“Mr. Froude improved very much in delivery and manner during this course of lectures ....  In his earlier lectures his ways were awkward, his speech was too rapid, and he did not know what in world to do with his hands.  It was quite to see him run them under his coat tails, spread them across his shirt front, stick them in his breeches pockets, twirl them in the arm-holes his vest, or hold them behind his back.  He has now found out how to dispose of them in a more or less natural way.  His delivery is less rapid, his voice better modulated, and his enunciation more distinct ....  One of his most effective peculiarities, in inviting the attention of his hearers, is the exceeding earnestness of the manner of his address.  This earnestness is not like that of rant.  It is the result of his own strong conviction and his desire to impress others.”  That is a fair and unprejudiced estimate of Froude as he appeared to a trained observer who took neither side in the dispute.  Many Irishmen shook hands with him, and thanked him for his plain speaking.  Bret Harte told him that even those who dissented most widely from his opinions admired his “grit.”  But politicians had to think of the Irish vote, and the proprietors of newspapers could not ignore their Catholic subscribers.  The priests worked against him with such effect that Mr. Peabody’s servants in Boston, who were Irish Catholics, threatened to leave their places if Froude remained as a guest in their master’s house.  Father Burke, who had begun politely enough, became obstreperous and abusive.  Froude’s life was in danger, and he was put under the special protection of the police.  The English newspapers, except The Pall Mall Gazette, gave him no support, and The Times treated his enterprise as Quixotic.  A preposterous rumour that he received payment from the British Ministry obtained circulation among respectable persons in New York.  He had intended to visit the Western States, but the project was abandoned in consequence of growing Irish hostility which made him feel that further effort would be useless.  It was not that he thought his arguments refuted, or capable of refutation.  He had considered them too long, and too carefully, for that.  But the well had been poisoned.  The malicious imputation of bribery was caught up by the more credulous Irish, and their priests warned them that they would do wrong in listening to a heretic.  As for the American people, they had no mind to take up the quarrel.  It was no business of theirs.

Some extracts from Froude’s letters to his wife will show how much he enjoyed American hospitality, and how far he appreciated American character.  “I was received on Saturday,” he wrote from New York on the 4th of October, 1872, “as a member of the Lotus Club—­the wits and journalists of New York.  It was the strangest scene I ever was present at.  They were very clever—­very witty at each other’s expense, very complimentary to me; and, believe me, they worked the publishers