If I call Froude a poet it is because, as I explained before, I do not consider rhyme as essential to poetry. But for really poetical power, for power of description, of making the facts of history alive, of laying bare the deepest thoughts of men and the most mysterious feelings of women, there was no poet or historian of our age who came near him. I knew him through all his phases. I knew him first when he was still a fellow of Exeter College. I was at that time often with him in his rooms in High Street, opposite to St. Mary’s Church, when he was busy writing novels, and I well remember passing an evening with him and trying to find the right name for a novel which afterwards appeared under the title of “Nemesis of Faith.” I saw him almost daily while his persecution at Oxford was going on, gaining strength every day. He had to give up his fellowship, on which he chiefly depended. I will not repeat the old story that his novel was publicly burnt in the quadrangle of Exeter College. The story is interesting as showing how quickly a myth can spring up even in our own lifetime, if only there is some likelihood in it, and something that pleases the popular taste. What really happened was, as I was informed at the time by Froude himself, no more than that one of the tutors (Dr. Sewell) spoke about the book at the end of one of his College Lectures. He warned the young men against the book, and asked whether anybody had read it. One of the undergraduates produced a copy which belonged to him. Dr. Sewell continued his sermonette, and warming with his subject, he finished by throwing the book, which did not belong to him, into the fire, at the same time stirring the coals to make them burn. Of what followed there are two versions. Dr. Sewell, when he had finished, asked his class, “Now, what have I done?” “You have burned my copy,” the owner of the book said in a sad voice, “and I shall have to buy a new one.” The other version of the reply was, “You have stirred the fire, sir.”