Part 2 - Letter from James Anthony Froude to Edward FitzGerald

1 folded sheet.

5 Onslow Gardens, S. W. - FitzGerald's parcel has reached him; the letters and the MS book shall be safely kept and returned; does not know whether he can 'go into the question of the Squire Papers - The story has already been substantially told by Squire himself. It is a very strange one, and I, for one, can form no opinion about it. Some of the Naseby letters I think I shall be able to use'. Hopes to see FitzGerald at some point and discuss 'many things'.

Spedding was his cousin; Froude 'looked up to him as a model of perfection from the time when I was a little boy. I hardly know what harm his friends are doing him. Four or five years ago he said to me with peculiar sadness that everything which he did was doomed to be a failure'; Froude fears that 'even the Evenings with a Reviewer will only be read by those who knew him. The spoilt taste of the modern Public will not swallow food which is perfectly genuine'.

Note by FitzGerald at the end that he is sending this letter [to W. Aldis Wright?] 'because of the Spedding part' and does not want it back; it can be shown to the Master [W. H. Thompson?] if he has not yet left Cambridge.

Tipped into O.4.54.

Presumably written at the time Froude was working on Carlyle's biography, 1881-1884.