Hurrell Froude: Memoranda and CommentsGuiney, Louise Imogen
History
Hurrell Froude: Memoranda and Comments
Guiney, Louise Imogen
Froude, Richard Hurrell, 1803-1836
first lines of the Tractarian Movement…. For his characteristic work
at Oxford, Newman had been prepared by the influence of Keble and
Froude. To quote Dean Church, “Keble had given the inspiration, Froude
had given the impetus; then Newman took up the work.” If Froude had
lived a few years longer, it cannot be doubted that he would have gone
over the imaginary line of division, and would have found himself
consciously and professedly at Rome. Keble had neither logic nor
courage to take him across the line…. Newman, alone of the three,
slowly and reluctantly, but by force of sincere and overmastering
convictions, followed his principles out to the complete end.
‘… To the Movement, as a Movement, Keble seems to have actively
contributed no momentum whatever, although his reputation (like
Pusey’s later on) lent it a powerful sanction. To Newman belongs all
the merit or demerit of the Tractarian line of policy and action.
Without him, the Movement would never have taken form or gathered way.
Froude was, very early, a powerful and energetic colleague: indeed,
without him, Newman would not have been what he was, nor done what he
did…. The chief interest attaching to Froude is that being what he
was, he so powerfully influenced Newman, who said of him in his
_Lectures on Anglicanism_,[327] that “he, if any, is the author of the
Movement altogether”: a saying hardly, however, consistent with the
statement already quoted from the _Apologia_ as to Keble’s relation to
the Movement. Froude was a man of much force of will, and superior
natural gifts; he was handsome and attractive, a bright and lively
companion, a warm and affectionate friend, a “good fellow,” but very
free indeed of his tongue. He was ignorant, self-conscious, and
audacious; as intense a hater as he was a warm friend; a bitter bigot,
a reckless revolutionist; one who delighted to speak evil of
dignitaries, and of departed worthies and heroes reverenced by
Protestant Christians at home and abroad. Church, who did not know
him, but took his estimate of him mainly from Newman, makes a
conspicuous figure of him, giving much more space to him than to
Pusey,[328] more even than to Keble. That this should be so, shows how
deeply Church had drunk into the spirit that prompted and inspired the
Tractarians. Even his friendly hand, however, cannot omit from his
picture certain features which, to an outsider who is not fascinated
by the _camaraderie_ of the Tractarian clique … will be almost
sufficient, without further evidence, to warrant the phrase, “a
flippant railer,” in which Julius Hare (himself, assuredly, no
Evangelical bigot or narrow sectary) describes the man whose _Remains_
were edited and published by his two great friends, that Anglican
Churchmen might be led to admire the zeal and devotion, and to drink
into the spirit, of this young hero of the new party. According to
their view, his early death in the odour of sanctity (although of true
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