JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE.
For some time he was connected with the High Church party led by the Rev. J.H. Newman, and so much was he imbued by its doctrines, that he wrote the "Lives of the English Saints," and took deacon's orders in 1844. He has also written "The Shadows of the Clouds," 1847, and "The Nemesis of Faith," in 1849, both of which works had to undergo the severest condemnation of the University authorities, for the Puseyite opinions broached in their pages.
In 1850, Froude laid the foundation-stone of his fame by a series of articles, chiefly on English History, which were contributed to the Westminster Review and Frazer's Magazine, and in 1856 he published the two first volumes of his "History of England." This is his greatest work, in ten volumes, and for clearness of thought, powerful intensity, and acute understanding of those stormy periods of Henry VIII, Elizabeth and Mary, there are few passages in written history to equal Froude's descriptions of the age, and his grand delineations of character. He is, however, prejudicial in many things, and his view of the characters of Mary, Queen of Scots and Queen Elizabeth, is altogether different from the view which all modern historians have taken of these two women.
In 1867, a work entitled "Short Studies on Great Subjects," was published by Mr. Froude, and the historical sketches in this volume are of the most masterly kind in English literature. Mr. Froude is now Editor of Frazer's Magazine, whose pages his powerful genius illuminated some twenty years ago. This magazine had formerly for its contributors some of the finest scholars and best thinkers in Britain. Frazer's Magazine is issued by Longmans, Green & Co., Paternoster Row, one of the great publishing houses, and whose business is only rivaled by that of John Murray, McMillan, Sampson, Low & Son, and Smith & Elder, among London booksellers.
Among the contributors to Frazer are Max Muller, F.W. Newman, E. Lynn Linton, Jean Ingelow, Shirley Brooks, R. A. Proctor, Moncure D. Conway, a Massachusetts man, and a personal and intimate friend of Carlyle,—I believe he is to write the biography of that dogmatic old thinker, who has failed to prevent the earth from revolving on its axis, when he is gathered to his fathers, in the little churchyard in Dumfriesshire. William Howard Russell, James Spedding, Frederick Denison Maurice, a liberal clergyman and a professor in London University, and others whom I do not recollect, are contributors to Frazer. This magazine contains 134 double-column pages of large print, on fine white paper, and is sold for two shillings and sixpence. The same matter and workmanship could not be sold in America for less than one dollar and twenty-five cents, I am informed. Miss Ingelow, one of its contributors, is by no means a Miss in her teens, being now in her forty-first year, but it is tolerably certain that such delightful verse as hers could not have been written by one who had not endured sorrow and trial. The several editions of her poems have realized for Miss Ingelow the comfortable sum of £8,500, and I was told by a leading London bookseller, that Mr. Froude, whose last article was on "Salmon Fishing in Ireland," sold the copyright on four of his books for £39,000. Miss Ingelow is a Suffolk girl, and rumor says has never married because of a blighted affection in early life.
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE—POET.
A worthy successor to Lord Byron, in my opinion, is Algernon Charles Swinburne, the most passionate English poet who has lived for one hundred years. Swinburne is in his twenty-eighth year, and at that early age he has attained for himself a position among the poets of his native land, surpassed by none. For wealth of language, beauteous and fervent passion, and gorgeousness of imagery, Keats alone is his peer. Swinburne is an earnest republican, and sympathizes with revolution in every land. He is a great admirer of Italy. For a poem of one page in an English magazine he received two hundred and fifty pounds, a larger price than was ever paid before in England for a poetical fragment.