Hurrell Froude: Memoranda and CommentsGuiney, Louise Imogen
History
Hurrell Froude: Memoranda and Comments
Guiney, Louise Imogen
Froude, Richard Hurrell, 1803-1836
‘… Pusey’s adherence was an instance of the right man coming in just
at the right time. The public had now [1835] been fairly aroused; they
had had sufficiently impressed upon them the duty of maintaining
Church principles; they had now a right to demand that those
principles should be fully and definitely explained to them in detail.
The time for short, stirring appeals was over; the time for solid,
sober treatises on divinity had arrived…. [Pusey’s] mild and
conciliatory spirit introduced a healing element into the Movement
which was certainly needed. The “fierceness” (to use his own
expression) of Newman, and especially of Newman when “kept up to the
mark by Froude,”[361] had the very natural effect of raising
opposition; and even in Keble, the gentle, humble Keble, there was a
strong spice, if not exactly of fierceness, yet of a tendency to give
vent to the most unpopular sentiments in the most uncompromising way,
without the slightest attempt to tone them down. Pusey, again, was far
more apt to recognise two sides of a question than was Keble, Newman,
or Froude…. The Movement gained Pusey, and lost Hurrell Froude, almost
at the same time. When Pusey joined the party, Froude was practically
a dying man; and in February 28, 1836, to the infinite regret of his
many friends, he died at his native Dartington. With Froude passed
away the most daring and “go-ahead” spirit connected with the whole
Movement. Newman was enthusiastic, but Froude was far more so; Newman
waged war against the complacency which was so characteristic of the
old Church party, but Froude was still more exasperated against it;
Newman was not over-cautious in his invectives against the fallacies
and prejudices of the age, but Froude was ten times less so. With an
intense earnestness and thoroughness of conviction, with a fiery
energy which would ride over anything, with a courage which sometimes
amounted to audacity, and with an irresistibly attractive personality,
there is no saying what would have happened if his short life had been
prolonged! But it is not a very profitable speculation to conjecture
what might have been. Suffice it to say that in one respect the
influence of Froude was likely to have had exactly the opposite effect
to that of Pusey. The one seemed, of all men, the most calculated to
trouble the waters, the other, to pour oil upon them; and the fact
that Froude dropped out just when Pusey began to make his influence
felt, seemed to promise that henceforth the Movement would create less
hostility. After events, however, proved that this was not to be the
case; and the causes are not far to seek….
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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