Hurrell Froude: Memoranda and CommentsGuiney, Louise Imogen
History
Hurrell Froude: Memoranda and Comments
Guiney, Louise Imogen
Froude, Richard Hurrell, 1803-1836
Shortly after this letter was sent to post, Hurrell left Barbados for
good. No personal records of him exist there, and all memories of him
have faded away. His face was set at last towards another island where
his few remaining days could be crammed full of intelligent toil, and
played at their full value. From Bristol, on May 17, he was able to
announce: ‘_Fratres desideratissimi_! here I am, _benedictum sit nomen
Dei_, and as well as could be expected. I will not boast, and indeed,
have nothing[231] to boast of, as my pulse is still far from
satisfactory….
‘When we asked our pilot “Who was Speaker?” he did not know; but after
much cross-examining he recollected that he had heard it cried about
the street that the old one was turned out; who “the other gentleman”
was, he could not tell. Our next informant was the Custom House
officer, who boarded over night, when we anchored, to see that nothing
was taken out of the ship. All he knew was that “there had been a
jabbering” about a change of Ministers.[232] The day is as dull and
gloomy as possible; but after the torrid zone, any English May day is
“a sight for sair e’en.” … I hope to get a sight of you soon. And now
goodbye both! also I[saac] and R[ogers], and all that are within
reach.’
This is Newman’s narrative note, drawn, thirty years after, from his
own retentive memory:
‘R. H. F. made his appearance in Oxford on Tuesday, May 18. On the
morrow occurred the Convocation in the Theatre, when the proposed
innovation of a Declaration of Conformity to the Church of England,
instead of Subscription to the Articles, was rejected by 459 to 57. It
was the last vote he gave…. He left Oxford, never to return, on June
4. During this time Bowden was in Oxford; and for the first and last
time saw R. H. F.’
Miss Anne Mozley, too, remembered in old age her only sight of Hurrell
Froude.
‘It happened to [me], passing the coach office, in company with Mrs.
Newman, to see Froude as he alighted from the coach which brought him
to Oxford, and was being greeted by his friends. He was terribly thin,
his countenance dark and wasted, but with a brilliancy of expression
and grace of outline which justified all that his friends had said of
him. He was in the Theatre next day, entering into all the enthusiasm
of the scene, and shouting _Non placet_ with all his friends about
him. While he lived at all, he must live his life.’
[Illustration: ORIEL COLLEGE, OXFORD (BEFORE RESTORATION)]
Frederic Rogers was of the company at Convocation who protested
against a local Repeal of the Test and Corporation Act. He had no very
hopeful feelings about the much-welcomed immigrant, and wrote to his
sister from Oriel on May 2:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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