ous means of
building up a federal system. Although Canadian Federation was
emphatically Canadian in its origin, and had been adopted in
principle by Cardwell during the Government of Lord Russell, it was
Lord Carnarvon who carried it out, and he had no warmer supporter
than Froude.

Of Froude's favourite recreations at this time the best account is
to be found in his two Short Studies on A Fortnight in Kerry. From
1868 to 1870 he rented from Lord Lansdowne a place called Derreen,
thirty-six miles from Killarney, and seventeen from Kenmare, where
he spent the best part of the summer and autumn. If Froude did not
altogether understand the Irish people, at least the Irish
Catholics, and had no sympathy with their political aspirations, he
loved their humour, and the scenery of "the most beautiful island in
the world" had been familiar to him from his early manhood. In one
of his youthful rambles he had been struck down by small-pox, and
nursed with a devotion which he never forgot. Yet between him and
the Celt, as between him and the Catholic, there was a mysterious,
impassable barrier. They had not the same fundamental ideas of right
and wrong. They did not in very truth worship the same God. But of
Froude and the Irish I shall have to speak more at length hereafter.
In Kerry he enjoyed himself, while at the same time he finished his
History of England, and his description of the country is
enchanting.

"A glance out of the window in the morning showed that I had not
overrated the general charm of the situation. The colours were
unlike those of any mountain scenery to which I was accustomed
elsewhere. The temperature is many degrees higher than that of the
Scotch highlands. The Gulf Stream impinges full upon the mouths of
its long bays. Every tide carries the flood of warm water forty
miles inland, and the vegetation consequently is rarely or never
checked by frost even two thousand feet above the sea-level. Thus
the mountains have a greenness altogether peculiar, stretches of
grass as rich as water-meadows reaching between the crags and
precipices to the very summits. The rock, chiefly old red sandstone,
is purple. The heather, of which there are enormous masses, is in
many places waist deep." Yachting and fishing, fishing and yachting,
were the staple amusements at Derreen. Nothing was more
characteristic of Froude than his love of the sea and the open air.
Sport, in the proper sense of the term, he also loved. "I