nity never came. But he was too
old and too wise a man to let such things affect his happiness, and
he was happier in Oxford than in London. "Some of the old Dons," he
wrote, "have been rather touchingly kind."

There was indeed only one chance of escaping Froude's magnetism, and
that was to keep out of his way. The charm of his company was always
irresistible. Different as the Oxford of 1893 was from the Oxford of
1843, young men are always the same, and Froude thoroughly
understood them. He had enjoyed himself at Oriel not as a reading
recluse, but as a boy out of school, and he was as young in heart as
ever. Strange is the hold that Oxford lays upon men, and not less
strong than strange. Nothing weakens it; neither time, nor distance,
nor success, nor failure, nor the revolution of opinion, nor the
deaths of friends. Oxford had been unjust to Froude, and had driven
out one of her most illustrious sons in something like disgrace. Yet
he never wavered in his affection for her, and the many vicissitudes
of his life he came back to Oriel with the spirits of a boy. The
spells of Oxford, like the spells of Medea, disperse the weight of
years.

CHAPTER XI

THE END

He lectures on Erasmus were not public; they were delivered in
Froude's private house at Cherwell Edge, and attended only by
members of the University reading for the Modern History School. His
public lectures on the Council of Trent and on English seamen had
been so much crowded by men and women, young and old, that
candidates for honours in history were scarcely able to find room.
Nothing could be more honourable to Froude, or to Oxford, than his
enthusiastic reception by his old University at the close of his
brilliant and laborious career. But it was too much for him. Like
Voltaire in Paris, he was stifled with flowers. His twentieth
discourse on Erasmus begins with the pathetic sentence, "This will
be my last lecture, for the life of Erasmus was drawing to an end."
So was his own. His final task in this world was the preparation of
Erasmus for the press. He had been all his life accustomed to work
at his own time, and the strain of living by rule at Oxford had told
upon him more than he knew. Before the end of the summer term in
1894 he left Oxford for Devonshire, worn out and broken down.
"Education," he wrote in his last letter to Skelton, "like so much
else in these days, has gone mad, and has turned into a large
examination mill." He was so mu