Hurrell Froude: Memoranda and Comments

by Louise Imogen Guiney

‘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….