itus followed on the other side!"

Oxford, and its old clothes, Froude had cast behind him. He had
never taken priest's orders, and the clerical disabilities imposed
upon him were not only cruel, but ridiculous. Shut out from the law,
he turned to literature, and became a regular reviewer. There was
not so much reviewing then as there is now, but it was better paid.
His services were soon in great request, for he wrote an
incomparable style.

The origin of Froude's style is not obscure. Too original to be an
imitator, he was in his handling of English an apt pupil of Newman.
There is the same ease, the same grace, the same lightness of
elastic strength. Froude, like Newman, can pass from racy,
colloquial vernacular, the talk of educated men who understand each
other, to heights of genuine eloquence, where the resources of our
grand old English tongue are drawn out to the full. His vocabulary
was large and various. He was familiar with every device of
rhetoric. He could play with every pipe in the language, and sound
what stop he pleased. Oxford men used to talk very much in those
days, and have talked more or less ever since, about the Oriel
style. Perhaps the best example of it is Church, the accomplished
Dean of St. Paul's. Church does not rival Newman and Froude at their
best. But he never, as they sometimes do, falls into loose and
slipshod writing. He was the fine flower of the old Oxford
education, growing in hedged gardens, sheltered from the winds of
heaven, such as Catullus painted in everlasting colours long
centuries ago. Froude was a man of the world, who knew the classics,
and the minds of men, and cities, and governments, and the various
races which make up the medley of the universe. He wrote for the
multitude who read books for relaxation, who want to have their
facts clearly stated, and their thinking done for them. He satisfied
all their requirements, and yet he expressed himself with the
natural eloquence of a fastidious scholar. Lucky indeed were the
editors who could obtain the services of such a reviewer, and he was
fortunate in being able to recommend with power the poetry of his
friend, Matthew Arnold.*

--
* His recommendation was entirely sincere. "Matt. A.'s Sohrab and
Rustum," he wrote to Clough, "is to my taste all but perfect."
--

Although Froude enjoyed with avidity the conversation of his chosen
friends, he was not satisfied with intellectual epicureanism. He was
resolved to make