ng fire of friendly but outspoken criticism, which would have
strained the tie between men less generous and less devoted to
historical truth. Freeman was the more arbitrary and dogmatic, Green
the more sensitive and discriminating. Green bows to Freeman's superior
knowledge of Norman times, acknowledges him his master, and apologizes
for hasty criticisms when they give offence; but he boldly rebukes his
friend for his indifference to the popular movements in Italian cities
and for his pedantry about Italian names.

[Note 57: The first edition of Bryce's _Holy Roman Empire_ was
published in 1862.]

And he treads on even more delicate ground when he taxes him with
indulging too frequently in polemics, urging him to 'come out of the
arena' and to cease girding at Froude and Kingsley, whose writings
Freeman loved to abuse. Freeman, on the other hand, grumbles at Green
for going outside the province of history to write on more frivolous
subjects, and scolds him for introducing fanciful ideas into his
narrative of events. The classic instance of this was when Green, after
describing the capture by the French of the famous Chateau Gaillard in
Normandy, had the audacity to say, 'from its broken walls we see not
merely the pleasant vale of Seine, but also the sedgy flats of our own
Runnymede'. Thereby he meant his readers to learn that John would never
have granted the Great Charter to the Barons, had he not already
weakened the royal authority by the loss of Coeur-de-Lion's great
fortress beyond the sea, and that to a historian the germs of English
freedom, won beside the Thames, were to be seen in the wreckage of
Norman power above the Seine. But Freeman was too matter of fact to
allow such flights of fancy; and a lively correspondence passed between
the two friends, each maintaining his own view of what might or might
not be permitted to the votaries of Clio.

But before this episode Green had been introduced by Freeman to John
Douglas Cook, founder and editor of the _Saturday Review_, and had begun
to contribute to its columns. Naturally it was on historical subjects
that his pen was most active; but apart from the serious 'leading
articles', the _Saturday_ found place for what the staff called
'Middles', light essays written after the manner of Addison or Steele on
matters of every-day life. Here Green was often at his best. Freeman
growled, in his dictatorial fashion, when he found his friend turning
away from the stra