r the vituperation with which he
was assailed; but his profound distrust of the mediaeval Church
certainly does give an air of partisanship to his strictures on its
modern ineffectual revival. He forgot that great principles of justice
and toleration are now so embodied in law and fixed in the hearts of
the English-speaking people that society is protected, and the evils
of spiritual tyranny are restricted to the few who are willing to
abase their intellects to it; that the corroding evil of conventual
life is minimized by healthy outside influences; and that the most
advanced modern ritualist would prove too good a Christian to light an
_auto da fe_. It was but natural that he should forget this, for he
was a strong man in the centre of the conflict, and independence was
the core of his being.

This strength of independence is shown by the fact that though young,
and profoundly sensitive to the attraction of a character like
Newman's, he was from the first able to resist the fascination which
that remarkable man exerted over all with whom he came in contact. The
pure spiritual nature possesses a mysterious power over young men, so
great that they often yield to its counterfeit. Newman was the true
priest, and Froude recognized his genius and that his soul was "an
adumbration of the Divine." But he felt instinctively the radical
unsoundness of Newman's thought, and "would not follow, though an
angel led." Others fell off for prudential reasons; but Froude was
indifferent to these, and obedient to a conviction the strength of
which must be estimated by the depth of his feeling for character.

Froude was sometimes criticized for writing history under the
influence of personal feeling. It is difficult to see how a readable
history can be written except by one who at least takes an interest in
the story; but whether capacity for feeling makes a man a less
trustworthy historian, depends upon how far this emotional
susceptibility is controlled by intellectual insight and just views of
the laws under which society develops. That Froude was an absolutely
perfect historian, no one would claim: he was too intensely human to
be perfect. It is safe to say that the perfect historian will not
exist until Shakespeare and Bacon reappear combined in one man. For
the great historian must be both scholar and artist. As scholar he
must possess, too, both the acquisitive and the organizing intellect.
He must both gather facts and interpre