponents, reverently with Him to Whom I am virtually appealing, except I carry the same mode of reasoning into all other questions also, wherein it is applicable? Accepting the Church’s interpretation of Scripture as to the necessity of real outward Baptism, I must accept it, also, as to the connection of the Gift of Regeneration exclusively with Baptism; accepting her view of the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, I must not decline her doctrine of the accompanying Sacrifice, gathered from the same Liturgies and the same interpretation of Holy Scripture; believing her concerning the genuineness of the Bible, I must believe her also concerning a transmitted Priesthood; taking it on trust from her Creeds that such and such is the only true account of the doctrines of the Bible, I may not doubt her consistent and perpetual witness that such and such are the right rules for interpreting the same holy Book; I believe, because she assures me, that Bishops only have the right to ordain; must I not believe her equally positive assurance that Excommunication is also theirs by exclusive and indefeasible right, and that it is no true Eucharist which is not consecrated by hands which they have authorised?” These are instances of the manner in which the Author of these papers reasoned; and certainly, at first sight, there seems to be much force in his mode of reasoning; the onus probandi seems cast on those who demur to it. It seems, if it were not for its practical consequences, more satisfactory than the summary ways of dealing with such matters, which we find not seldom adopted; fairer and more ingenuous than the saying: “Times are altered; it might be all right then, but it does not follow that it is so now”; more reverential than the other saying: “The Fathers were good sort of men, but no number of fallible beings can make an infallible Church”; more in harmony with Scripture and with God’s general Providence, than to dismiss such portions of the ancient system as we think proper, with the aphorism: “It may be, and has been abused, and therefore is best let alone.” And having all these advantages, it seemed to him part of Faith to suppose that, in the end, it would prove also the best and most effective way of maintaining the Truth of God against superstition and idolatry, as well as against scepticism and profane exaltation of reason.

‘But further: such a mind as is here supposed, thoroughly uncompromising in its Catholicity, would feel deeply that as ancient consent binds the person admitting it alike to all doctrines, interpretations, and usages, for which it can be truly alleged; so there is something less tangible and definite, though not less real than any of these, which no less demands his dutiful veneration, and to which he is bound to conform himself in practice: that is to say, the cast of thought and tone of character of the Primitive Church, its way of judging, behaving, expressing itself, on practical matters, great and small, as they occur. For what, in fact, is this character, but what an Apostle once called it: “the mind of Jesus Christ” Himself, by the secret inspiration of His Spirit communicated to His whole mystical Body, informing, guiding, moving it, as He will? A sacred and awful truth: of which whoever is seriously aware will surely be very backward to question or discuss the propriety of any sentiment allowed to be general in Christian antiquity, how remote soever from present views and usages; much more, to treat it with anything like contempt or bitterness.

‘Should it appear to him, for example, that the Ancient Church took in their literal and obvious meaning those expressions of Our Saviour and of St. Paul, which recommend celibacy as the more excellent way, so as to give honour to those who voluntarily so abode, that they might wait on the Lord; and in particular, to assume that the clergy should rather, of the two, be unmarried than married:—he will not permit the prejudices of a later time to hinder him from honouring those whom his Lord so delighted to honour; he will consider that the same cast of thought which leads men to scorn religious celibacy, will certainly prevent marriage also, which they profess to honour, from being strictly religious. Should he find that the records of the Fathers bear witness in every page to their literal observance of the duty of fasting, and the high importance which they attached to it, it is not the titles of Jewish, Pharisaical, self-righteous, nor yet that of ascetic (more widely dreaded than all!) which will deter him from obeying his conscience in that particular. Should he perceive that the counsels and demeanour of the holy men of old towards heretics and other sinners, correspond much more truly with the Apostolic rule, “Put away from among yourselves that wicked person,” than with the liberal and unscrupulous intercourse which respectable persons now practise, for peace, and quietness, and good-nature’s sake; it is a conviction which cannot but widely influence both his judgment of other times, and his conduct towards his contemporaries. It will lead to many a sentence that will sound harsh, and many a step that will be counted austere; it will cause him often to shock those by whom he would greatly wish to be approved; and yet, thus he must judge and act, if he will be true to his own principle, and conform himself throughout to that Will of God which the consent of those purer ages indicates.

‘Another very distinguishable circumstance in the tone and manner of the early Church is its reverential reserve with regard to holy things: of all its characteristics apparently the most unaccountable to the spirit of the present age. This also we may expect to discover in a true, courageous, consistent follower of the ancients: not so much by any conscious endeavour of his, as because it will come to him instinctively, as some birds are said to contrive ways for enticing observers away from their nests. And because it is reserve, we may expect now and then to be startled at the very form of it. The nature of the thing excludes conventional expressions, and drives people, often, on such as are rather paradoxical; deep reverence will occasionally veil itself, as it were, for a moment, even under the mask of its opposite, as earnest affection is sometimes known to do. Any expedient, almost, will be adopted by a person who enters with all his heart into this portion of the ancient character, rather than he will contradict that character altogether by a bare, unscrupulous, flaunting display of sacred things or good thoughts.

‘Once more: he who makes up his mind really to take Antiquity for his guide, will feel that he must be continually realising the presence of a wonder-working God; his mind must be awake to the possibility of special providences, miraculous interferences, supernatural warnings, and tokens of the divine Purpose, and also to indications of other unseen agency, both good and bad, relating to himself and others: subjects of this sort, if a man be consistent, must fill up a larger portion of his thoughts and affections, and influence his conduct far more materially, than the customs and opinions of this age would readily permit.

‘Other particulars might be mentioned; but these which have been enumerated are surely sufficient to teach persons a little caution how they apply the readily occurring words, “overstrained, fanatical, ascetic, bigoted,” to notions and practices such as have been now alluded to. Previous to examination, they cannot be sure that any such notion or practice is not a development of the character which Our Lord from the beginning willed should be impressed on His Church. If we have not the boldness to take it on ourselves, and follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth, at least let us not throw stumbling-blocks in the way of those who are more courageously disposed! When a thing is fairly proved superstitious, uncharitable, ascetic in a bad sense, unwarranted by Scripture and Antiquity, then let it be blamed and rejected, not before; lest we incur such a rebuke as he did, who, with more zeal than knowledge, would have prevented Our Lord Himself, as these would the least of His brethren and members, from taking up and bearing the Cross. It was in love to Christ that he remonstrated; yet what was Christ’s reproof? “Get thee behind Me, Satan; thou art an offence unto Me; for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men….”

* * * * *

‘We should not, perhaps, be duly thankful for so much of the Apostolical Ritual, preserved to us by a gracious Providence, if we were not sometimes called on to take notice how narrowly we have escaped losing the whole: neither, again, can our escape be rightly appreciated, without taking into the account the tendency of the school to which our Reformers had joined themselves, and the little dependence that could be placed on their love of Antiquity, as a safeguard against that evil tendency. All this, of course, implies that whatever praise and admiration may be due to individuals, both some of the principles of the movement which is called the Reformation, in the several countries of Europe, and in parts also, the tone of character which it encouraged, were materially opposed to those of the Early Church. At the risk of prolonging these remarks, already much longer than is desirable in a Preface, a few heads shall be mentioned, to which [Mr. Froude] would probably have referred, as mainly accounting for his feelings on this matter.

‘First of all, he would have complained of their tone with regard to the Apostolical Succession; not this or that writer only, but the general body who favoured that cause, treating it as no better than a politic invention to secure the influence of Church governors, in the absence of true doctrine and visible spiritual gifts. Nor would he probably have thought this charge answered by any number of quotations from their writings, apparently tending the contrary way: because, where opposite sets of quotations may be adduced from the same writer, and from compositions of the same date, either his opinions are so far neutralised, or we must ascertain by his conduct, his connections, the cast of his sentiments generally, and such other evidence as we can get, in which of the two statements he was overruled, and in which left to the free expression of his own mind. By the same mode of inquiry, he would come to judge unfavourably of their tenets about Sacramental Grace, especially in the Holy Eucharist; about the Power of the Keys, and the sacredness of the ancient Discipline; and about State interference in matters spiritual; although in this latter point, especially, their conduct spoke out for them too plainly to admit of any construction but one. Anyone who pleases, may verify or contradict the impressions of [Mr. Froude] on these and similar points, by simply examining the remains of the principal Reformers, with such cautions as are above indicated. Until he has done so, and satisfied himself that those impressions were not merely erroneous, but such as no student of tolerable fairness could adopt, it may be questioned whether he has much right broadly and positively to condemn [Mr. Froude], for wishing “to have nothing to do with such a set.”

‘And this more especially, if he take into consideration, likewise, certain less palpable but not less substantial differences in the way of thinking and moral sentiment, which separate the Reformers from the Fathers, more widely, perhaps, than any definite statements of doctrine. Compare the sayings and manner of the two schools on the subjects of fasting, celibacy, religious vows, voluntary retirement and contemplation, the memory of the Saints, rites and ceremonies recommended by Antiquity, and involving any sort of self-denial, and especially on the great point of giving men divine knowledge, and introducing holy associations, not indiscriminately, but as men are able to bear it: there can be little doubt that, generally speaking, the tone of the fourth century is so unlike that of the sixteenth, on each and all of these topics, that it is absolutely impossible for the same mind to sympathise with both. You must choose between the two lines: they are not only diverging, but contrary.

* * * * *

‘But some say: “Whether right or wrong in his views, [Mr. Froude] ought not to have spoken so rudely of these subjects”: and this brings us to the second head of offence, his way of expressing his sentiments on grave matters, generally. Such censurers appear to forget that his feelings are conveyed to us in familiar Letters, and of course, as his other Remains prove, in a different tone and manner from that which he would have adopted had he been preparing to give the expression of them to the world: not, however, more unsuited to the occasion than the epistolary tone and manner of very many imaginative persons, on points concerning which, nevertheless, they feel the deepest and most serious interest. This however, it may be thought, is only shifting the blame from him on his Editors. But it will be found that his phrases, however sportive, or even flippant, in their sound, had each their own distinct meaning, embodied his views, and the reasons of them, often in a wonderfully brief space, and could not be omitted without much loss of instruction, and frequent risk of missing their point and meaning. Like proverbial modes of speech, they were, of course, not always to be taken literally, though the principle they contained might be true in its fullest extent. Thus he once told a friend that he was “with the Romanists in religion, and against them in politics.” Again he says, in a letter to a friend: “When I come home, I mean to read and write all sorts of things; for now that one is a Radical, there is no use in being nice!” In another: “We will have a vocabularium apostolicum, and I will start it with four words: ‘pampered aristocrats,’ ‘resident gentlemen,’ ‘smug parsons,’ ‘pauperes Christi.’ I shall use the first on all occasions; it seems to me just to hit the thing. How is it we are so much in advance of our generation?”[383]

‘Next, the reader is requested to consider whether a good deal of what has startled him in that way may not be accounted for by the nature of e????e?a: not mere ludicrous irony, according to the popular English sense of that word, but a kind of Socratic reserve, an instinctive dissembling of his own high feelings and notions, partly through fear of deceiving himself and others, partly (though it may sound paradoxical) out of very reverence, giving up at once all notion of doing justice to sacred subjects, and shrinking from nothing so much as the disparagement of them by any kind of affectation. This whole topic admits of forcible illustration from different persons’ ways of reading sacred compositions. There is an apparently unconcerned mode of enunciation, which in fact arises from people’s realising, or at least trying to realise, their own utter incompetency to speak such words aright. Again, of all the serious persons in the world, it is probable that no two could be found who would thoroughly enter into each other’s tones and expression. We must have a little faith in our neighbour’s earnestness, in order not to think his reading affected. A little consideration will perhaps show that most of what some might be tempted to call harsh, or coarse, or irreverent in this work, may be accounted for in the manner here indicated: e.g., [Mr. Froude’s] playful custom of speaking of his own and his friends’ proceedings in the language which an enemy would adopt: calling himself and his friends “ecclesiastical agitators,” their plans for doing good “a conspiracy,” and the effect of them “poisoning people’s minds”: and his use of cant schoolboy words, which no doubt has disgusted many, may be referred to the same head.

‘Often, indeed, he seemed instinctively to put his own or his friends’ views and characters in the most objectionable light in which they could be represented, as if to show that he was fully aware of the popular view which would be taken of what he approved, or the arguments against it which would seem plausible to the many; and that he was not in the least moved by it. Thus he somewhere utters a wish that “the ‘march of mind’ in France might yet prove a bloody one.” Elsewhere he regrets “that anything should be done to avert what seems our only chance:[384] a spoliation on a large scale!” Thus he habitually forced his mind to face the worst consequences or the most unfavourable aspect of his own wish or opinion, the most obnoxious associations with which it could be connected: and therefore used terms expressive of those consequences or associations. It was one form of his horror of self-deceit. Put these things together: add also the fertility of his mind, his humour, his pointed mode of expression, his consciousness of fearless integrity, his hatred of half-truths and cowardly veils, his confidence in his friends’ understanding him and allowing for him: and it will be found that they go far towards explaining the manner, just as the principle of adhering to Antiquity accounts for the matter, of what he says. But if after due allowance made for all these things, there should still remain more than we can easily reconcile ourselves to, in the way either of severity, or of seeming rudeness of speech; coldness where we expected fervour, and criticism where we looked for sympathy; we shall do well to remember, that the fault, if there be a fault, is not necessarily all on [Mr. Froude’s] side: it may be right to suspend our judgment, till we have ascertained whether these things be not in fact due to the character of Christian Antiquity, which he might be unconsciously realising in greater perfection than his age could yet bear.

‘Does there yet remain something that troubles us, something that we cannot at all explain? We must not forget (it is a deep and high allusion, but not, it is humbly trusted, altogether irrelevant to this case), that, as all other manifestations of Our Lord, so those which He has vouchsafed to make of Himself in His Saints, have ever been more or less mysterious and unaccountable. Which of the great Scripture characters is there, whose conduct, even that part of it which the Holy Spirit seems to mention approvingly, is not, in some respect or another, a riddle and a paradox to us, with our modern views? Are there not things recorded of the Ancient Church which we know not how to enter into, yet must needs venerate because she gave them her sanction? Nay, and is it not very conceivable that every one of those approved in God’s sight would be in like manner, were his history fully disclosed, “a monster” (as the Psalmist phrases it) to every other? that Faith is necessary, in a degree, for our holding by Christ in any one of His members, as it is the great requisite whereby we keep hold of Him our Head? These remarks are, of course, hypothetical: nothing is asserted of peculiar sanctity in any one: only it seemed advisable to remind men, that where there are appearances in one part of a character of holiness and self-denial in a remarkable degree, there we may expect, by a kind of law of God’s Providence, to find, in other matters, something very much beside our expectations, and unlike our own moral taste.

‘At the same time, it should not be forgotten that there are persons in the world to whom this very disposition to irony and playfulness, and what we may perhaps call a certain youthfulness of expression, serves to recommend [Mr. Froude’s] views, and attract them to him. That seeming lightness, which was natural to him, is natural also to some others, perhaps not a few: and it is useful that they should have the means of knowing that it is not inconsistent with high and earnest thoughts of things invisible, and strict rules of Christian obedience.

* * * * *

‘After all, it is not to anything that we see, or that the world is likely to see, that we look for the effect of these Remains. If there be any who brood over them in secret, who have found them implant a sort of sting in their bosoms, who feel that it would have been a privilege to know their author, and watch his ways of discipline and obedience; and if they had known him, to remember him afterwards, and say silently, Heu, quanto minus est cum reliquis versari, quam tui meminisse! if there be any, who have an eye for all that is exquisite and beautiful in Nature and art, yet gladly turn away from all to admire any plain downright specimen of self-denial and obedience in the little ones of Jesus Christ; if any person dwell with regretful love on parents, kindred, home, friends, humbling himself all along with remembrance of past unworthiness, and disparagement of them, yet more willing, as he values them more, to part with them for the Church’s sake:—that is the sort of reader to whose judgement, if to any human, the Editors of these Remains would appeal, from the prejudices, religious and political, of the day. But who they are that will so read, and how much they will be profited, may not be known in this world.’

From ‘Reminiscences chiefly of Oriel College and the Oxford Movement,’ by the Rev. T. Mozley, M.A. 2 vols. Longmans, Green & Co., 1882.[385]

[By the kind permission of Mrs. T. Mozley, and of Messrs. Longmans & Co.]

‘If there ever could be any question as to the master spirit of this Movement, which now would be a very speculative question indeed, it lies between John Henry Newman and Richard Hurrell Froude. Froude was a man, such as there are now and then, of whom it is impossible for those that have known him to speak without exceeding the bounds of common admiration and affection. He was elder brother of William, the distinguished engineer, who died lately, after rendering, and while still rendering, most important services to the Admiralty, and of Anthony, the well-known historian, the sons of Archdeacon Froude, a scholar and no mean artist. Richard came to Oriel from Eton, a school which does not make every boy a scholar, if it even tries to do so, but which somehow implants in every nature a generous ambition of one kind or other.

‘As an undergraduate, he waged a ruthless war against sophistry and loud talk, and he gibbeted one or two victims, labelling their sophisms with their names. Elected to a Fellowship, and now the companion of Newman and Pusey, not to speak of elders and juniors, he had to wield his weapons more reverentially and warily. But he had no wish to do otherwise…. Froude’s voice combined the gravity and authority of age with all the charms of youth, for he might be at once reasoning with a senate, and amusing a circle of children…. He was a bold rider. He would take a good leap when he had the chance, and would urge his friends to follow him, mostly in vain…. Froude delighted in taking his friends for a gallop in Blenheim Park, to the no small peril of indifferent riders, for the horses became wild, and went straight under the low hanging branches of the wide-spreading oaks.

‘His figure and manner were such as to command the confidence and affection of those about him. Tall, erect, very thin, never resting or sparing himself, investigating and explaining with unwearied energy, incisive in his language, and with a certain fiery force of look and tone, he seemed a sort of angelic presence to weaker natures. He slashed at the shams, phrases, and disguises in which the lazy or the pretentious veil their real ignorance or folly. His features readily expressed every varying mood of playfulness, sadness, and awe. There were those about him who would rather writhe under his most cutting sarcasms than miss their part in the workings of his sympathy and genius.

‘Froude was a Tory, with that transcendental idea of the English gentleman which forms the basis of Toryism. He was a High Churchman of the uncompromising school, very early taking part with Anselm, Becket, Laud, and the Nonjurors. Woe to anyone who dropped in his hearing such phrases as the Dark Ages, superstition, bigotry, right of private judgement, enlightenment, march of mind, or progress. When a stray man of science fell back on “law,” or a “subtle medium,” or any other device for making matter its own lord and master, it was as if a fox had broken cover: there ensued a chase and no mercy. Luxury, show, and even comfort he despised and denounced. He very consistently urged that the expenses of Eton should be kept down so low as to enable every ordinary incumbent to send his sons there to be trained for the ministry. All his ideas of College life were frugal and ascetic. Having need of a press for his increasing papers and books, he had one made of plain deal. It must have been Woodgate who came in one day, and finding some red chalk, ornamented the press with grotesque figures, which long were there. Froude and Newman induced several of the Fellows to discontinue wine in the Common Room. As they had already had a glass or two at the high table, they did not require more. There was only one objection to the discontinuance, but it was fatal at last; and that was its inconvenience when strangers were present. This preference of tea to wine was no great innovation in Oriel. When I came up at Easter, 1825, one of the first standing jokes against the College, all over the University, was the “Oriel teapot,” supposed to be always ready, the centre of the Oriel circle, and its special inspiration. How there ever came to be such an idea I cannot guess, but wherever I went, when I passed the wine, I was asked whether I would not prefer some tea, much to the amusement of the table.

‘Self-renunciation in every form [Froude] could believe in; most of all in a gentleman, particularly one of a good Devonshire family. His acquaintance with country gentlemen had been special, perhaps fortunate. He had not been in the north[386] of England, in the eastern counties, or in the midlands. It was therefore in perfect simplicity that, upon hearing one day the description of a new member in the Reformed Parliament, he exclaimed: “Fancy a gentleman not knowing Greek!” I chanced one day to drop, most inconsiderately, that all were born alike, and that they were made what they are by circumstances and education. Never did I hear the end of that. No retraction or qualification would avail….

‘… In July, 1832, the History of the Arians was ready for the press, and as Newman was now relieved of his College duties, he was more a man of leisure than he had ever been, and was also in more need of rest. Hurrell Froude (as Richard was always called, though there was another Hurrell in the family) had now to submit to be ruled by his anxious relatives. He must spend the winter on the Mediterranean and its shores, … and Newman was easily persuaded to go with him. In these days, it requires little persuasion to induce ordinary people who happen to be free from pressing engagements, to accept the offer of a Continental trip, especially southward, in the winter. But this did rather take Newman’s friends by surprise: the only reason they could suppose was his great anxiety for Hurrell Froude…. He never made a tour for pleasure’s sake, for health’s sake, or for change’s sake. He did move about a good deal, but it was to the country parsonages to which so many of his friends were early relegated….

‘… It must have been soon after Froude’s return from the Mediterranean that I had with him one of our old talks about architecture. He was as devoted to science and as loyal to it as any materialist could be. But architecture and science are very apt to be at variance, and Froude was always disposed to side with the latter. As for Greek architecture, there is no science in it except the mystery of proportion and a certain preternatural and overpowering conception of beauty. The Temple of Egesta, which won the hearts of our travellers, has no more science in its construction than Stonehenge. But Roman architecture was for all the world, for its gods as well as for its mortals. The arch, and still more the vault, were mighty bounds into the time to come.

‘Always leaning on tradition where possible, Froude wished to believe the pointed arch the natural suggestion of a row of round arches seen in perspective. Of course, a deep round arch in a thick wall only shows its roundness when you stand directly before it, but seems pointed from any other direction. I remember ventilating this idea to Sir Richard Westmacott and Turner, the great painter, at the former’s table, and I remember also the great contempt with which the latter dismissed such mechanical ideas from the realm of the picturesque. But it was the dome that chiefly exercised Froude’s mind. It was a positive pain to him that so grand a building as the Parthenon should have been constructed, as he believed, in such ignorance of science. His notion was that if Agrippa had known the qualities of the catenary curve he would have used it, instead of the semi-circular curve: that is, in this instance, the spherical vault…. Had any common utilitarian made such a suggestion I should not have thought it worth notice. I only mention it as showing the scientific character of Froude’s tastes. The objections are obvious and overwhelming. In the first place, beauty must lead in architecture, and construction must obey…. Spherical domes are the crux and the pitfall of architecture. They involve false construction and positive deception…. Froude had a soul for beauty; but he did not like shams. He did not like a thing to seem what it was not. Few buildings are prepared to stand such a test. Amiens Cathedral, for example, the first love of the English tourist, is nothing more than an iron cage filled in with stone…. Robert Wilberforce had been much impressed with Cologne Cathedral and with the galleries of early art at Munich. It is an illustration of the turning of the tide, and of the many smaller causes contributing to the Movement, that in 1829, German agents (one of them with a special introduction to Robert Wilberforce) filled Oxford with very beautiful and interesting tinted lithographs of mediÆval paintings, which have probably, long ere this, found their way to a thousand parsonages: a good many to Brompton Oratory!… About the same time, there came an agent from Cologne with very large and beautiful reproductions of the original design for the Cathedral, which it was proposed to set to work on, with a faint hope of completing it before the end of the century. Froude gave thirty guineas for a set of the drawings, went wild over them, and infected not a few of his friends with mediÆval architecture. As an instance of the way in which religious sentiment was now beginning to be disassociated from practical bearings and necessities, Froude would frequently mention the exquisitely finished details at York Minster and other Churches, in situations where no eye but the eye of Heaven could possibly reach them…. He was most deeply interested in architecture, but it is plain that he was more penetrated and inspired by St. Peter’s[387] than even by Cologne Cathedral. After spending three days with me in taking measurements, tracings, mouldings, and sketches of St. Giles at Oxford, one of the purest specimens of Early English, he devoted a good deal of time at Barbados to designing some homely Tuscan addition to Codrington College….

‘It was now [1833] deep in Long Vacation, but no period in the annals of Oxford was ever more pregnant with consequences than the next two months. The returning travellers had lost time. The world had got the start of them, and they had to make up for it. Froude’s imagination teemed with new ideas, new projects, topics likely to tell or worth trying; to be tried, indeed, and found variously successful. They came from him like a shower of meteors, bursting out of a single spot in a clear sky, for they had been pent up. Every post had brought the travellers some account of fresh “atrocities.” The Examiner was the only paper that talked sense. Conservative Churchism Froude now utterly abhorred. In passing through France, he had listened with hopefulness to the dream that a deeper descent into republicanism than that represented by Louis Philippe, would land that country in High Churchism. How could the Church of England now be saved? By working out the oath of canonical obedience? By a lay synod, pending the apostasy of Parliament? By a race of clergy living less like country gentlemen? By dealing in some way or other with the appointment of Bishops? By a systematic revival of religion in large towns; in particular, by colleges of unmarried priests? By Excommunication? By working upon the pauperes Christi? By writing up the early Puritans, who had so much to say for themselves against the tyranny of Elizabeth? By preaching Apostolic Succession? By the high sacramental doctrine? By attacking State interference in matters spiritual? By an apostolic vocabulary giving everything its right name? By recalling the memory of the Gregorian age?

‘It was perhaps a happy diversion of his thoughts that he had so much to say on other topics, such as architecture, and the construction of ships and dock-gates. It was now plain that he had brought home with him not only his own fervid temperament, but some of the heat of sunny climes, where indeed he had not taken proper care of his health, or any care at all. Like most other Englishmen, he would not be indoors by sunset, or put on warmer clothing when the thermometer dropped 20 or 30°. It happened to be an exceptionally cold winter in the Mediterranean. As far as regards health, the experiment had been a failure.

‘One thing, however, is quite clear from his Letters and other remains; and, as he was all this time somewhat in advance of Newman, it has a bearing on his mental history. Froude came home even more utterly set against Roman Catholics than he had been before. His conclusion was that they held the Truth in unrighteousness; that they were “wretched Tridentines everywhere,” and of course, ever since the Reformation; that the conduct and behaviour of the clergy was such that it was impossible they could believe what they professed, that they were idolaters in the sense of substituting easy and good-natured divinities for the God of Truth and Holiness.

‘Froude stayed in England just long enough to take a present part in the great Movement, and to contribute to it, and then, as he sorrowfully said of himself, “like the man who ‘fled full soon, on the first of June, but bade the rest keep fighting,’” he found himself compelled by his friends to leave England for the West Indies.

‘All these vivid expressions, delivered with the sincerity of a noble child or a newly-converted savage, chimed in with Newman’s state of feeling, and struck deep into his very being, to bring forth fruit. Yet in neither Froude nor Newman could now be discovered the least suspicion of what these outbursts might lead to, for at every point they found Rome irreconcilable and impossible.

* * * * *

‘Froude, who had now bidden farewell to Toryism, much in the same key as he had written of old Tyre and the Cities of the Plain, was contributing to the Tracts, from Barbados, and also freely criticising them when they seemed to him to temporise, or to fall into modern conventionalisms. In fact he was keeping Newman, nothing loth, up to the mark.

‘In May, 1835, he returned from Barbados. On landing, he found a letter from Newman calling him to Oxford, where there were several friends soon to part for the Long Vacation. His brother Anthony was summoned from his private tutor, Mr. Hubert Cornish. Froude came, full of energy and fire, sunburnt, but a shadow. The tale of his health was soon told. He had a “button in his throat” which he could not get rid of, but he talked incessantly. With a positive hunger for intellectual difficulties, he had been studying Babbage’s calculating machine, and he explained, at a pace which seemed to accelerate itself, its construction, its performances, its failures, and its certain limits. Few, if any, could follow him, still less could they find an opening for aught they had to say, or to beg a minute’s law. He never could realise the laggard pace of duller intelligences. I have not the least doubt he did his best to explain Babbage’s machine to his black Euclid class at Codrington College, and that without ever ascertaining the result in their minds….

‘… Froude was brimful of irony, and always ready to surprise and even shock men of a slower temperament, when he could by a smile smooth or disarm them. As he talked, so he wrote in his letters. The Editors of his Remains were under a temptation, which they construed into a necessity, to reproduce him as he really had been, to the very words and the life, and let his words take their chance. Upon the whole, they were right; for no one ever charged, or could now charge, on Froude, that his expressions had brought anyone to Rome, or could doubt that Froude himself was Anglican to the last….

‘… There had never been seen at Oxford, indeed seldom anywhere, so large and noble a sacrifice of the most precious gifts and powers to a sacred cause. The men who were devoting themselves to it were not bred for the work, or from one school. They were not literary toilers or adventurers glad of a chance, or veterans ready to take to one task as lightly as to another, equally zealous to do their duty, and equally indifferent to the form. They were not men of the common rank, casting a die for promotion. They were not levies or conscripts, but in every sense volunteers. Pusey, Keble, and Newman had each an individuality capable of a development, and a part beyond that of any former scholar, poet, or theologian in the Church of England. Each lost quite as much as he gained by the joint action of the three. It is hard to say what Froude might have been, or might not have been, had he lived but a few more years, and been content to cast in his lot with common mortals bound by conditions of place and time.’

From ‘The British Critic and Quarterly Theological Review,’ April, 1840. [By the Rev. T. Mozley.][388]

‘Mr. Froude’s Editors have now taken another step in what they consider their sacred duty to their friend who is not dead, but sleepeth, and to the Church, by presenting the Catholic reader with the second instalment of his Remains. The contents of the present collection are, like those of the first, very miscellaneous, and rather fragments and sketches than complete compositions. This, of course, might be expected in the work of a man whose days were few, and interrupted by illness, if indeed that may be called an interruption which, at least all the period in which the pages before us were written, was every day sensibly drawing him to his grave. In Mr. Froude’s case, however, we cannot set down much of this incompleteness to the score of illness. The strength of his religious impressions, the boldness and clearness of his views, his long habits of self-denial, and his unconquerable energy of mind, triumphed over weakness and decay, till men with all their health and strength about them might gaze upon his attenuated form, struck with a certain awe of wonderment at the brightness of his wit, the intensenesss of his mental vision, and the iron strength of his argument. It will perhaps be giving a truer account of the state in which these papers appear, to say something of the sort of intention with which we conceive they were written. If it is permitted so to apply the words, they were the outpourings of a soul consumed with zeal for the house of God. The author had that in him which he could not suppress, which of itself struggled for utterance; he also was conscious that the night was fast approaching in which no man can work. Yet the good work which he believed had been prepared for him to do was somewhat in advance of his own day; and he felt no temptation to square, or round, and soften and disguise the awful themes that glowed within him, till they should be perfectly within the taste and compass of the men and times he lived to see…. With no anxiety, then, for present effect, and no embarrassing reference to any particular set of readers, he let his spirit take its own free course. He only desired to spare no labour of thought that was necessary for a thorough elucidation of his views, to detect the lurking fallacy both in his own and in others’ minds, and set the whole matter in the clearness of noonday. He wrote as he thought and felt.

‘… We will venture a remark or two with regard to that ironical turn which certainly does appear in various shapes in the first Part of these Remains. Unpleasant as irony may sometimes be, there need not go with it, and in this instance there did not go with it, the smallest real asperity of temper. Who that remembers the inexpressible sweetness of his smile, or the deep and melancholy pity with which he would speak of those whom he felt to be the victims of modern delusion, would not be forward to contradict such a suspicion? Such expressions, we will venture to say, and not harshness, or anger, or gloom, animate the features of that countenance which will never cease to haunt the memory of those who knew him. His irony arose from that peculiar mode in which he viewed all earthly things, himself and all that was dear to him not excepted. It was his poetry. Irony is, indeed, the natural way in which men of high views and keen intellect view the world: they cannot find middle terms of controversy with men of ordinary views; they feel a gulf between them and the world; they cannot descend to the level of lower views, or raise others from that level to their own. As, therefore, there is no common ground which they can seriously or really assume with inferior and worldly minds, they fall into a way of pretending to assume common notions, and reasoning on them with unreal seriousness, in order to expose them. They cannot suppress a smile at the false assumptions and pretensions and hopes of this perishing world. The same temper leads them to assume, for the purpose of mirth, or argument, or self-discipline (which you please), the very worst that the world can possibly think of themselves, their own views and designs. Irony, in fact, seems only an ethical expression of the logical reductio ad absurdum, as applied to matters of taste, morality, and religion. Great examples have shown it to be compatible with real humility and wide benevolence; though, like many other peculiarities of style, such as depth of reflection, subtlety of reasoning, great affectionateness, poetry, or humour, it may only be understood by those who have something corresponding in themselves.

‘… As to the author now immediately before us … while we expect certainly a great effect upon the religion of the day from a mind so singularly gifted as his, we certainly do not expect, and never have expected, a sudden and perceptible effect. Views so bold, so original, so uncompromising as his, seem to float upon the surface of the current notions of the age as oil upon the waters; they seem to have no affinity to things as they are, and to be without a medium of acting upon them. We do not, then, look for any great extension of Mr. Froude’s works or name for a long time; we are prepared to think that when talked of, it will be but objectively, as it may be called, as a phenomenon too far removed from the speakers to interest them or affect them; as what they have just heard of, or hardly seen. But all the while a secret influence may be extending itself: persons may adopt his views who are better able and willing to dilute and temper them to the feelings of the many; the tone of religious opinion and the standard of recognised principles may gradually be rising; popular errors or assumptions may be silently dropped; and numbers talk “Froudism,” as it is called, who neither know the source of their own views, nor will credit it when taxed with it. We are able to point at this very time to two remarkable instances of deep thinkers, with one of whom we have no, and with the other but faint sympathy, Bentham and Coleridge, but whom we must still allow to be unusual minds, the chief philosophers of their day, who yet in their lifetime were not understood, or appreciated, and have at length grown into celebrity, and are receiving the suitable reward of their intellectual powers, by means of what may be called the atmosphere of congenial thought which they have at length formed around them. They have created the medium in which their voices would sound, and then have been heard far and near. A like result, in the cause of Truth, not of worldly philosophy, we hope awaits the author of these volumes.’[389]

From ‘Lyra Apostolica,’ edited by H. C. Beeching, M.A., Professor of Pastoral Theology at King’s College, with an Introduction by H. S. Holland, M.A., Canon and Precentor of S. Paul’s. London: Methuen & Co. [The Library of Devotion.]

[By the kind permission of the Rev. H. C. Beeching, the Rev. H. S. Holland, and Messrs Methuen & Co.].

[I. From Canon Scott Holland’s Introduction.]

‘“It was at Rome that we began the Lyra Apostolica. The motto shows the feeling of both Froude and myself at the time. We borrowed from M. Bunsen a Homer, and Froude chose the words in which Achilles, on returning to the battle, says: ‘You shall know the difference, now that I am back again.’”[390] So wrote Dr. Newman in the Apologia, and the words give exactly the note of the temper with which the book still tingles from cover to cover. It sprang out of a critical hour in which the force of an historical movement first found speech. It was an hour of high passion that had been gathering for some onset dimly foreseen, and had now, at last, won free vent, and had flung itself out in articulate defiance…. With the defiance, goes also a strong note of confidence. The men who write, however dark their outlook seems to be, speak as those who see their way, and have made their choice, and have found their speech, and have no doubt at all about the issue. There was a certain rapture of recklessness about them at the time, such as belongs to young souls who have let themselves go, under the inspiration of a high adventure. They have burned their boats. There is no going back. Forward all hearts are set. The opportunity is come. It is now or never. Hurrell Froude was the embodiment to them of this spirit of confidence, with its tinge of audacity. He had the glow and the fascination of a man consecrated to a cause. He wrote very little of the book, but his touch is on it everywhere. And in a poem like “The Watchman,” with its splendid swing and radiant courage, we can see how the subtler brain of Newman was swept by the fire and force of the man who was to him like an inspiration.

‘And with Froude, too, is to be associated much of the stress laid on personal discipline which so deeply marks the poems, and which was so congenial to both Newman and Keble…. All the heart of the men comes out in this cry for control, for austerity. It expressed their revolt against the glib and shallow tolerance of the popular religion, and the loose and boneless sentimentality of the prevailing Evangelicalism. They were determined to show that religion was a school of character, keen, serious, and real, which claimed not merely the feeling or the reason, but rather the entire manhood, so that every element and capacity were to be brought into subjection under the law of Christ, and to be governed in subordination to the supreme purpose of the Redemptive Will. No labour could be too minute or too precise, which was needful to bend the complete body of energies under the yoke of this dedicated service. Hurrell Froude’s diary, edited by Newman and Keble, startled the easy-going world of the Thirties by its exhibition of the thoroughness and the rigour and the precision with which this self-discipline had been carried out. Such a temper of mind was, of course, capable of becoming morbid, strained, unnatural. And in the hands of smaller men, it would rapidly show traces of this. But here, in the Lyra, it is still fresh and clean; and the men themselves who are under its austere fascination are so abounding in vitality, and so rich in personal distinction, and so abhorrent of anything pedantic or conventional, that the record of it cannot but brace us into wholesome alarm.’

[II. From the Rev. H. C. Beeching’s Critical Note.]

‘Of the one hundred and seventy-nine pieces in the collected volume [Lyra Apostolica] (and all but two of those published in The British Magazine were reprinted), Newman wrote one hundred and nine, Keble forty-six, Isaac Williams nine, Hurrell Froude eight, J. W. Bowden six, and R. I. Wilberforce one. To speak of the lesser contributions first. Robert Wilberforce’s single contribution is not particularly happy…. Mr. Bowden’s poems are not so infelicitous in substance, but they leave much to desire in other ways…. The contributions of Isaac Williams consist of a few translations and critical sonnets. Altogether of a higher stamp are the poems by Hurrell Froude. No one could accuse that fiery spirit of being commonplace; and perhaps because verse composition in English was not a constant exercise with him, the few poems he wrote for the Lyra have a free grace, as well as a lyric intensity that removes them from the rank of the ordinary imitations of Keble. In XXXVI. [“Weakness of Nature”] he strikes a note that recalls Blake:

‘In the “Dialogue between the Old and New Self” (LXXIX.), he is an apt pupil of Andrew Marvell.

‘He uses his fisher again, to give effect, in the poem on Tyre (CXXIX.):

‘Froude’s sonnets are some of the best in the book: the one entitled “Sight against Faith” (CXXXVI.), supposed to be addressed to Lot by his sons-in-law, being an especially vivid piece of imagination.’

‘Newman,’ by William Barry. (Literary Lives.) London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1904.

[By the kind permission of the Rev. Dr. Barry, and of Messrs. Hodder & Stoughton.]

‘Keble was an elegant scholar, from whose rarely-opened lips pearls and diamonds of wisdom dropped, when listeners were congenial; he could not brook, as he did not understand, variety of opinions; and charming as he proved to all who would not contradict him, none was constitutionally less fitted to be at the head of a great party. His genius had in it no elements deserving the name of original thought. Rather did he serve Newman as the living embodiment of institutions now deemed Apostolic, and, so to speak, himself a present antiquity. He possessed none of those gifts which strike and subdue the unconverted. Hurrell Froude, the “bright and beautiful,” cut off in the midst of his days, was another sort of man. “He went forward,” says his brother Anthony, “taking the fences as they came, passing lightly over them all, and sweeping his friends along with them. He had the contempt of an intellectual aristocrat for private judgment.” This, which sounds like a bull, but is only a paradox, was equally applicable to Newman, despite his infinite consideration for persons as they came before him. The Many could be neither wise nor right, except when they listened to the Few who were both. It was Froude that made Newman and Keble really known to each other: he boasted of it as the one good thing he had ever done. It was certainly the most important. “You and Keble are the philosophers, and I the rhetorician,” wrote the Vicar of St. Mary’s to him in 1836. There was so much of a foundation in the contrast that Newman did always look to Froude as a standard, a test, and a light by which to judge of his own utterances…. But [Froude] disclaimed being original as other men have prided themselves upon it. Thoughts and speculations, nevertheless, were his daily bread…. Alone among Newman’s correspondents, he writes as his born equal, criticising freely, breaking out into the genial humour, so fresh and unconstrained, which lights up this all too serious intercourse of country parsons, London dignitaries, and unfledged Oxford dons.

* * * * *

‘When preaching on the Greatness and Littleness of Human Life, [Newman] refers secretly to this lofty spirit as among the men who, “by such passing flashes, like rays of the sun, and the darting lightning, give tokens of their immortality, … that they are but angels in disguise.”’[391]

From ‘The Life and Correspondence of the late Robert Southey.’ Edited by his Son. London, 1850.

Robert Southey to the Rev. John Miller, July 21, 1838.

‘The publication of Froude’s Remains is likely to do more harm than ——[392] is capable of doing. “The Oxford School” has acted most unwisely in giving its sanction to such a deplorable example of mistaken zeal. Of the two extremes, the too little and the too much, the too little is that which is likely to produce the worst consequence to the individual, but the too much is more hurtful to the community; for it spreads, and rages, too, like a contagion.’

From ‘A Key to the Popery of Oxford,’ by Peter Maurice, B.D. London: Baisler, 1838.

‘The volumes themselves [the Remains] are highly valuable to every practical student of the human character, because they exhibit an individual in his true colours, and afford evidences of what the human mind (even with all the advantages of natural talent and education) may be brought to, when not guided by the Light which is from above. They cannot but fill the heart of every true Christian with horror, and his eye with tears, when the reflection crosses the mind that views like these are held up as a religion of a meek and lowly Saviour, and that an influence such as that exerted over the wretched object of these memoirs should be permitted to draw away any poor sinner from that open Fountain of purity and holiness which is filled with joy, peace, and love, for all that humbly visit it. There are from time to time a few gleams of light faintly discernible amidst the dark confusion of the moral wilderness; but they are transient and unsatisfactory.’

From ‘Memoirs,’ by Mark Pattison, late Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford. London: Macmillan & Co., 1885.

‘John Belfield, a Devonshire man … god-fathered me. Belfield’s special chum [1831] was William Froude, the engineer, brother of Anthony, and of Richard Hurrell Froude at that time Fellow of the College. The opening thus made for me through William Froude to Richard Hurrell’s acquaintance might have been of inestimable use to me, had I been capable of profiting by it. But I was too childish and ignorant even to apprehend what it was that was thus placed within my reach. I spent one evening in Richard Hurrell’s rooms, without appreciating him myself, or appearing to him to be worth taking up.’

From ‘The Life of Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford and Winchester.’ By his Son Reginald Wilberforce. London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1888.

[From his Diary, March 17, 1838.]

‘Evening.—Read a little of Froude’s “Journals.” They are most instructive to me; will exceedingly discredit Church principles, and show an amazing want of Christianity, so far. They are Henry Martyn un-Christianised.’

From ‘Letters and Correspondence of John Henry Newman,’ edited by Anne Mozley. London: Longmans, 1890.

‘Hurrell Froude passed away so early in the work of the Movement, and could work so little for it, that his actual share in it needs to be sought out through contemporary records. Little as his pen did, short as his life was, those who can recall the time feel the influence of his mere presence to have been essential to the original impulse which set all going. They cannot imagine the start without his forwarding, impelling look and voice. His presence impressed persons as a spiritual, though living, influence. He stands distinct, apart, in the memory of those who can recall it, the more that years[393] do not dim the brightness and fire which became him so well in his office as inspirer.’

From ‘Catholicism, Roman and Anglican,’ by A. M. Fairbairn, Principal of Mansfield College, Oxford. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1899.

‘The Romanticist tendency … was the positive factor in Anglo-Catholicism…. This gave the creative impulse; it was the spirit that quickened. The men in whom it took shape and found speech were three: Keble, Newman, Pusey. Perhaps we ought to name a fourth, Hurrell Froude: but he lives in Newman. He was the swiftest, most daring spirit of them all; his thought is hot, as it were, with the fever that shortened his days; his words are suffused as with a hectic flush; and we must judge him rather as one who moved men to achieve than by his own actual achievements.’

[294] [Isaac Williams’s MS. Memoir.]

[295] [Remains, i., 232, 233.]

[296] [Apologia, p. 84.]

[297] [Remains, i., 438; Apol., p. 77.]

[298] [I ought to say that I was not personally acquainted with Mr. Froude. I have subjoined to this chapter some recollections of him by Lord Blachford, who was his pupil and an intimate friend.]

From the Life and Letters of Dean Church, edited by his daughter Mary C. Church. Macmillan and Co., 1895, p. 315.

‘St. Paul’s, Sept. 12, 1884.

‘My dear Blachford,—… Sometime or other I shall have to ask you for a little help; that is, if I go on with my notion of having my say about the old Oxford days. One thing that I should try to do is to bring out Froude. Of course his time was cut short. But it seems to me that so memorable a person ought to be duly had in remembrance; and people now hardly recognise how much he had to do with the first stir. But of course all my knowledge of him is second-hand, or gathered from his books. He reminds me of Pascal: his unflinchingness, his humour, his hatred of humbug, his mathematical genius (architecture, and the French-rÉvolutionnaire), his imagination, his merciless self-discipline. I should like to bring all this out, if, as I suppose, it is true. I don’t suppose Pascal would have loved the sea! He would have been “seek.”’

[299]

[300] [Remains, part ii., i., 47.]

[301] [Remains, i., 82.]

[302] [Apologia, p. 84.]

[303] Miss Harriett Newman.

[304] The Rev. Samuel Rickards, Rector of Ulcombe, Kent, and of Stowlangloft, Suffolk. Said in 1827.

[305] Dean Church knew what he was saying: none better.

[306] Remarks on Church Discipline, Remains, part i., ii., 272, 274.

[307] [A few references to the Remains illustrating this are subjoined, if any one cares to compare them with these recollections: i., pp. 7, 13, 18, 26, 106, 184, 199, 200-204.]

[308] A prior and corroborative sketch is appended, by the same hand:

From Letters of Frederic Lord Blachford, Under-Sec. of State for the Colonies, 1860-1871. Edited by George Eden Marindin. London: Murray, 1896.

[By the kind permission of G. E. Marindin, Esq.]

‘[Hurrell Froude] was anything but “learned.” In lecture he gave you the idea of not being, in knowledge, so very much in advance of those whom he taught; but he had a fine taste, a quick and piercing precision of thought, a fertility and depth of reasoning, which stimulated a mind which had any quickness and activity. He had an interest in everything; he would draw with you, sail on the river with you, talk philosophy or politics with you, ride over fences with you, skate with you: all with a kind of joyous enjoyment. Mischief seems to have been his snare as a boy, and a controlled delight in what was on the edge of mischief gave a kind of verve to his character as a man. This made him charming to those whom he liked. But then he did not choose to like any whom he did not respect; and he could be as hard and sharp as you please on what he thought bad, [i.e.,] profane, vicious, or coxcombical.’

* * * * *

‘In Newman’s sermons and H. F.’s conversation, I found an uncompromising devotion to religion, with discouragement of anything like gushing profession … also a religion which did not reject, but aspired to embody in itself, any form of art and literature, poetry, philosophy, and even science, which could be pressed into the service of Christianity.’

[309] Its owner and lover for more than fifty years has written a summary of its history upon the fly-leaf.

[310] Frederic Rogers, Lord Blachford.

[311] The Rev. John Keble.

[312] In the later editions, the poem appears without indication of Froude’s name.

[313] The first draught of this paper appeared under the title ‘The Lives of Whitfield and Froude: Oxford Catholicism,’ in the Edinburgh Review, vol. lxvii., pp. 500-535: the issue for July, 1838. Rogers writes to Newman, on October 4 of that year: ‘I was sorry to hear that your friend Mr. Stephen of the Colonial Office was the author of the article on Froude, though that is better than if it had been a younger man. Doyle talked of it, and spoke of the Remains as having produced the impression of an unamiable character!’ (Letters of Lord Blachford, edited by George Eden Marindin, 1896, p. 51).

[314] Misprinted ‘B.’ in these Essays. ‘P.’ is Prevost, in whose company Hurrell was when this entry was made, Oct. 2, 1826.

[315] ‘Vacant’ in text.

[316] In written prayers.

[317] Arnold to Dr. Hawkins, 1838. Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold, D.D., by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, M.A. London: Fellowes, 1844, ii., 125.

[318] [I say ‘tacitly,’ because their avowed acquiescence first appeared in the Preface to the second part of the Remains, published in the following year.]

[319] Not quite correctly quoted. ‘[The Church] became a ready prey to the rapacious Henry. It had been polluted; it fell: shall it ever rise again?’ State Interference in Matters Spiritual, Remains, part i., 227.

[320] [This general account of the attitude and spirit of the new school is derived, in substance, from private notes of the Dean of S. Paul’s (Dean Church), to which he has kindly given me access. It is corroborated by the writings of Ward, Dalgairns, Oakeley, and others, a few years later, in The British Critic.]

[321] Vol. xliii., pp. 636 et seq., the issue for May, 1883.

[322] [Suggestions for the Formation of an Association of Friends of the Church.]

[323] [The leader in the Movement was Newman, but others supported him.] Mr. Golightly has a similar statement, tartly expressed in his Correspondence Illustrative of the Actual State of Oxford, 1842: ‘Mr. Newman is the real leader of the party, not Dr. Pusey, who is no more entitled to give a name to it than Amerigo Vespucci was to give a name to the New World. This is, of course, understood in Oxford: but it is desirable that it should be known elsewhere.’

[324] [This effort is alluded to in Froude’s Remains. I cannot but think that Froude’s influence, which was very great, was on many occasions exerted in a direction contrary to mine. He has expressed his disapprobation of the only Tract in the composition of which I was in any degree concerned.] This is No. 15. See p. 194.

[325] Of ‘Romanising,’ in The British Critic, after 1840.

[326] Froude so called Newman in 1829 (see p. 55), but not in relation to any new disapproved ‘speculations.’

[327] Lectures on certain Difficulties felt by Anglicans. London: Burns and Lambert, 1850, p. 32.

[328] Dean Church’s History of the Oxford Movement is a history of that Movement as bound up with its chief and hero; and the scope of it extends but to the year 1845. What Dr. Rigg takes to be the disproportionate space given to Froude is therefore no disparagement to the operative influence of Dr. Pusey, which may be said only to have thoroughly begun by 1845.

[329] Published while Mr. Keble, Dr. Pusey, and Dr. Newman were all living: in the year, in fact, of their memorable and touching meeting at Hursley, after the long outward separation.

[330] [Remains, part i., i., 389, 393, 394, 403, 405.]

[331] [Idem, 363.]

[332] [Idem, i., 395.]

[333] [Remains, part i., i., 336, 395.]

[334] [Idem, p. 410. ‘If I were a Roman Catholic priest.’]

[335] [Dr. Wiseman, afterwards Cardinal. Remains, i., 306.]

[336] [Passim, Editors’ Preface to Remains, ii.]

[337] [Remains, 14, etc.]

[338] [Idem, i., 395.]

[339] Newman writes to Mr. Williams from Abbotsford, December 21, 1852, (Autobiography of I. W. London: Longmans, 1892, p. 129): ‘You only say the truth when you anticipate [that] I remember you tenderly in my prayers, though you are, my dear Williams (if you will let me say it in answer to what you say yourself) of “the straitest sect,” and as a matter of duty, will not let Heaven smile upon you.’

[340] The quite contrary statement in the Apologia had not then seen the light. If there was any written reference to Our Lady, as seems probable, in Sermons or elsewhere in the Remains, the Editors barred it out, doubtless for the same reasons which so long kept Mr. Keble’s beautiful ‘Mother Out of Sight’ from the public.

[341] A review of Froude’s Remains, Part i.

[342] Froude says the same thing to Newman, Jan., 1835. See p. 165.

[343] The Rev. Hugh James Rose to Joshua Watson, Jan., 1838. ‘I think that review of Froude’ [British Critic for that month and year, as above] ‘the most to be regretted of anything which I have seen of our Oxford friends. It shows a disposition to find fault with our Church for not satisfying the wants and demands, not of the human heart, but of the imagination of enthusiastic and ascetic and morbid-minded men. This no Church does or can do by any honest means. He who has these desires may satisfy them himself. The mass of men have them not. To quarrel with the Church [of England] on this ground, is to show a resolution to quarrel with her!’ Lives of Twelve Good Men, by John William Burgon, B.D., late Dean of Chichester. London: Murray, 1861, p. 135. Compare what Newman writes to Mr. Hope-Scott in reference to monastic institutions, on Jan. 3, 1842: ‘Men want an outlet for their devotional and penitential feelings; and if we do not grant it, to a dead certainty they will go where they can find it. This is the beginning and the end of the matter.’ Ornsby’s Memoir of James Robert Hope-Scott of Abbotsford. London: Murray, 1884, ii., 6.

[344] The death of Mr. Keble’s dearest sister, Mary Anne.

[345] Isaac Williams and Sir George Prevost.

[346] Fairford.

[347] Newman says of his own early youth: ‘[I rested] in the thought of two, and two only, absolute and luminously self-evident beings: myself and my Creator.’ Apologia, 1890, p. 4.

[348] Newman. Dean Church says: ‘The idea of celibacy, in those whom it affected in Oxford, was in the highest degree a religious and romantic one.’ Froude would inevitably translate ‘religious and romantic,’ as applied, however truly, to Newman and himself, as ‘sawney.’

[349] Southrop, near Fairford.

[350] R. I. W.

[351] The Champernownes. The Rev. Isaac Williams married, in 1842, Caroline, third daughter of Arthur Champernowne, Esq., of Dartington Hall, Devon.

[352] Cwmcynfelin, near Aberystwith, Cardiganshire.

[353] The Rev. Thomas Keble, Vicar. Bisley in Gloucestershire should be memorable as the place where daily Anglican services were first revived, 1827.

[354] The Rev. James Davis, Vicar. Mr. Williams had been his Curate there.

[355] In Isaac Williams’s extremely beautiful ????? (in Thoughts in Past Years) he again says of Newman:

[356] In 1833, on Froude’s return from Italy.

[357] [I find that John Keble and others quite agree with me that there was that in Hurrell Froude that he could not have joined the Church of Rome.] There is a somewhat corroborative passage in A Short Sketch of the Tractarian Upheaval, by Thomas Leach, B.A. London: Bemrose & Sons, 1887. ‘It is possible, of course, as Dr. Newman would seem to imply, that Froude would have gone over side by side, or rather in advance of, his fellow-leader: for Froude was one to be in advance generally of those with whom he journeyed. On the other hand, we must give due weight to the fact that Froude, as Dr. Newman himself tells us, was “an Englishman to the backbone in his severe adherence to the real and the concrete.”’ The inference, pleasing to some minds, is that ‘Rome’ is a mere chimera.

[358] The lines occur in the section of the book called ‘The Side of the Hill.’ The needlessly prosy narrative is mainly an amplification of a statement already quoted from the Autobiography, and is included here purely because of the subject-matter, and not because it can in any degree represent with truth one of the most charming poets of his generation.

[359] Lyra Apostolica, p. 149. The poem strangely foreshadows Mr. Kipling’s ‘Recessional.’

[360] To Mr. Keble. ‘I cannot in fairness withdraw specimens such as these of the view taken by my very dear friend of Italy and its religion, though, of course, I leave them in the text with much pain. He was a man who did nothing by halves. He had cherished an ideal of the Holy See and the Church of Rome partly erroneous, partly unreal, and was greatly disappointed when, to his apprehension, it was not fulfilled. He had expected to find a state of lofty sanctity in Italian Catholics, which, he considered, was not only not exemplified, but was even contradicted, in what he saw and heard of them. As to the Tridentine definitions, he simply looked at them as obstacles to the union of Anglicans with the See of Rome, not having the theological knowledge necessary for a judgement on their worth.’ Note to a Letter addressed to the Rev. Godfrey Faussett, D.D., on Mr. R. Hurrell Froude’s Statements Concerning the Holy Eucharist and Other Matters, 1838, in The Via Media of the Anglican Church. London: Pickering, 1877, ii., 196.

[361] Froude and Ward were both ‘fiercer’ than Newman. When Froude lay dying, Mr. William George Ward had not yet come upon the scene.

[362] Designed after the Eleanor Crosses, by Sir G. G. Scott, R.A., the three statues being by H. Weekes. It does not stand, however, on the site of the stake.

[363] Written in 1839. A review of Froude’s Remains, part i.

[364] Thirty-two years, eleven months, three days.

[365] Naples. [Remains, i., 293, 294.]

[366] [Remains, i., 391.]

[367] [Idem, pp. 403-404.]

[368] [Idem, p. 426.] The remark on the Patriarchate of Constantinople: see p. 194. Dr. Wiseman thought it the very argument applicable to the Papal Jurisdiction.

[369] [Remains, i., 422.]

[370] S. Ambrosii Mediolan. Epis. De Obitu Valentiniani [II.] Consolatio. Migne, Pat. Lat., tom. xvi., coll. 1355-1383. An apparently condescending, but truly affectionate reference.

[371] Note by Cardinal Wiseman, 1853, in reprinting, after fourteen years, his review of Froude’s Remains in Essays on Various Subjects, ii., 93. ‘[It] remains marked, with gratitude, in my mind, as an epoch in my life,—the visit which Mr. Froude unexpectedly paid me, [at the English College, Rome, March, 1833], in company with one [J. H. N.] who never afterwards departed from my thoughts…. From that hour I watched with intense interest and love the Movement of which I then caught the first glimpse. My studies changed their course, the bent of my mind was altered, in the strong desire to co-operate in the new mercies of Providence.’ In 1841, he had written to Phillipps de Lisle: ‘Let us have an influx of new blood, let us have but even a small number of such men as write in the Tracts, so imbued with the spirit of the early Church: men who have learned to teach from Saint Augustine, to preach from Saint Chrysostom, and to feel from Saint Bernard;—let even a few such men, with the high clerical feeling which I believe them to possess, enter fully into the spirit of the Catholic religion, and we shall be speedily reformed, and England quickly converted…. It is not to you that I say this for the first time, for I have long said it to those about me, that if the Oxford divines enter the Church, we must be ready to fall into the shade, and take up our position in the background. I will gladly say to any of them: me oportet minui…. Their might, in His, would be irresistible. Abuses would soon give way before our united efforts, and many things which appear such to them would perhaps be explained.’ The writer’s ‘intense interest and love’ for the Movement never changed. Life and Letters of Ambrose Phillipps de Lisle, by Edmund Sheridan Purcell. London: Macmillan, 1900, i., 290.

[372] ‘On the whole’ is Newman’s phrase. See p. 260.

[373] J. H. N. Letters and Correspondence, ii., 66.

[374] Parochial Sermons, ii., 214: Ascension Day.

[375] There are four ‘Delta’ poems of 1835 in Lyra Apostolica, one of 1836.

[376] Memorandum in Letters and Correspondence, ii., 176.

[377] Henry Philpotts, 1778-1869, Bishop of Exeter from 1831.

[378] The following correspondence arose out of an article contributed in June, 1878, by Mr. J. A. Froude to The Nineteenth Century, vol. i. It was entitled ‘Life and Times of Thomas Becket.’ It was founded upon Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, edited by James Craigie Robertson, Canon of Canterbury, and published under the direction of the Master of the Rolls, 1877. Mr. Froude, in reprinting his essay in Short Studies on Great Subjects, 4th Series, 1883, withdrew the passage which Mr. Freeman had made the text of his remarks.

[379] The Right Rev. Charles Lloyd, D.D., and the Hon. and Right Rev. Richard Bagot, afterwards Bishop of Bath and Wells.

[380] Essays and Sermons comprise vol. ii. of part i., Remains.

[381] Archdeacon Froude to Sir J. Coleridge, March 26, 1838: ‘Neither abroad nor at home, did I ever know [Hurrell] to be the apologist of the Papal Church, much less hold it up to approbation, except for its zeal and unity…. In our own, Bishop Bull and the Nonjurors were, I think, the patterns he proposed to himself for everything that was noble and disinterested in temporal, and sound in doctrinal matters. But I feel I am quite unable to explain or defend the notions he had formed on these important subjects.’ Memoir of the Rev. John Keble, M.A., late Vicar of Hursley, by the Right Hon. Sir J. T. Coleridge, D.C.L. Oxford and London: Parker, 3rd edition, 1870, p. 255.

[382] [Dean of Chichester’s Charge, 1839.]

[383] [Remains, part i., i., 306, 329.]

[384] The only chance, i.e., of disestablishment as a Church.

[385] These extracts are much scattered in the original, hence not strictly consecutive in their piecing together.

[386] An error. He was not so well acquainted with the North, however.

[387] The preference for the style of the Italian Renaissance came to be shared by other faithless Oxonians, as all the world knows, particularly, for practical reasons, by Newman, Faber, and the whole English Oratorian group. It must seem a distinct note of impending degeneracy in Froude, to those who have the heart to distrust him.

[388] A review of Froude’s Remains, part ii.

[389] The Rev. James Bowling Mozley had this criticism to make on his brother’s article quoted above: ‘It gives too much the impression of Froude as a philosopher simply, instead of one who was constantly bringing his general maxims to bear, most forcibly and pointedly, on the present state of things; on particular classes, sects, and parties. It does not bring out Froude’s great, practical, and almost lawyer-like penetration.’ Letters of the Rev. J. B. Mozley, p. 102.

[390] This nobly applied and famous motto is a happy development or paraphrase. Achilles says only, it will be remembered, that he has been altogether too long out of the fight.

[391] Selections Adapted to Seasons of the Ecclesiastical Year from the Parochial Sermons of John Henry Newman, B.D. [Edited by the Rev. W. J. Copeland.] Rivingtons, 1878, p. 344.

[392] Newman’s, probably, is the suppressed name.

[393] This was written more than fifty years after his death.

(By Miss M. H. JAMES)

• at Oxford, 1835., R. H. F.’s last vote recorded at, 174.