THE SKETCHER.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1190, 21 December 1894, Page 8

THE SKETCHER.

DEATH OF PROFESSOR FROUDE, SOME REMINISCENCES AND . appreciations. PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS. F'romyOur Own Correspondent iht > -v / ‘-/London; October 27. The* long illness . of; Professor Froude terminated fatally on Saturday morning last, and depiriv'es.us of yet another of the literary giants of'the Victorian era. We hear a great deal of the “pew " this and the “ new " that nowadays, but can anybody 7 tell us where the new men are to come from who shall efficiently replace the old men who are either already gone or going These last few years have made huge gaps in the army of our truly great. Look back if only to the fend of the seventies, and you can see how the ranks have been thinned* There were then with us, Darwin, Owen, Lyell and Tyndall among scientists ; Carlyle, Matthew Arnold' Froude and Freeman among men of letters ; George Eliot, Charles Reade, Charles Kingsley - arid Lori Beaconsfield amorig novelists ; and Tennyson and Browning among poets. ’Tis true Huxley and Herbert Spencer and John Ruskin still remain, but the lastnamed are far too aged and ailing to do any more for the era their work has glorified, and even Huxley, though still vigorous, is seventy. , Where then are the coming inert who are to fill the shoes of these famous poets, writers and scientists ? ' .We have in Swinburne one acknowledged poet, and in Mr - Lecky a /respectable historian. Meredith, Barrie arid Kipling are novelists who may live for a'time, but to rank them with Seotc .or Dickens or Thackeray, or even. George .Eliot, would surely be absurd. ; No, I’m afraid one cannot get away from the fact that this is an age of mediocrities. We ; can boast a far greater number of minor poots, minor essayists, minor scientists arid minor novelists than the earlier generations of the Victorian era could, but the race of.:giants seems let us hope only temporarily—extinct. Mr Froude was a man of too strong an individuality not to havp .enemies. He attacked many wantonly, and was attacked fcy many wantonly. But now all illfeeling is forgotten, and,*.some of the Professor’s bitterest opponents have written the warmest eulogies of his life His death takes from us a verse tile personality—historian, essayist, traveller, politician,-man of letters. The son of a Church dignitary, he was ordained a deacon of the Church of England, but his opinions changed, and he found himself unable to believe what he called “the Hebrew : mythology." He, therefore, unfrocked himself at the earliest opportunity. This lost him a fellowship a valuable appointment in Australia. Again in his accounts of his colonial travels his. outspokenness gave offence in many quarters, -and the word “ Froudacity," was coined to express his views, or, rather his manner .of expressing hfis views. His long friendship with Carlyle is wellknown, and his biography of the latter excited much unfavourable comment. When Professor Freeman died in 1892, Lord Salisbury, as Prime Minister, appointed Mr Froude to succeed him. It was a strange choice, for Mr Freeman

and his school at Oxford had never admitted Mr Froude to be a historian at all. But whatever the learned world might think or say, Professor Froude had extraordinary success as a lecturer. Be thoroughly enjoyed revisiting Oxford in an official character, and he discoursed on tho naval exploits of great Englishmen with all his unrivalled grace. His last book, “ The Life and Letters of Erasmus," consists entirely of lectures deli /ered at Oxford. - It certainly shows no. sign of failing power.

The supplementary volume of his history which deals with the divorce of Catherine had appeared before his appointment. Mr Froude’s closing years a‘ Oxford were spent in easy and enjoyable dignity. Tho fascination of his racy talk increased rather than diminished with age. He had more than earned his post. When avery deduction has been made for defects which he could not overcome, he remains the most brilliant historian since the death of Macaulay, and the most voluminous since the death of Gibbon. Many good judges regarded Mr Froude as the first living writer of English prose. Some will prefer the more elaborate composition and the more stately cadences of Mr Ruskin. Others may swear by younger models. But since the death of Cardinal Newman, Mr Froude had no rival in hi 3 own. work. Whether he consciously took Newman for a model or not, he showed traces to the last of Newman’s literary influence. Mr Froude wa% a great favourite with undergraduates at Oxford, to many of whom he showed the real kindness which underlay a certain seeming coldness of judgment and temper. To one of these he not long ago talked a little cynically of the part which truth played in the making of history—which he, always insisted was an art rather than a science. His young friend took the great man’s lightness of.tone rather seriously, whereupon Froude turned to him with a charming air, and said srnilingly : “ Never mind ; you remember that in ‘ Faust ’ Mephistopht'les wore the professor’s robe."

The Westminster Gazette recalls that in hi 3 Rectorial address at St. Andrew's, Froude made some remarks on the insincerity, to which the clerical calling was prone. About the same time his friend and brother-in-law, Charles Kingsley, who was resigning the chair of Modern History at Cambridge, had denounced historians for their partisanship and misrepresentations. The opportunity was too good to be lost, and an academical wit, said to' be the present Bishop of Oxford, circulated these lines : While Froude assures the Scottish youth That parsbns do not care for truth, The Reverend Canon Kingsley cries “ All history’s a pack of lies !” What cause for judgment sq malign P A little thought may solve the mystery ; For Froude thinks Kingsley a divine, And Kingsley goes to Froude for history. “ THE NEMESIS OF FAITH ” AND ITS NEMESIS.

“ In reading just now your ‘ Aspects of Professor Froude,’ I was reminded" (writes a correspondent) “of his having, at the close of the forties or in the early fifties, accepted the appointment of principal to the then recently established High School of Hobart Town, in Van Diemen’s Land. He had, if \I recollect right, made his arrangements for leaving ..this country to take up his new work when it became known that be was the author of the • Netnesis of Faith.’ The trustees for the school who had selected him, alarmed at what they had done, , cancelled this appointment or obtained his resignation : Ido not remember which. It is interesting to speculate now what would fiave been the effect on his own life and career, and on the country of his adoption, had he accomplished his migration." / HISTORY IN A HURRY. Some interesting anecdotes are told by the Times in illustration of Froude’s distaste for detailed research. It is said that, at the time when Froude was busy on the part of his history where Burleigh plays a leading part, he was invited to stay at Hatfield and make an examination -of the masses of Cecil papers there preserved—at a time, it must be remembered, before the Historical Manuscripts Commission had published any of them and that Froude went, and stayed one day. Lord Beaconsfield's executors did the same for him when ho was writing his short life of that statesman ; he was satisfied with a glance jas*bhe papers on a Saturday to-Monday visit. FROUDE AS POET. It may interest those who like to hear of unacknowledged writings of great authors to learn that the following verses, which we take (says the Times ) from Fraser's Magazine for May, 1862, were written by Froude to his wife, soon after their marriage:— -V ■ TOGETHEB. Sweet hand that, held in mine, Seems the one thing-1 cannot live without, The soul’s one anchorage in this storm and doubt, I take thee as the sign. Of sweeter days in store For life, and more than life, when life is done, And thy soft pressure leads me gently on To Heaven’s own Evermore.

I have not much to say, Nor any words that fit such fond request'; Let my blood speak to thine, and bear the rest Some silent heartward way. '

Thrice blest the faithful hand Which saves e’en while it blesses : hold me

fast:. Let rue not go beneath the floods at last, So near the better land.

Sweet hand, that, thus in mine, Seems the one thing I cannot live without, My heart’s one anchor in life’s storm and doubt, . Take this, and make me thine, MR RUSKIN AND MR FROUDE.

Among the firmest of Mr Froude’s friends was Mr Ruskin, who is now the only survivor, among the great writers of the Victorian era, of the older generation. Mr Froude and Mr Ruskin were contem-

poraries at Oxford, but their great bond of union came later in their common friendsh : p with Carlyle and discipleahip under him. Froude has described in his

“Life cf Carlyle" how the Sage of Chelsea ,'came mote and more to regard Mr Ruskin as his apostolic successor. Mr Ruskin in turn has described how for his part he looked to Froude to carry on Carlyle’s witness against a wicked and perverse generation. “Faithful, he, as it appeared to me," he says in u Fors Clavigera," “ in all the intent of history ; already in the year 1858 shrewdly cug n riant- of the main facts of English life, past-and present ; keenly also, and impartially, sympathetic with every kind of heroism and mode of honesty. Of him I first learned the story of Sir Richard Grenville ; by him was directed to the diaries of the sea captains in Hakluyt ; by his influence, when he edited Fraser s Magazine, I had been led; to the writing of * Munera Pulveris ;’ his Rectorial address of St. Andrew’s was full of insight into the strength of old Scotland; his study of the life of Hugo of Lincoln, into that of yet elder England ; and every year, .as Auld Reekie and old England sank farther out of memory and honour with others, I looked more passionately for some utterance from him, of nubri story about the brave and faithful dead, and noble wrath against the wretched and dead-alive." Mr Ruskin went on, however, to dec’are himself much disappointed, with Froude’s tolerance. The historian was nob whole-hearted-enough for him, in his preference for the old to the new. “ Year by year liis words have grown more hesitating." But this outburst did not affect the friendship of the two men, and onei of the latest chapters of Mr Ruskin’s Autobiography-contains a pleasant reference t 6 his old-friend. “And is there to be no more. Oxford, asks Froude, a little reproachfully, in a recent letter concerning these memoranda ; for he was at Oriel while I was at Christ Church, and does riot think I have given an exhaustive view either of the studies or manners of the University in our day.” And Mr Ruskin goes on to explain to his “dear friend ” how he cannot bother himself further about a University which tried indbed to teach him Latin and Greek, bub told him nothing about the fritillaries in it 3 meadows !—a branch of learning which another; Oxford scholar has celebrated, as readers of Matthew Arnold’s “ Thyrsis ” will remember.