From ‘The Autobiography of Isaac Williams, B.D.’ Edited by his Brother-in-Law, the Ven. Sir George Prevost. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1892.

[By the kind permission of the Rev. G. A. Williams, and of Messrs Longmans, Green & Co.]

‘Keble took us into his house,[349] where I formed a most valued friendship with Froude. He was an Eton man, and at Oriel of a little older standing than myself. [We found] religion a reality, and a man wholly made up of love…. Here were many of us, taught with much pains and care by one till then a stranger, and altogether gratuitously…. Each of us was always delighted to walk with him, Wilberforce,[350] to gather instruction for the Schools, and the rest of us for love’s sake…. I spent all this vacation [1823] at Southrop, and, I think, all my subsequent ones. It was, I think, on this occasion that John Keble said: “Since you have shown me your Latin poems, I shall be vain enough to show you my English ones,” and he then lent me to read what has since been called The Christian Year. It was carefully written out in small red books. I read it a great deal, but did not much enter into it. No more did Froude, when he saw it; and, I think, even long after he was averse to the publication of it. Among other things he said: “People will take Keble for a Methodist!” At that time I told Keble my favourite poet was Collins: he said there was not enough thought in him to please himself. Froude was always maintaining some argument with Keble, occasionally some monstrous paradox. He was considered a very odd fellow at College, but clever and original; Keble alone was able to appreciate and value him. If he had not at this time fallen into such hands, his speculations might have taken a very dangerous turn; but as his father, the Archdeacon, told me, from this time it was much otherwise: he continued to throw out strong paradoxes, but always for good.

‘On returning to Oxford, Froude had now taken the place of my former companions, Keble being a great bond between us. I think he took more to me than I did to him, because I had been used to more of worldly refinement and sentiment, whereas he was unworldly, and real. But still, we were much united, and became more and more so…. Froude told me, many years after, that Keble once, before parting from him, seemed to have something on his mind which he wished to say, but shrunk from saying. At last, while waiting, I think, for a coach, he said to him before parting: “Froude, you said one day that Law’s Serious Call was a clever” (or “pretty,” I forgot which) “book: it seemed to me as if you had said the Day of Judgement would be a pretty sight.” This speech, Froude told me, had a great effect on his after-life; and I observed that in the published Letters in Froude’s Remains, he twice alludes to it…. Henry Ryder (like Wilberforce) had been brought up in a strict Evangelical school of the better kind; and on one occasion got up and left a College party in consequence of something that Froude had said that seemed to him to be of a light kind. But when he afterwards came to know the deep self-humiliation and depth of devotion there was in Froude’s character, which was engaged in the discipline of the heart, he became so shocked with himself and his own opinions, that he adopted the opposite course….

‘It was in August, 1825, that I first went with Froude into Devonshire. We went by a steamer from Cowes to Plymouth, as described in a letter in Froude’s Remains (Part i., Vol. i., p. 181). From Totnes, we walked up the Dart by Dartington House to the Parsonage: that place which ever since has been to me dearer than my native vales, of which I always say:

‘Ille terrarum mihi præter omnes Angulus ridet.

‘The Froudes were eight in family, and the Archdeacon became a great friend. But the people after my own heart were at Dartington House.[351] … With the Archdeacon and Hurrell we rode along the coast, being very hospitably entertained at different houses; and at last, from the Holdsworths’ house at Dartmouth we came up the river Dart by boat…. Prevost, [the] summer of 1826, came to Cwm,[352] and was engaged to my sister; and afterwards Froude came there too, and gives an account of his stay there in his published Journal, where I am mentioned under the letter I., and Prevost under that of P. All this time I was very unwell, and preying on my own mind. I went to Oxford to reside my Bachelor’s term, and lived with Sir Charles Anderson, and saw much of Froude, who was very kind to me. I went to Dartington, with the Archdeacon, from Oxford, and spent the Easter there…. When I went to reside in Oxford, in October, [1831], as College Tutor, I felt what a great change had come on my mind since residing there before, on account of the influence of Bisley[353] and Windrush,[354] and I found this the more on returning to the society of Froude, for I was become so much more soft and practical, and he more theoretical and speculative…. Yet this change that had been going on, from difference of circumstances, in no way lessened my friendship and intimacy with Froude, but rather increased it; for though naturally inclined to speculation, he was himself entirely of the Keble school, which in opposition to the Oriel or Whatelian, set ἦθος above intellect…. Living at that time so much with Froude, I was now, in consequence, for the first time, brought into intercourse with Newman; we almost daily walked and dined together. Newman and Froude were just then turned out of their tutorships at Oriel, together with Robert Wilberforce, who left Oxford for his living of East Farleigh. Their course had, as yet, been chiefly academical, but now, released from College affairs, their thoughts were more open to the state of the Church…. I was greatly charmed and delighted with Newman, who was extremely kind to me; but [I] did not altogether trust his opinions. Although Froude was in the habit of stating things in an extreme and paradoxical manner, yet one always felt conscious of a thorough foundation of truth and principle in him, a ground of entire confidence and agreement; but this was not so with Newman, even although one appeared more in unison with his more moderate statements.[355] … At this time he was coming to look to Keble altogether, as he received him second-hand through Froude…. But I always thought Froude an unfair exponent of Keble’s opinions: they were stated by him in a manner so much his own, so startling and original, and put in so extreme a light, that I could hardly recognise them as the same, so different was his from Keble’s manner of expressing himself. [Note.—Froude used to defend his startling way of putting facts and arguments on the ground that it was the only way to rouse people, and get their attention; and he said that when you had once done this, you might modify your statements. There is, of course, some truth in this, but it always seemed, and still seems to me, a dangerous line. John Keble could not do so: his great humility and diffidence would prevent it, and that strict conscientiousness which hindered him from even willingly overstating any fact, or pressing any argument, beyond what he said it really did prove….]

‘… The circumstance which I most remember about that time[356] was a conversation with Froude which was the first commencement of the Tracts for the Times. He returned full of energy and of a prospect of doing something for the Church; and we walked in the Trinity College gardens, and discussed the subject. He said, in his manner: “Isaac, we must make a row in the world! Why should we not? Only consider what the Peculiars” (i.e. the Evangelicals) “have done with a few half-truths to work upon! And with our principles, if we set resolutely to work, we can do the same.” I said: “I have no doubt we can make a noise, and may get people to join us; but shall we make them really better Christians? If they take up our principles in a hollow way, as the Peculiars” (this was a name Froude had given the Low Church party) “have done theirs, what good shall we do?” To this Froude said: “Church principles, forced on people’s notice, must work for good. However, we must try; and Newman and I are determined to set to work as soon as he returns, and you must join with us. We must have short tracts, and letters in The British Magazine, and verses (and these you can do for us), and get people to preach sermons on the Apostolical Succession and the like. And let us come and see old Palmer” (i.e. the author of the Origines Liturgicæ) “and get him to do something.” We then called on Palmer, who was one of the very few in Oxford (indeed, the only one at that time) who sympathised with us; and although he did not altogether understand Froude, or our ways and views (the less so as he was not himself an Oxford, but a Dublin man), yet he was extremely hearty in the cause, looking more to external visible union and strength than we did, for we only had at heart certain principles. We, i.e., Froude, Keble, and myself, immediately began to send some verses to The British Magazine, since published [in] the Lyra Apostolica….

‘… From this time forth, after Newman’s return, I was thrown more and more entirely into his society for about seven years, Froude waning more and more away, and disappearing from Oxford….

‘… I much regretted not being with poor Froude at or nearly before his death…. Poor Froude! he was peculiarly vir paucorum hominum: I thought that knowing him, I better understood Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Froude was a person most natural, but so original as to be unlike anyone else, hiding depth of delicate thought in apparent extravagances. Hamlet and the Georgics of Virgil, he used to say, he should have bound together. Many have imagined, and Newman endeavoured to persuade himself, that if Froude had lived he would have joined the Church of Rome, as well as himself. But this I do not at all think. There was a seriousness and steadfastness, at the bottom, in Froude, so that I had always confidence in him:[357] Newman told me once, half-seriously, that the publication of Froude’s Remains was owing to me, as I had said to him, if persons could have so much brought before them that they could thoroughly understand Froude’s character, then they might enter into his sayings; but unless they knew him as we did, they could not understand them. For, indeed, one constantly trembled for him in mixed society, both in Common Rooms and in other places, feeling that he would not be understood…. On the day of the book coming out, I went into Parker the bookseller’s with Copeland; and there we were startled at seeing one who then was the chief opponent of the Church principles of Newman and ourselves. It was Ward of Balliol, author of the Ideal. He sat down with the book in his hands, evidently much affected; and then we afterwards heard, to our astonishment, that he had been very much taken by the book, had bought a copy for himself and another to give away, and was, in fact, quite converted.’