are
rather due to the congenital qualities of the race than to wrongs
inflicted by their conquerors--will excite earnest and perhaps bitter
controversy." This prediction was abundantly fulfilled, and the
controversy spoiled the tour. A friendly and sympathetic journalist
questioned Froude's "wisdom in coming before our people with this
course of lectures on Irish history ... We do not care for the
domestic troubles of other nations, and it is a piece of impertinence
to thrust them upon our attention. Mr. Froude knows perfectly well
that England would resent, and rightfully, the least interference on
our part with her Irish policy or her Irish subjects."

In this criticism there is a large amount of common sense, and
Froude would have done well to think of it before. He was not,
however, a man to be put down by clamour; he was sustained by the
fervour of his convictions, and it was too late for remonstrance.
His lectures had all been carefully prepared, and he went steadily
on with them. The unusual charge of dullness, which had been made
against some passages in his opening discourse, was never made
again. The lectures became a leading topic of conversation, and a
subject of fierce attack. Without fear, and in defiance of his
critics, he dashed into the reign of Henry VIII., "the English Blue
Beard, whom I have been accused of attempting to whitewash." "I
have no particular veneration for kings," he said. "The English
Liturgy speaks of them officially as most religious and gracious.
They have been, I suppose, as religious and gracious as other men,
neither more nor less. The chief difference is that we know more of
kings than we know of other men." Henry had a short way with
absentees. He took away their Irish estates, "and gave them to
others who would reside and attend to their work. It would have been
confiscation doubtless," beyond the power of American Congress,
though not of a British Parliament. "If in later times there had
been more such confiscations, Ireland would not have been the worse
for it." Here, then, Froude was on the side of the Irish. Here, as
always, he was under the influence of Carlyle. His ideal form of
government was an enlightened despotism, with a ruler drawn after
the pattern of children's story-books, who would punish the wicked
and reward the good. Froude never consciously defended injustice, or
tampered with the truth. His faults were of the opposite kind. He
could not help speaking out