United States or Botswana ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"The Westminster Review" for April, 1856, had for its leading article a paper by Mr. Froude, in which the critic awarded the highest praise to the work of the new historian. As one of the earliest as well as one of the most important recognitions of the work, I quote some of its judgments.
James Anthony Froude published an essay on Progress, in which he examined some of the evidences upon which we rely to prove that we live in an "era of progress." It is a melancholy essay, for its tone is that of profound skepticism as to certain influences and means of progress upon which we in this country most rely. With the illustrative arguments of Mr.
Froude, were more tolerable than the swift doing away with life under an African master! Under such, at all events, the care and comfort suitable to age were strictly provided for, and cheered the advanced years of the faithful bondsman.
Flood and Curran are treated with disdain. Burke, though he was no more a Catholic than Froude himself, is told that he was not a true Protestant, and did not understand his own countrymen. Sir Ralph Abercrombie was possessed with an "evil spirit," because he urged that rebels should not be punished by soldiers without the sanction of the civil magistrate.
Of this sane and orthodox, but not over-spiritual, clergy, Archdeacon Froude was an excellent and altogether wholesome type. He was a stiff Tory; his hatred of Dissent was so uncompromising that he would not have a copy of the Pilgrim's Progress in the rectory. A stern, self-contained, reticent man, he never, in word of deed, confessed his affection for his youngest son.
Therefore, "along with his asperities," he had "strong masculine sense," and had voted for compulsory Greek. If the right of suffrage were restricted to men who knew Greek as well as Froude or Freeman, the decisions of Congregation at Oxford, and of the Senate at Cambridge, would command more respect.
“He was born at the fit time, before the world had grown inflated with the vanity of Progress, and there was still an atmosphere in which such a soul could grow. There will be no such others for many a long age.” “Yours gratefully, “J. A. FROUDE.” This letter is striking evidence of the influence Tennyson had upon his contemporaries.
The Queen, says Froude, 'would give no orders for money till she had demanded the meaning of every penny that she was charged. Why she alone should be held up to obloquy for this is not clear.
Carlyle's death they had met constantly, and the older man relied upon the younger as upon a son. Froude sat down before the mass of documents in the spirit which had encountered the manuscripts of Simancas. No help was accorded him. He had to spell out the narrative for himself.
The very wording of Mr. Froude's recommendation is disingenuous. It is one stone sped at two birds, and which, most naturally, has missed them both. Mr. Froude knew perfectly well that, twenty-five years before he wrote his book, America had thrown open the way to public advancement to the Blacks, as it had been previously free to Whites alone.
Word Of The Day