[By the kind permission of Herbert Stephen, Esq., and of Messrs. Longmans, Green & Co.]
‘… In obedience to the general law of human affairs, arrived the day of reaction. A new race of students had
grown up at Oxford. They were men of unsullied, and even severe virtue; animated by a devotion which, if not very fervent, was at least genuine and grave; conversant with classical literature, and not without pretensions, more or less considerable, to an acquaintance with Christian antiquity. As they paced thoughtfully along those tall avenues, to which, a hundred years before, Whitfield and the Wesleys had been accustomed to retire for meditation, they recoiled, with a mixture of aversion and contempt, from the image of the crowded assemblages, and the dramatic exercises, in which the successors of those great men in the Church of England were performing so conspicuous a part. They revolved, not without indignation, the intellectual barrenness with which that Church had been stricken, from the time when her most popular teachers had not merely been satisfied to tread the narrow circle of the “Evangelical” theology, but had exulted in that bondage as indicating their possession of a purer light than had visited the other ministers of the Gospel. They invoked, with an occasional sigh, but not without many a bitter smile, the reappearance amongst us of a piety more profound and masculine, more meek and contemplative. They believed that such a change in the religious character of their age and country was a divine command, and that a commission had been given to themselves to carry it into effect.
* * * * *
‘… It came to pass, in the Oxonian as in other leagues, that the head moved forward by the impulse of the tail. Step by step in their progress, “the Church,” whom they worshipped, changed her attitude and her aspect. She soon disclaimed her Elizabethan or statutory origin, and then made vehement efforts to escape from her Elizabethan or statutory ceremonial. She assumed the title, and laid claim to the character, of the Primitive Church, or the Church of the Fathers, and at length arrogated to herself the prerogatives of that Catholic or universal Church, which “lifts her mitred front
in courts and palaces,” whether at Rome, at Moscow, or at Lambeth, but whose presence is never vouchsafed to any who cannot trace back from Apostolic hands an Episcopal succession.
‘At this stage of the history of the Oxonian league, its progress was quickened and animated by the panic which exhibited itself from one end to the other of the hostile camp. The disciples of Whitfield and of Wesley, united to those of Newton and Scott, of Milner and of Venn, and, reinforced by the whole strength of the Nonconformists, began to throw up, along the whole field of controversy, entrenchments for their own defence, and batteries for the annoyance of their assailants. Amongst the literary missiles cast by the contending hosts against each other, there are few better worth the study of those who wish to estimate the probable result of the conflict, than the Life of Richard Hurrell Froude. It was launched from a catapult under the immediate direction of Messrs. Keble and Newman themselves, and, though it is a book of no great inherent value, it has a considerable interest as the only biography which the world possesses of a confessor of Oxford Catholicism. It contains a vivid picture of the discipline, the studies, the opinions, and the mental habits of his fraternity, and is published by the two great fathers of that school, with the avowal of their “own general coincidence” in the opinions and feelings of their disciple. We have thus a delineation, at full length, of one of those divines who are to effect the conquest which was attempted in vain by the Bellarmines and the Bossuets of former times. If it teaches us nothing else, this biography will at least teach us what is the real extent and urgency of the danger which has so much disturbed the tranquillity of the guardians of the Protestant faith of England.
‘Richard Hurrell Froude was born, as we read, on the “Feast of the Annunciation,” in the year 1803, and died in 1836. He was an Etonian, a Fellow of Oriel College, a priest in Holy Orders of the Church of England, the writer of unsuccessful prize essays, and of journals, letters, and sermons; an occasional contributor to the periodical literature of his theological associates; and, during the last four years of his life, an invalid in search of health, either in the south
of Europe or in the West Indies. Such are all the incidents of a life to the commemoration of which two octavo volumes have been dedicated. A more intractable story, if regarded merely as a narrative, was never undertaken. But Mr. Froude left behind him a great collection of papers, which affection would have committed to the fire, though party spirit has given them to the press. The most unscrupulous publisher of diaries and private correspondence never offered for sale a self-analysis more frank or less prepossessing. But the world is invited to gaze on this suicidal portraiture, on account of “the extreme importance of the views, to the development of which the whole is meant to be subservient,” and in order that they may not lose “the instruction derivable from a full exhibition of his character as a witness to those views.” Heavy as are the penalties which the Editors of these volumes have incurred for their disclosure of the infirmities of their friend, the world will probably absolve them if they will publish more of the letters which he appears to have received from his mother, and to have transmitted to them. One such letter which they have rescued from oblivion, is worth far more than all which they have published of her son’s. Though both the parent and the child have long since been withdrawn from the reach of this world’s judgment, it yet seems almost an impiety to transcribe her estimate of his early character, and to add that the less favourable anticipations which she drew from her study of him in youth, were but too distinctly verified in his riper years. She read his heart with a mother’s sagacity, and thus revealed it to himself with a mother’s tenderness and truth.
‘“From his very birth his temper had been peculiar; pleasing, intelligent, and attaching, when his mind was undisturbed, and he was in the company of people who treated him reasonably and kindly; but exceedingly impatient under vexatious circumstances; very much disposed to find his own amusement in teasing and vexing others; and almost entirely incorrigible when it was necessary to reprove him. I never could find a successful mode of treating him. Harshness made him obstinate and gloomy; calm and long displeasure made him stupid and sullen; and kind patience had not sufficient power over his feelings to force him to govern himself.