‘… In July, 1832, the History of the Arians was ready for the press, and as Newman was now relieved of his College duties, he was more a man of leisure than he had ever been, and was also in more need of rest. Hurrell Froude (as Richard was always called, though there was another Hurrell in the family) had now to submit to be ruled by his anxious relatives. He must spend the winter on the Mediterranean and its shores, … and Newman was easily persuaded to go with him. In these days, it requires little persuasion to induce ordinary people who happen to be free from pressing engagements, to accept the offer of a Continental trip, especially southward, in the winter. But this did rather take Newman’s friends by surprise: the only reason they could suppose was his great anxiety for Hurrell Froude…. He never made a tour for pleasure’s sake, for health’s sake, or for change’s sake. He did move about a good deal, but it was to the country parsonages to which so many of his friends were early relegated….
‘… It must have been soon after Froude’s return from the Mediterranean that I had with him one of our old talks about architecture. He was as devoted to science and as loyal to it as any materialist could be. But architecture and science are very apt to be at variance, and Froude was always disposed to
side with the latter. As for Greek architecture, there is no science in it except the mystery of proportion and a certain preternatural and overpowering conception of beauty. The Temple of Egesta, which won the hearts of our travellers, has no more science in its construction than Stonehenge. But Roman architecture was for all the world, for its gods as well as for its mortals. The arch, and still more the vault, were mighty bounds into the time to come.
‘Always leaning on tradition where possible, Froude wished to believe the pointed arch the natural suggestion of a row of round arches seen in perspective. Of course, a deep round arch in a thick wall only shows its roundness when you stand directly before it, but seems pointed from any other direction. I remember ventilating this idea to Sir Richard Westmacott and Turner, the great painter, at the former’s table, and I remember also the great contempt with which the latter dismissed such mechanical ideas from the realm of the picturesque. But it was the dome that chiefly exercised Froude’s mind. It was a positive pain to him that so grand a building as the Parthenon should have been constructed, as he believed, in such ignorance of science. His notion was that if Agrippa had known the qualities of the catenary curve he would have used it, instead of the semi-circular curve: that is, in this instance, the spherical vault…. Had any common utilitarian made such a suggestion I should not have thought it worth notice. I only mention it as showing the scientific character of Froude’s tastes. The objections are obvious and overwhelming. In the first place, beauty must lead in architecture, and construction must obey…. Spherical domes are the crux and the pitfall of architecture. They involve false construction and positive deception…. Froude had a soul for beauty; but he did not like shams. He did not like a thing to seem what it was not. Few buildings are prepared to stand such a test. Amiens Cathedral, for example, the first love of the English tourist, is nothing more than an iron cage filled in with stone…. Robert Wilberforce had been much impressed with Cologne Cathedral and with the galleries of early art at Munich. It is an illustration of the turning of the tide, and of the many smaller causes contributing to the Movement, that in 1829, German agents (one of them
with a special introduction to Robert Wilberforce) filled Oxford with very beautiful and interesting tinted lithographs of mediæval paintings, which have probably, long ere this, found their way to a thousand parsonages: a good many to Brompton Oratory!… About the same time, there came an agent from Cologne with very large and beautiful reproductions of the original design for the Cathedral, which it was proposed to set to work on, with a faint hope of completing it before the end of the century. Froude gave thirty guineas for a set of the drawings, went wild over them, and infected not a few of his friends with mediæval architecture. As an instance of the way in which religious sentiment was now beginning to be disassociated from practical bearings and necessities, Froude would frequently mention the exquisitely finished details at York Minster and other Churches, in situations where no eye but the eye of Heaven could possibly reach them…. He was most deeply interested in architecture, but it is plain that he was more penetrated and inspired by St. Peter’s[387] than even by Cologne Cathedral. After spending three days with me in taking measurements, tracings, mouldings, and sketches of St. Giles at Oxford, one of the purest specimens of Early English, he devoted a good deal of time at Barbados to designing some homely Tuscan addition to Codrington College….
‘It was now [1833] deep in Long Vacation, but no period in the annals of Oxford was ever more pregnant with consequences than the next two months. The returning travellers had lost time. The world had got the start of them, and they had to make up for it. Froude’s imagination teemed with new ideas, new projects, topics likely to tell or worth trying; to be tried, indeed, and found variously successful. They came from him like a shower of meteors, bursting out of a single spot in a clear sky, for they had been pent up. Every post had brought the travellers some account of fresh “atrocities.” The Examiner was the only paper
that talked sense. Conservative Churchism Froude now utterly abhorred. In passing through France, he had listened with hopefulness to the dream that a deeper descent into republicanism than that represented by Louis Philippe, would land that country in High Churchism. How could the Church of England now be saved? By working out the oath of canonical obedience? By a lay synod, pending the apostasy of Parliament? By a race of clergy living less like country gentlemen? By dealing in some way or other with the appointment of Bishops? By a systematic revival of religion in large towns; in particular, by colleges of unmarried priests? By Excommunication? By working upon the pauperes Christi? By writing up the early Puritans, who had so much to say for themselves against the tyranny of Elizabeth? By preaching Apostolic Succession? By the high sacramental doctrine? By attacking State interference in matters spiritual? By an apostolic vocabulary giving everything its right name? By recalling the memory of the Gregorian age?
‘It was perhaps a happy diversion of his thoughts that he had so much to say on other topics, such as architecture, and the construction of ships and dock-gates. It was now plain that he had brought home with him not only his own fervid temperament, but some of the heat of sunny climes, where indeed he had not taken proper care of his health, or any care at all. Like most other Englishmen, he would not be indoors by sunset, or put on warmer clothing when the thermometer dropped 20 or 30°. It happened to be an exceptionally cold winter in the Mediterranean. As far as regards health, the experiment had been a failure.
‘One thing, however, is quite clear from his Letters and other remains; and, as he was all this time somewhat in advance of Newman, it has a bearing on his mental history. Froude came home even more utterly set against Roman Catholics than he had been before. His conclusion was that they held the Truth in unrighteousness; that they were “wretched Tridentines everywhere,” and of course, ever since the Reformation; that the conduct and behaviour of the clergy was such that it was impossible they could believe what they professed, that they were idolaters in the sense of substituting
easy and good-natured divinities for the God of Truth and Holiness.