Note 357 — HURRELL FROUDE (continued 3)

[I find that John Keble and others quite agree with me that there was that in Hurrell Froude that he could not have joined the Church of Rome.] There is a somewhat corroborative passage in A Short Sketch of the Tractarian Upheaval, by Thomas Leach, B.A. London: Bemrose & Sons, 1887. ‘It is possible, of course, as Dr. Newman would seem to imply, that Froude would have gone over side by side, or rather in advance of, his fellow-leader: for Froude was one to be in advance generally of those with whom he journeyed. On the other hand, we must give due weight to the fact that Froude, as Dr. Newman himself tells us, was “an Englishman to the backbone in his severe adherence to the real and the concrete.”’ The inference, pleasing to some minds, is that ‘Rome’ is a mere chimera.