Chapter XIV: Part II: ――comments (3)

‘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.

‘“_Ostendent terris hunc tantum fata, neque ultra_
_Esse sinent. Nimium vobis Romana propago_
_Visa potens, superi, propria hæc si dona fuissent_ …
_Nec puer Iliaca quisquam de gente Latinos_
_In tantum spe tollet avos: nec Romula quondam_
_Ullo se tantum tellus jactabit alumno._”

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

‘“_Heu, pietas! heu, prisca fides! invictaque bello_
_Dextera! non illi se quisquam impune tulisset_
_Obvius armato_ …
… _Manibus date lilia plenis_:
_Purpureos spargam flores, animamque [sodalis]_
_His saltem accumulem donis, et fungar inani_
_Munere._”

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….