He was himself aware that this caused displeasure. In his latest Charge, delivered some months before his death, he said: “I am charged, amongst other grievous sins, with that of thinking not unkindly, and speaking not unfavourably, of Dissenters. I don’t profess to love dissent, but I have received innumerable kindnesses from Dissenters. Why should I abuse them? Why should I call them hard names? Remembering how Nonconformity was made—no doubt sometimes by self-will and pride and prejudice and ignorance, but far more often by the Church’s supineness, neglect, and intolerance in days long since gone by, of which we have not yet paid the full penalty—though, as I have said, I love not the thing, I cannot speak harshly of it.”
That a defence was needed may seem strange to those who do not know England.
A Life of Lord Iddesleigh, written by Mr. Andrew Lang, presents Northcote’s character and career with fairness and discrimination.
The Life of Parnell, by Mr. R. Barry O’Brien, has taken rank among the best biographies of the last half-century.
An anecdote was told at the time that when he found himself in the prison yard at Kilmainham, he said, in a sort of soliloquy, “I shall live yet to dance upon those two old men’s graves.”
An excellent Life of Freeman has been written by his friend Mr. W. R. W. Stephens, afterwards Dean of Winchester, whose death while these pages were passing through the press has caused the deepest regret to all who had the opportunity of knowing his literary gifts and his lovable character.