=James Anthony Froude (1818-1894)= was one of three gifted brothers, another being William Froude (1810-1879), the mathematician and engineer; and the third, Richard Hurrell Froude (1803-1836), a leader of the Tractarian movement, whose "Literary Remains" were published after his death by Keble and Newman. Froude was educated at Oriel College, Oxford, and for a time came under the influence of the movement of which his elder brother was a leading spirit, but ultimately he abandoned supernatural Christianity altogether, substituting for it a kind of poetic Theism which he partly adopted from Carlyle. In 1847 he published anonymously two novels, "The Spirit's Trials" and "The Lieutenant's Daughter," which contained some not very generous criticisms on his brother and former friends. His "Nemesis of Faith," which appeared in 1848, was a further criticism of the doctrines which he had abandoned. Between the years 1856 and 1869 he published the twelve volumes of his great work, "The History of England, from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada," which achieved a great and, in many respects, a well-deserved popularity. Rarely indeed has history been written with so much brilliancy and picturesque power. The earlier volumes have been much discredited among historical students: yet we would not willingly miss such delightful word-painting as his description of the Pilgrimage of Grace and other scenes in the career of the Eighth Henry, whom he selected for rehabilitation. It was, of course, a vain and impossible task to remove the odium which has settled upon the name of Henry VIII.; but it was as well that the attempt should be made. Henry had appeared to the mass of modern Englishmen as an old-world ogre, and Mr Froude has at least enabled them to see that he was after all a man. Mr Freeman, himself the most conscientious and laborious of writers, expressed his hearty contempt for an author who professed in the preface to his history that he took up the subject because he had "nothing better to do." As, however, Froude warmed to his work his book increased in value, and there are few who will deny the most sterling worth to his "Edward VI.," "Mary," and "Elizabeth." His escape from Tractarianism had made him unfriendly to all kindred movements, and his views of the struggle between Catholicism and Evangelicalism in the sixteenth century are more worthy of a Puritan divine than of an academic writer of our own day. But we can forgive all this, and much more, to one who has described with so much delicate fancy the adventurous life of Drake and Hawkins, the intrigues of the Scottish Queen, and the restless fickleness and untruthfulness of Elizabeth. His exquisite literary style and general breadth of sympathy are shown in such passages as his sketch of the rise of Protestantism and the execution of More and Fisher:--