FROUDE AND FREEMAN Froude's reputation as an historian was seriously damaged for a time by the persistent attacks of The Saturday Review.

It is difficult for the present generation to understand the influence which that celebrated periodical exercised, or the terror which it inspired, forty years ago.

The first editor, Douglas Cook, was a master of his craft, and his colleagues included the most brilliant writers of the day.

Matthew Arnold, who was not one of them, paid them the compliment of treating them as the special champions of Philistia, the chosen garrison of Gath.

On most subjects they were fairly impartial, holding that there was nothing new and nothing true, and that if there were it wouldn't matter.