Hurrell Froude: Memoranda and CommentsGuiney, Louise Imogen
History
Hurrell Froude: Memoranda and Comments
Guiney, Louise Imogen
Froude, Richard Hurrell, 1803-1836
‘My dear son died this day. Since my last he has been gradually but
quietly sinking. After a rather more than usually restless night, he
spoke of himself as being quite comfortable this morning, and appeared
to hear the Service of the day, and a sermon, read to him with so much
attention that I did not think the sad event so near as it has been.
About two o’clock, as I was recommending him to take some egg and
wine, I observed a difficulty in his breathing. He attempted to speak;
and then after a few slight struggles, his sufferings were at an end.’
He was laid to rest on March 3, beside his mother, brother, and
sister, close to the Church porch. The burial service was read by the
Rev. Anthony Buller, a Devonian and an Oriel man, an old friend who
dearly loved him. Apparently neither Newman nor Keble travelled down
for the day to Dartington Parsonage, though the former, at least, had
arranged to do so from London. But the Archdeacon’s tidings were sent
to Oxford, and it was only on the morning of March 1 that Newman
learned of his loss. It quite overcame him. ‘He opened the letter in
my room,’ writes Thomas Mozley to his sister, ‘and could only put it
into my hand, with no remark. He afterwards, Henry Wilberforce told
me, lamented with tears (not a common thing for him), that he could
not [have seen] Froude just to tell him how much he felt that he had
owed to him in the clearing and strengthening of his views.’ Keble,
too, at the Hursley Altar, the Sunday after Hurrell’s home-going,
which must have been his own first Sunday there as Vicar, broke down
completely, and for some minutes could not go on. At Oriel (to
overhear again the Rev. T. Mozley addressing his brother John):
‘Froude’s death seems not a gloom, but a calm sadness over the
College. Newman showed me his father’s letter written the same day,
perfectly quiet and manly, making various arrangements, and telling
Newman and his [other] friends to make selections from Froude’s scanty
collection of books, to keep for his sake. I suppose Froude never got
a book or anything else, in his life, merely for the sake of having
it. His absolute indifference to possession was something marvellous.
Did I ever tell you that for two years, at least, he has given his
Fellowship to Newman, to go towards the _Tracts_? Yet he was by no
means careless about money matters; for he with great pains put the
accounts of Junior Treasurer (which I find troublesome enough even
now), on an entirely new and simpler plan, to the great convenience of
his successor…. I dare say there is no one who has said more severe
and cutting things to me, yet the constant impression Froude has
always left on my mind is that of kindness and _sweetness_.’ This
testimony, indeed, was general.
On March 2, Newman wrote to his old friend J. W. Bowden, from Oxford:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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