not remember his having made any sign of personal sympathy one way or
the other with any of the great domestic movements which have stirred
England in my time. I presume that he is what would be generally called
a Liberal; at least it is simply impossible that he could be a Tory. But
I doubt if he could very distinctly "place himself," as the American
phrase is, with regard to most of the political contentions of the time.
I cannot call Mr. Froude a philosophical Radical; for the idea which
that suggests is of a school of thought and a system of training quite
different from his, even if his tendencies could possibly be called
Radical. It is rather a pity that so much of the best and clearest
literary intellect of England should be so entirely withdrawn from the
practical study of contemporary politics. No sensible person could ask a
man like Mr. Froude to neglect his special work, that for which he has a
vocation and genius, for the business of political life. But perhaps a
better attempt might be made by him and others of our leading authors to
fulfil the conditions of the German proverb which recommends that the
one thing shall be done and the other not left undone. Mr. Froude has
taken a more marked interest in the quasi-political question lately
raised touching the connection between England and her colonies. Of
recent years a party has been growing up in England who advocate
emphatically the doctrine that the business of this country is to
educate her colonies for emancipation. These men believe that as time
goes on it will become more and more difficult to retain even a nominal
connection between distant colonies and the parent country. The Dominion
of Canada and the Australian colonies, both separated by oceans from
England, are now practically independent. They have their own
parliaments, and make their own laws; but England sends out a governor,
and the governor has still a nominal control indeed, which in some rare
cases he still exercises. Now what is to be the tendency of the future?
Will this practical independence tend to bind the colonial system more
strongly up into that of the central empire, as the practical
independence of the American or the Swiss States keeps them together? Or
is the time inevitable when the slight bond must be severed altogether
and the great colonies at last declare their independence? Would it, for
example, be possible always to maintain the American Union if several
thousand miles of ocean divided California in one direction from
Washington, and several thousand miles of another ocean lay between
Washington and the South? This is the sort of question political parties
in England have lately been asking themselves. One party, mainly under
an impulse once given by a chance alliance between the Manchester school
and Goldwin Smith, affirm boldly that ultimate separation is inevitable,
and that we ought to begin to prepare ourselves and the colonies for
it. This party made great way for awhile. They said loudly, they
announced as a principle, that which had been growing vaguely up in many
minds, and which one or two statesmen had long before put into actual
form. More than twelve years ago Mr. Gladstone delivered a lecture on
our colonial system which plainly pointed to this ultimate severance and
bade us prepare for it. Mr. Lowe, the present Chancellor of the
Exchequer, himself an old colonist, had talked somewhat cynically in the
same way. Mr. Bright was well known to favor the idea; so was Mr. Mill.
With the sudden and direct impulse given by Mr. Goldwin Smith, the
thought seemed to be catching fire. England had voluntarily given up the
Ionian Islands to Greece; there was talk of her restoring Gibraltar to
Spain. Mr. Lowe had spoken in the House of Commons with utter contempt
of those who thought it would be possible to hold Canada in the event of
a war with the United States. Governors of colonies actually began to
warn their population that the preparation for independence had better
begin. Suddenly a reaction set in. A class of writers and speakers came
up to the front who argued that the colonies were part of England's very
life system; that they were her friends, and might be her strength; that
it was only her fault if she had neglected them; and that the natural
tendency was to cohesion rather than dissolution. This party roused at
once the sympathy of that large class of people who, knowing and caring
nothing about the political and philosophical aspects of the question,
thought it somehow a degradation to England, a token of decay, a
confession of decrepitude, that there should be any talk of the
severance of her colonies. Between the two, the tide of separatist
feeling has decidedly been rolled back for the present. The humor of the
present day is to devise means--schemes of federation or federative
representation for example--whereby the colonies may still be kept in
cohesion with England. Now, among the men of intellect who have
stimulated and fostered this reactionary movement, if it be so--at all
events, this movement toward the retention of the colonies--Mr. Froude
has been a leading influence. He has advocated such a policy himself,
and he has instilled it into the minds of others. He has formed silently
a little school who take their doctrines from him and expand them. The
colonial question has become popular and powerful. We have every now and
then colonial conferences held in London, at which everybody who has any
manner of suggestion to make, or crotchet to air, touching the
improvement or development of our colonial system, goes and delivers his
speech independently of everybody else. In the House of Commons the
party is not yet very strong; but if it had a leader there, it would
undoubtedly be powerful. There is even already a visible anxiety on the
part of cabinet ministers to drop all allusion to the fact that they
once talked of preparing the colonies for independence. We now find that
it is regarded as unpatriotic, un-English, ungrateful, and I know not
what, to say a word about a possible severance, at any time, between the
parent country and her colonies. In one of Mr. Disraeli's novels a
political party, hard up for a captivating and popular watchword, is
thrown into ecstasies when somebody invents the cry of "Our young Queen
and our old Constitution." I think the cry of "Our young colonies and
our old Constitution" would be almost as taking now. It is curious,
however, to note how both the movement and the reaction came from
scholars and literary men--not from politicians or journalists. Many
eminent men had talked of gradually preparing the colonies for
independence; but the talk never became an impulse and a political
movement until it came from Mr. Goldwin Smith. On the other hand,
countless vociferous persons had always been bawling out that England
must never part with a rock on which her flag had waved; but all this
sort of thing had no effect until Mr. Froude and his school inaugurated
the definite movement of reaction. Mr. Goldwin Smith sent the ball
flying so far in one direction, that it seemed almost certain to reach
the limit of the field. Mr. Froude suddenly caught it and sent it flying
back the way it had come, and beyond the hand which had originally
driven it forth. It is not often that the ideas of "literary" men have
so much of positive influence over practical controversy in England.
For a long time Mr. Froude has been the editor of "Fraser's Magazine," a
periodical which I need not say holds a high position, and to which the
editor has contributed some of the finest of his shorter writings. He is
assisted in the work of editing by Mr. William Allingham, who is best
known as a young poet of great promise, and who is probably the closest
personal friend of Alfred Tennyson. "Fraser's" is always ready to open
its columns to merit of any kind, and is willing to put before the
public bold and original views of many political questions which other
periodicals would shrink from admitting. As a rule English magazines,
even when they acknowledge a dash of the philosophic in them, are very
reluctant to give a place to opinions, however honestly entertained,
which differ in any marked degree from those of society at large. The
"Fortnightly Review" may be almost regarded as unique in its principle
of admitting any expression of opinion which has genuineness and value
in it, without regard to its accordance with public sentiment, or even
to its inherent soundness. "Fraser," of course, makes no pretension to
such deliberate boldness. But "Fraser" will now and then venture to put
in an article, even from an uninfluential hand, which goes directly in
the teeth of accepted and orthodox political opinion. For example, it is
not many months since it published an article written by an English
working man ("The Journeyman Engineer," a sort of celebrity in his way)
to prove that republicanism is becoming the creed of the English
artisan. Now, in any English magazine which professes to be respectable,
it is almost as hazardous a thing to speak of republicanism in England
as to speak of something indecent or blasphemous. "Fraser" also made
itself conspicuous some years ago as a bold and persevering advocate of
army reform, and ventured to press certain schemes of change which then
seemed either revolutionary or impossible, but which since then have
been quietly realized.
I think I have given a tolerably accurate estimate of Mr. Froude's
public work in England. I have never heard him make a speech or deliver
a lecture, and therefore cannot conjecture how far he is likely to
impress an audience with the manner of his discourse; but the matter can
hardly fail to be suggestive, original, and striking. I can foresee
sharp controversy and broad differences of opinion arising out of his
lectures in the United States. I cannot imagine their being received
with indifference, or failing to hold the attention of the public. Mr.
Froude is a great literary man, if not strictly a great historian. Of
course every one must rate Froude's intellect very highly. He has
imagination; he has that sympathetic and dramatic instinct which enables
a man to enter into the emotions and motives, the likings and dislikings
of the people of a past age. His style is penetrating and thrilling; his
language often rises to the dignity of a poetic eloquence. The figures
he conjures up are always the semblances of real men and women. They are
never wax-work, or lay figures, or skeletons clothed in words, or purple
rags of description stuffed out with straw into an awkward likeness to
the human form. The one distinct impression we carry away from Froude's
history is that of the living reality of his figures. In Marlowe's
"Faustus" the Doctor conjures up for the amusement of the Emperor a
procession of stately and beautiful shadows to represent the great ones
of the past. When the shadows of Alexander the Great and his favorite
pass by, the Emperor can hardly restrain himself from rushing to clasp
the hero in his arms, and has to be reminded by the wizard that "these
are but shadows not substantial." Even then the Emperor can scarcely get
over his impression of their reality, for he cries:
I have heard it said
That this fair lady, whilst she lived on earth,
Had on her neck a little wart or mole;
and lo! there is the mark on the neck of the beautiful form which floats
across his field of vision. Mr. Froude's shadows are like this: so
deceptive, so seemingly vital and real; with the beauty and the blot
alike conspicuous; with the pride and passion of the hero, and the
heroine's white neck and the wart on it. Mr. Froude's whole soul, in
fact, is in the human beings whom he meets as he unfolds his narrative.
He is not an historical romancist, as some of his critics have called
him. He is a romantic or heroic portrait painter. He has painted
pictures on his pages which may almost compare with those of Titian.
Their glances follow you and haunt you like the wonderful eyes of Caesar
Borgia or the soul-piercing resignation of Beatrice Cenci. But is Mr.
Froude a great historian? Despite this splendid faculty, nay, perhaps
because of this, he wants the one great and essential quality of the
true historian, accuracy. He wants altogether the cold, patient, stern
quality which clings to facts--the scientific faculty. His narrative
never stands out in that "dry light" which Bacon so commends, the light
of undistorted and clear Truth. The temptations to the man with a gift
of heroic portrait-painting are too great for Mr. Froude's resistance.
His genius carries him away and becomes his master. When Titian was
painting his Caesar Borgia, is it not conceivable that his imagination
may have been positively inflamed by the contrast between the physical
beauty and the moral guilt of the man, and have unconsciously heightened
the contrast by making the pride and passion lower more darkly, the
superb brilliancy of the eyes burn more radiantly than might have been
seen in real life? The world would take little account even if it were
to know that some of the portraits it admires were thus idealized by the
genius of the painter; but the historian who is thus led away is open to
a graver charge. It seems to me impossible to doubt that Mr. Froude has
more than once been thus ensnared by his own special gift. What is there
in literature more powerful, more picturesque, more complete and
dramatic than Froude's portrait of Mary Queen of Scots? It stands out
and glows and darkens with all the glare and gloom of a living form,
that now appears in sun and now in shadow. It is almost as perfect and
as impressive as any Titian. But can any reasonable person doubt that
the picture on the whole is a dramatic and not an historical study?
Without going into any controversy as to disputed facts--nay, admitting
for the sake of argument that Mary was as guilty as Mr. Froude would
make her--as guilty, I mean, in act and deed--yet it is impossible to
contend with any show of reason that the being he has painted for us is
the Mary of history and of life. To us his Mary now is a reality. We are
distinctly acquainted with her; we see her and can follow her movements.
But she is a fable and might be an impossibility for all that. The poets
have made many physical impossibilities real for us and familiar to us.
The form and being of a mermaid are not one whit less clear and distinct
to us than the form and being of a living woman. If any of us were to
see a painting of a mermaid with scales upon her neck, or with feet, he
would resent it or laugh at it as an inaccuracy, just as if he saw some
gross anatomical blunder in a picture of an ordinary man or woman. Mr.
Froude has created a Mary Queen of Scots as the poets and painters have
created a mermaid. He has made her one of the most imposing figures in
our modern literature, to which indeed she is an important addition. So
of his Queen Elizabeth; so, to a lesser extent, of his Henry VIII.,
because, although there he may have gone even further away from history,
yet I think he was misled rather by his anxiety to prove a theory than
by the fascination of a picture growing under his own hands. Everything
becomes for the hour subordinate to this passion for the picturesque in
good or evil. Mr. Froude's personal integrity and candor are constantly
coming into contradiction with this artistic temptation; but the
portrait goes on all the same. He is too honest and candid to conceal or
pervert any fact that he knows. He tells everything frankly, but
continues his portrait. It may be that the very vices which constitute
the gloom and horror of this portrait suddenly prove their existence in
the character of the person who was chosen to illustrate the brightness
and glory of human nature. Mr. Froude is not abashed. He frankly states
the facts; shows how, in this or that instance, Truth did tell shocking
lies, Mercy ordered several massacres, and Virtue fell into the ways of
Messalina. But the portraits of Truth, Mercy, and Virtue remain as
radiant as ever. A lover of art, according to a story in the memoirs of
Canova, was so struck with admiration of that sculptor's Venus that he
begged to be allowed to see the model. The artist gratified him; but so
far from beholding a very goddess of beauty in the flesh, he only saw a
well-made, rather coarse-looking woman. The sculptor, seeing his
disappointment, explained to him that the hand and eye of the artist, as
they work, can gradually and almost imperceptibly change the model from
that which it is in the flesh to that which it ought to be in the
marble. This is the process which is always going on with Mr. Froude
whenever he is at work upon some model in which for love or hate he
takes unusual interest. Therefore the historian is constantly involving
himself in a welter of inconsistencies and errors which affect the
artist in nowise. Henry is a hero on one page, although he does the very
thing which somebody else on the next page is a villain for even
attempting. Elizabeth remains a prodigy of wisdom and honesty, Mary a
marvel of genius, lust, cruelty, and falsehood, although in every other
chapter the author frankly accumulates instances which show that now and
then the parts seem to have been exchanged; and it often becomes as hard
to know, by any tangible evidence, which is truth and which falsehood,
which patriotism and which selfishness, as it was to distinguish the
true Florimel from the magical counterfeit in Spenser's "Faery Queen."
This is a grave and a great fault; and unhappily it is one with which
Mr. Froude seems to have been thoroughly inoculated. It goes far to
justify the dull and literal old historians of the school of Dryasdust,
who, if they never quickened an event into life, never on the other hand
deluded the mind with phantoms. The chroniclers of mere facts and dates,
the old almanac-makers, are weary creatures; but one finds it hard to
condemn them to mere contempt when he sees how the vivid genius of a man
like Froude can lead him astray. Mr. Froude's finest gift is his
greatest defect for the special work he undertakes to do. A scholar, a
thinker, a man of high imagination, a man likewise of patient labor, he
is above all things a romantic portrait painter; and the spell by which
his works allure us is therefore the spell of the magician, not the
power of the calm and sober teacher.
SCIENCE AND ORTHODOXY IN ENGLAND.
"The old God is dead above, and the old Devil is dead below!"
So sang Heinrich Heine in one of his peculiarly cheerful moods; and I do
not know that any words could paint a more complete picture of the utter
collapse and ruin of old theologies and time-honored faiths and
superstitions. Irreverent and even impious as the words will perhaps
appear to most minds, it is probable that not a few of those who would
be most likely to shudder at their audacity are beginning to think with
horror that the condition of things described by the cynical poet is
being rapidly brought about by the doings of modern science. Many an
English country clergyman, many an earnest and pious Dissenter, must
have felt that a new and awful era had arrived--that a modern war of
Titans against Heaven was going on, when such discourses as Professor
Huxley's famous Protoplasm lecture could be delivered by a man of the
highest reputation, and could be received by nearly all the world with,
at least, a respectful consideration. In fact, the delivery of such
discourses does indicate a quite new ordeal for old-fashioned orthodoxy,
and an ordeal which seems to me far severer than any through which it
has yet passed. It would be impossible to exaggerate the importance of
the struggle which is now openly carried on between Science and Orthodox
Theology. I need hardly say perhaps that I utterly repudiate the use of
any such absurd and unmeaning language as that which speaks of a
controversy between science and religion. One might as well talk of a
conflict between fact and truth; or between truth and virtue. But
orthodox theology in England, whether it be right or wrong, is certainly
a very different thing from religion. Were it wholly and eternally true
it could still only bear the same relation to religion that geography
bears to the earth, astronomy to the sidereal system, the words
describing to the thing described. I may therefore hope not to be at
once set down as an irreligious person, merely because I venture to
describe the war indirectly waged against orthodox theology, by a new
school of English scientific men, as the severest trial that system has
ever yet had to encounter, and one through which it can hardly by any
possibility pass wholly unscathed.
In describing briefly and generally this new school of English science,
and some of its leading scholars, I should say that I do so merely from
the outside. I am not a scientific man professionally; and, even as an
amateur, can only pretend to very slight attainment. But I have been on
the scene of controversy, have looked over the field, and studied the
bearing of the leading combatants. When Cressida had seen the chiefs of
the Trojan army pass before her and had each pointed out to her and
described, she could probably have told a stranger something worth his
listening to, although she knew nothing of the great art of war. Only on
something of the same ground do I venture to ask for any attention from
American readers, when I say something about the class of scientific men
who have recently sprung up in England, and of whom one of the most
distinguished and one of the most aggressive has just been elected
President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.
This school is peculiarly English. So far as I know, it owes nothing
directly and distinctly to the intellectual initiative of any other
country. Both in metaphysical and in practical science there has been a
sudden and powerful awakening, or perhaps I should say _renaissance_,
in England lately. Three or four years ago Stuart Mill wrote that the
sceptre of psychology had again passed over to England; and it seems to
me not too much to say that England now likewise holds the sceptre of
natural science. It is evident to every one that the leaders of this new
school stand in antagonism which is decided, if not direct, to the
teachings of orthodox theology.
The recent election of Professor Huxley as President of the British
Association was accepted universally as a triumph over the orthodox
party. Professor Owen, who undoubtedly possesses one of the broadest and
keenest scientific intellects of the age, has lately been pushed aside
and has fallen into something like comparative obscurity because he
could not, or would not, see his way into the dangerous fields opened up
by his younger and bolder rivals. Professor Owen held on as long as ever
he could to orthodoxy. He made heavy intellectual sacrifices at its
altar. I do not quite know whether in the end it was he who first gave
the cold shoulder to orthodoxy, or orthodoxy which first repudiated him.
But it is certain that he no longer stands out conspicuous and ardent as
the great opponent of Darwin and Huxley. He has, in fact, receded so
much from his old ground that one finds it difficult now to know where
to place him; and perhaps it will be better to regard him as out of the
controversy altogether. If he had done less for orthodoxy, where his
labors were vain, he might have done much more for science, where his
toil would always have been fruitful. Undoubtedly, he is one of the
greatest naturalists since Cuvier; his contributions toward the facts
and data of science have been valuable beyond all estimation; his
practical labors in the British Museum would alone earn for him the
gratitude of all students. Owen is, or was, to my mind, the very
perfection of a scientific lecturer. The easy flow of simple, expressive
language, the luminous arrangement and style which made the profoundest
exposition intelligible, the captivating variety of illustration, the
clear, well-modulated voice, the self-possessed and graceful manner--all
these were attributes which made Owen a delightful lecturer, although he
put forward no pretensions to rhetorical skill or to eloquence of any
very high order. But while there can hardly have been any recent falling
off in Owen's intellectual powers, yet it is certain that he was more
thought of, that he occupied a higher place in the public esteem, some
half dozen years ago than he now does. I think there has been a general
impression of late years that in the controversy between theology and
science, Owen was not to be relied upon implicitly. People thought that
he was trying to sit on the two stools; to run with the theological
hare, and hold with the scientific hounds. Indeed, Owen is eminently a
respectable, a courtly _savant_. He does not love to run tilt against
the prevailing opinion of the influential classes, or to forfeit the
confidence and esteem of "society." He loves--so people say--the company
of the titled and the great, and prefers, perhaps, to walk with Sir Duke
than with humble Sir Scholar. All things considered, we may regard him
as out of the present controversy, and, perhaps, as left behind by it
and by the opinions which have created it. The orthodox do not seem much
beholden to him. Only two or three years ago an orthodox association for
which Owen had delivered a scientific lecture, refused on theological
grounds to print the discourse in their regular volume. On the other
hand, the younger and more ardent _savans_ and scholars sneer at him,
and refuse to give him credit for sincerity at the expense of his
intelligence. They believe that if he chose to speak out, if he had the
courage of his opinions, he would say as they do. He has ceased to be
their opponent, but he is not upon their side; he is no longer the
champion of pure orthodoxy, but he has never pronounced openly against
it. Flippant people allude to him as an old fogy; let us say more
decently that Richard Owen already belongs to the past.