FROUDE, JAMES ANTHONY. 



297 



matter of consideration for others, but his liter- 

 ary executor might have done him the kindness 

 of suppressing passages here and there which 

 were likely to give pain to living people. The 

 executor, however, did not choose to pursue this 

 course, and was probably indifferent to the storm 

 of adverse criticism that greeted the work. His 

 editorship of Mrs. Carlyle's memorials is open, 

 though in a less degree, to the same criticism 

 as the life and the reminiscences of her husband. 

 However sincere the motives of Froude may 

 have been in the Carlyle matter, it is certain 

 that he gave to the world an incorrect concep- 

 tion of his famous subject, and for a truer, more 

 faithful impression we must turn to such writers 

 as Charles Eliot Norton, Sir Charles Duffy, and 

 Francis Espinasse. The Carlyle correspondence, 

 as edited by Prof. Norton, reveals a very differ- 

 ent Carlyle from the one that Froude's editor- 

 ship discloses, and gives color to the general 

 impression that the historian suppressed such 

 details as did not accord in all points with his 

 own view of the great man whose friend he was. 



In this matter, as in others, one can not escape 

 the conviction that Froude wrested facts from 

 their relations with each other in order to fit in 

 with foregone conclusions. Like Caj-lyle him- 

 self, he admired the strong man wherever found, 

 and could see no blemishes in him unless the 

 strong man had a stronger contemporary. It is 

 for this reason that he exalts Henry VIII, Caasar, 

 and his own master, Carlyle, and refuses to con- 

 sider them in any other aspect. In the case of 

 Becket another trait exhibits itself. The cler- 

 ical spirit was abhorrent to him, and Becket, as 

 the extreme exponent of that spirit, receives 

 much less than justice at his hands. As a bril- 

 liant piece of writing his monograph on Becket 

 deserves great praise ; but one feels very sure 

 that had the historian been arguing upon the 

 opposite side, the Canterbury prelate would 

 have been painted with as few of the darker 

 shades as there now are 'of the lighter hues, and 

 while the work would still have been as dra- 

 matically fine as it is now, it wonld have been 

 equally untrustworthy. When writing of the 

 Oxford Movement he occupies the same position 

 as when speaking of Becket, and is no more im- 

 partial. 



History, to Mr. Froude, was not what it is to 

 the conscientious historians of the school of 

 Bishop Stubbs and Prof. Freeman, but merely 

 one of many divisions of literature. Conse- 

 quently he was the man of letters before he was 

 the historian. As he occupied this position, it 

 was natural enough that he should write as the 

 exponent of some especial and cherished idea, 

 the admirer of some strong personality. He did 

 much to free historical writing from sentimen- 

 talism and sham, but nothing, or next to nothing, 

 toward strengthening its authority. The late 

 Prof. Freeman, with the other writers of his 

 school, held very pronounced views on the sub- 

 ject of the continuity of history, maintaining 

 with much vigor of statement that no arbitrary 

 line can be drawn between ancient and modern 

 history, while Froude, it is needless to say, held 

 no such attitude. Freeman, at the time" of his 

 death, in March, 1892, was Regius Professor of 

 History at Oxford University: and this post, 

 made vacant by his death, was offered two 



months later to Froude, who accepted it. As 

 Froude had been a strong opponent of Freeman 

 in regard to methods of historical study, and as 

 the views of the two men were diametrically op- 

 posed, the offer of this chair to Mr. Froude 

 seemed to many in the nature of a direct affront 

 to the memory of the late historian of the Nor- 

 man Conquest. 



As Regius Professor, Froude delivered be- 

 fore the university a series of lectures on Eras- 

 mus, which appeared in book form but a few 

 weeks before his death. The subject was par- 

 ticularly congenial to him, and it is treated in 

 his best manner a manner not wanting in the 

 sparkle and color of his earlier style, but with 

 mellower judgments and deeper, richer tones. 

 But. like his other works, it has its pronounced 

 limitations : it leaves certain points in the ca- 

 reer of Erasmus untouched, and it is not free 

 from partisanship. The personal character of 

 Erasmus is one with which his biographer was 

 well qualified to sympathize. Erasmus had no 

 love for the clerical spirit, and certainly nothing 

 of the martyr's devotion. Froude. in writing of 

 Becket, had exhibited small sympathy with 

 Becket's longing for the crown of martyrdom ; 

 and in his life of Erasmus he intimates that her- 

 oism is not always wisdom, and readiness for 

 martyrdom not a very exalted quality. Eras- 

 mus appears to have been of the same mind, 

 essentially, and from some points of view no 

 doubt the two men are right ; but Erasmus 

 probably, and Froude certainly, made small ac- 

 count of the force that heroism and its frequent 

 accompaniment, martyrdom, have exercised in 

 the world. To the brilliant scholar of the 

 Netherlands the fiery deaths to which Latimer 

 and others were delivered most probably seemed 

 like trials that might have been avoided ; and 

 Froude, as we know, saw little but perversity in 

 Becket's end. 



A marked contrast may be noted between 

 Froude and his contemporary, Mark Pattison, 

 who, like the historian, deserted the ranks of 

 the Oxford leaders for those of the Rationalists. 

 The effort that it cost the latter to pass from 

 one theological camp to the other remained ap- 

 parent ever after in reticence and apparent bit- 

 terness and cynicism, as well as in a withdrawal 

 from literature in general and concentration of 

 powers upon minuter points of scholarship. 

 Froude, on the contrary, never betrayed that 

 his similar step had cost him any uneasiness. 

 He was one of the busiest of men, and his work 

 covered a wide range history, fiction, politics, 

 travels ; and he never had the smallest notion of 

 retirement from the world of men and things. 

 So far as can be seen, he took a great amount of 

 enjoyment in life. He delighted in work, and 

 did an immense amount of it, but it never op- 

 pressed him as it might have oppressed a man 

 with more conscience. As one writer has said 

 of him : " He enjoyed, after one sharp trial, the 

 liberty of living as he pleased and doing what 

 he liked ; he earned comfort if not riches, dis- 

 tinction that ripened into fame." His work as 

 an historian, when judged from the standpoint of 

 a calm, dispassionate ideal, must be accounted 

 sadly wanting; but from the literary point of 

 view simply it deserves all the praise it has re- 

 ceived ; and however one may differ from his 



