state of sentiment thus: "It came into my head this morning, that it would be a good thing for me to set apart some days in the year for the commemoration of my worst acts of sin. I find, that, as the feelings in which they originated become extinct, I am too apt to forget it was myself who was guilty of them, and to look on the actions themselves as no longer connected with me, now that God in his goodness has delivered me from the temptation to repeat them. Besides, I think it would be the safest way of doing penance, and the most sure to exclude any feeling of self-complacency from obtruding itself on my humiliation and self-chastisement.' And thus the man who, as a boy, could only live happy while teasing others, is now compelled to tease himself, in order, as it were, to live at all. Finally, he determined on adopting an austere course of life," and on "making his conduct different from other people." Thus were the foundations of his character laid; and to be singular, he mistook for being religious. Thus he is found pleasing himself "with fancying that he was not common-place, and that a person like him ought to see" (some beautiful scenery with which he had been disappointed) "under different circumstances from other people." § These and other "visionary, indistinct feelings" || martyrise him hourly, but at length embody themselves in the following resolution :

"As soon as I am out of the reach of observation I will begin a sort of monastic austere life, and do my best to chastise myself before the Lord. I will attend chapel regularly, eat little and plainly, drink as little wine as I can consistently with the forms of society; keep the fasts of the Church as much as I can without ostentation; continue to get up at six in the winter; abstain from all unnecessary expenses in everything; give all the money I can save in charity, or for the adorning of religion. I will submit myself to the wishes of the as to one set over me by the Lord; but never give in to the will or opinion of any one from idleness, or false shame, or want of spirit. I will avoid society as much as I can, except those I can do good to, or from whom I may expect real advantage; and that I will, in all my actions, endeavour to justify that high notion of my capacities of which I cannot divest myself. That I will avoid all conversation on serious subjects, except with those whose opinions I revere; and content myself with exercising dominion over my own mind, without trying to influence others."¶

We have now the man before us in his internal character. His afterlife can only be its external developement. Vanity and hypocrisy are its primary elements; confessed and acknowledged, to be sure, but not abandoned. Theories of his own, too, he feels, and not the Word of God, are the rules on which he acts; but the feeling produces no practical influence, and he still continues to indulge "disgustingly selfcomplacent thoughts."** Thus, also, he is continually seeking "to make himself be what he would,"++ but never appears to think of

* P. 14.

§ P. 23.

** P. 29.

+ P. 21.

|| P. 25.

tt P. 35.

P. 22. ¶ P. 26.

permitting God to make him be what He would; trifling in this manner with his soul and her eternal relations. Fasting and penance availed him not-he proved their fruitlessness, yet in self-will returned to them-superstitious and idolatrous by choice and taste, as also by a certain arrogance of disposition and natural infirmity.

A sense of the injurious effects of solitary habits at length induced young Froude to take a pupil, that he might have companionship in his studies-with what success we know not; for nothing can exceed the inconsistency between his motives and his principles at this period of his life. His mind meanwhile seems to have amused itself with certain ontological and metaphysical speculations, in which he shows rather a capacity to puzzle himself than to resolve doubts and difficulties. Hence he seeks, at last, refuge in Patristic authority. "Mental imbecility" must needs have some asylum. His aversion to Milton, as an author and a man, is due to this same weakness. But he was an inadequate judge of poetic feeling, from positive ignorance. Even of Burns he knew nothing; and much of his state must be attributed to the deficiency of knowledge in certain directions, owing to the absurd exclusiveness of his studies. He was wise enough, however, to recognise the justice of the conclusion at which a friend had arrived, of his character, from an analysis of his handwriting. It was this: "This fellow has a great deal of imagination, but not the imagination of a poet; so it leads him into all sorts of fanciful conceptions, making him eccentric and often sillyish." *

Sillyish enough, often; but often, too, to be more sternly characterised. For instance, after expressing his indignation at the French Revolution of three days, he proceeds to say, "The fate of the poor King of France, whose only fault seems to have been his ignorance how far his people were demoralised, will give spirits to the rascals in all directions; though I sincerely hope the march of mind in France may yet prove a BLOODY ONE." + Such is the sanguinary disposition which equally belonged to the Founder of Tractarianism as to his disciples. With men who thus deem it lawful to lie, rob, and murder, in defence of their own theories, it is impossible to argue.

It is said by Mr. Froude's editors, that to journal confidences much allowance is due; and we grant it. Still, the character is in some sort to be judged from them; and where they only testify against a man, surely we require other and counteracting information, before we give a verdict in his favour. Of Augustine, for instance, we know something beyond his confessions, and give him the benefit of that knowledge. Besides, in the confessions themselves we want a positive, as well as a negative side. There are faults that lie on the generous, as well as the sordid, side of human nature. Now, Mr. Froude's all lie on the latter vanity, meanness, are his besetting sins-and these coming from a corrupt heart, and not from need or other obvious pressure.

Where there are strong passions and circumstantial temptations to plead, as in Burns's case, whom, as we have seen, this miserable pedant and formalist affects to treat with contemptuous pity and almost undisguised scorn, we readily volunteer apology, because we recognise an exuberance of positive power as the cause of eccentric conduct; but when, as in Mr. Froude's case, all proceeds from weakness, and the niggardliness, and not prodigality, of nature, we miss altogether the qualities that are needful to redeem even the occasional indulgence of error or vice. Before such a diary, then, as Mr. Froude's can interest our sympathies in his favour, we must have previously learned, for other reasons, to have esteemed him highly, and then we admire his humility in proportion to the amount of self-depreciation that he voluntarily brings to the confessional of his own conscience. We find no such reason in Mr. Froude. It is but fair to confess, however, that his editors do; and here it is in their own words:

"Let the reader, before he condemns, imagine to himself a case like the following. Let him suppose a person in the prime of manhood (with what talents and acquirements is not now the question) devoting himself ardently, yet soberly, to the promotion of one great cause; writing, speaking, thinking on it for years, as exclusively as the needs and infirmities of life would allow, but dying before he could bring to perfection any of the plans which had suggested themselves to him for its advancement."*

Now, having no respect for the cause spoken of, nor for the plans for its accomplishment-that cause being "the unprotestantising the Church of England," and the plans nothing less than a treacherous external, official, membership with her, while thereby, and by all possible insidious means, her interests and mission were constantly undermined this statement offers to us more reason for abhorrence than admiration. When it is added, that his exertions in this bad cause, and bad way of promoting it, were so unintermitting that, as we have before quoted, "he was firmly resolved never to shrink from anything not morally wrong, which he had good grounds to believe would really forward that cause, and that it was real pain and disquiet to him if he saw his friends in any way postponing it to his supposed feelings or interests," we only recognise a desperate character, daring all but ruin, in the prosecution of an evil purpose. Let, however, these anonymous editors have their full swing; therefore take the following sentence also:

"This case, of a person sacrificing himself altogether to one great object, is not of every day occurrence; it is not like the too frequent instances of papers being ransacked and brought to light, because the writer was a little wiser or better than his neighbours: it cannot be fairly drawn into a precedent, except in cases equally uncommon."+

And thus it remains that the sole ground of the admiration claimed for Mr. Froude rests on "the one great object" of his life; and, therefore, if we are not prepared to admire the Founder of an Order of Spies and

*Preface, p. vi.

† Ib., p. 7.

+ Ib., p. 8.

Traitors in the Camp of England's Church, established for the express purpose of aiding the Jesuits in their plans of Counter-Reformation, we shall see nothing admirable in Mr. Froude's character or conduct. No doubt that Mr. Froude was self-justified in his conduct by the opinions that he held, and his strong conviction that "the Church can never right itself without a blow-up;" but we cannot permit his manifest delusions to cloud our better judgements. Take some of these woful hallucinations :

"I have been very idle lately, but have taken up Strype now and then, and have not increased my admiration of the Reformers. One must not speak lightly of a martyr, so I do not allow my opinions to pass the verge of scepticism. But I really do feel sceptical whether Latimer was not something in the Bulteel line-whether the Catholicism of their formulæ was not a concession to the feelings of the nation, with whom Puritanism had not yet become popular, and who could scarcely bear the alterations which were made; and whether the progress of things in Edward VI.'s minority may not be considered as the jobbing of a faction? I will do myself the justice to say that those doubts give me pain, and that I hope more reading will in some degree dispel them. As far as I have gone, too, I think better than I was prepared to do of Bonner and Gardiner. Certainly the 700g of the Reformation is to me a terra incognita, and I do not think that it has been explored by any one that I have heard talk about it."*

"I have been looking into Strype's Memorials, and Burnet, a good deal, without finding much to like in the Reformers; but I do not see clearly the motives of the different parties. The sincerity of the leading men on both sides seems so equivocal, that I can hardly see what attached them to their respective positions. I have observed one thing, and only one, in favour of my guessed-at theory-that is, that Cranmer had a quarrel with Gardiner about admitting poor people's children to a foundation school at Canterbury; the latter insisting on their exclusion. Certainly this was a change in the tone of the High Church party, since William of Wykeham's time. Also I have read a volume of Froissart, and been much entertained with it. Edward and his Court were, on the whole, a poor set. They allied themselves with a rascally brewer of Ghent, who had just got up an insurrection in Flanders as villainous but more successful than this Belgian business, and treated the brewer and his crew as ceremoniously as any nobles. I see, also, that when Flanders was under excommunication, Master Edward promised to send over English clergy, who would perform the offices of the Church, in spite of the Pope, for the above-mentioned scoundrels. In support of Sharon Turner's notion, that the wars of York and Lancaster were religious, I see that the heretics got off very easily in Edward IV.'s reign. Burnet does not give his authorities, nor does he seem aware that the cases he mentions are not samples of what generally took place. (Vide Hist. Ref., 4to. ed., p. 26.)........ The person whom I like best, of all I have read about, is Cardinal Pole. He seems a hero of an ideal world, a union of chivalrous and Catholic feeling, like what one hopes to find people before one reads about them. I wish I had his book against Henry VIII.; Strype gives little more than some letters and a speech."+

So crude and childish were, at this time, the knowledge and opinions of Mr. Froude on matters which had tasked the judgement of men, and received the sanction of Providence. Elsewhere he expresses, in the same school-boy way, his hatred of Hampden; and then enquires, "Can you tell me where to go for the history of Lutheranism? I must know something of it, before I get a clue to Cranmer, and the

*P. 252.

+ P. 253, 254.

rest." And thus he goes on, prejudging the weightiest questions with a degree of presumptuous ignorance, of which, we trust, there are few recorded examples.

He

The winter of 1832-3 Froude spent in a Mediterranean tour. found many of his prejudices shaken by what he witnessed of the actual state of the Church of Rome, but he was not in a state of mind to be beneficially instructed. Thus he writes: "I think people are injudicious who talk against the Roman Catholics for worshipping saints and honouring the Virgin, and images, &c.; these things may, perhaps, be idolatrous-I cannot make up my mind about it—but, to my mind, it is the carnival which is real practical idolatry; as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.' He saw, however, that "the same process which is going on in England and France is taking its course everywhere else; and the clergy in these Catholic countries seem as completely to have lost their influence, and to submit as tamely to the State, as ever we can do in England." This he saw, but could not therein appreciate the wisdom of God; so wanting was he in spiritual discernment. With Rome, however, see how deeply he can sympathise :

"But Rome is the place, after all, where there is most to astonish one, and, of all ages, even the present. I don't know that I take much interest in the relics of the empire, magnificent as they are; although there is something sentimental in seeing (as one literally may) the cows and oxen Romanoque foro et lautis mugire Carinis. But the thing which most takes possession of one's mind is the entire absorption of the old Roman splendour in an unthought-of system; to see their columns, and marbles, and bronzes, which had been brought together at such an immense cost, all diverted from their first objects, and taken up by Christianity; St. Peter and St. Paul standing at the top of Trajan's and Antonine's columns, and St. Peter buried in the circus of Nero, with all the splendour of Rome concentred in his mausoleum.

"The immense quantity of rare marbles, which are the chief ornaments of the churches here, could scarcely have been collected except by the centre of a universal empire, which had not only unlimited wealth at its command, but access to almost every country; and now one sees all this dedicated to the martyrs. Before I came here I had no idea of the effect of coloured stone in architecture; but the use Michael Angelo has made of it in St. Peter's shows one at once how entirely that style is designed with reference to it, and how absurd it was in Sir C. Wren to copy the form, when he could copy nothing more. The coloured part so completely disconnects itself from the rest, and forms such an elegant and decided relief to it, that the two seem like independent designs that do not interfere. The plain stonework has all the simplicity of a Grecian temple, and the marbles set it off just as a fine scene or a glowing sky would. I observe that the awkwardness of mixing up arched and unarched architecture is thus entirely avoided, as all the arched work is coloured, and the lines of the uncoloured part are all either horizontal or perpendicular. So Michael Angelo adds his testimony to my theory about Gothic architecture."

And thus he proceeds in admiration of the mere external edifice of the Church, perplexing himself with all sorts of outward matters. Mr. Bunsen, the Prussian Minister, it seems, told Mr. Froude that

* P. 294.

Are the Tractarians not guilty of precisely the same absurdity?-ED.
P. 295.