ise us,
because Pindar is peculiarly the favourite poet of poetical minds; and
I suspect it was not so much the splendour of Pindar's style and the
wealth of his imagination that Freeman enjoyed, as rather the
profusion of historical and mythological references. He was impatient
with the Greek tragedians, and still more impatient with Virgil,
because (as he said) "Virgil cannot or will not say a thing simply."
Among English poets his preference was for the old heroic ballads,
such as the songs of Brunanburh and Maldon, and, among recent
writers, for Macaulay's _Lays_. The first thing he ever published
(1850) was a volume of verse, consisting mainly of ballads, some of
them very spirited, on events in Greek and Moorish history. It may be
doubted if he remembered a line of Shelley, Keats, Wordsworth, or
Tennyson. He blamed Walter Scott for misrepresenting history in
_Ivanhoe_, but constantly read the rest of his stories, taking special
pleasure in _Peveril of the Peak_. He bestowed warm praise upon
_Romola_, on one occasion reading it through twice in a single
journey. Mrs. Gaskell's _Mary Barton_, Marryatt's _Peter Simple_,
Trollope's _The Warden_ and _Barchester Towers_, were amongst his
favourites. Among the moderns, Macaulay was his favourite prose
author, and he was wont to say that from Macaulay he had learned never
to be afraid of using the same word to describe the same thing, and
that no one was a better model to follow in the choice of pure
English. Limitations of taste are not uncommon among eminent men. What
was uncommon in Freeman was the perfect frankness with which he avowed
his aversions, and the absence of any pretence of caring for things
which he did not really care for. He was in this, as in all other
matters, a singularly simple and truthful man, never seeking to appear
different from what he was, and finding it hard to understand why
other people should not be equally simple and direct. This directness
made him express himself with an absence of reserve which often gave
offence. Positive and definite, with a strong broad logic which every
one could follow, he was a formidable controversialist even on
subjects outside history. A good specimen of his powers was given in
the argument against the cruelty of field sports which he carried on
with Anthony Trollope. His cause was not a popular one in England, but
he stated it so well as to carry off the honours of the fray.[39]

The restriction of his inter