its charm."* Such summary judgments are seldom accurate.  Every one must be acquainted with individual Irishmen who do not correspond with Froude’s general description.  Nor does Froude always take into account the shrewdness, the humour, the genius for politics, which have distinguished Irishmen throughout the world.  Impressed with this view of the Irish character, he held that forbearance in dealing with Irish rebellions was misplaced, that Irishmen respected only an authority with which they durst not trifle, and that universal confiscation should have followed the defeat of Shan O’Neill.

—­ * Vol. i, pp. 21, 22, —­

These, however, were preliminary matters.  When he came to the eighteenth century Froude had to consider details, and here his prejudice against Catholicism led him astray.  In the reign of George ii. acts of lawless violence were not uncommon on this side of the Channel, and Richardson’s Clarissa was read with a credulity which showed that abduction could be committed without being followed by punishment.  In parts of Ireland it was not an infrequent offence, and Froude collected some abominable cases, which he described in his picturesque way.* As examples of disregard for humanity, and contempt for law, he was fully justified in citing them.  But he endeavoured to throw responsibility for these outrages on the Roman Catholic Church.  “Young gentlemen,” he says, “of the Catholic persuasion were in the habit of recovering equivalents for the lands of which they considered themselves to have been robbed, and of recovering souls at the same time by carrying off young Protestant girls of fortune to the mountains, ravishing them with the most exquisite brutality, and then compelling them to go through a form of marriage, which a priest was always in attendance ready to celebrate."+ This is a very serious charge, perhaps as serious a charge as could well be made against a religious communion.  It was an accusation improbable on the face of it; for while the Church of Rome in the course of her strange, eventful history has tampered with the sixth commandment, as Protestants call it, she has never underrated the virtue of chastity, and has always proclaimed a high standard of sexual morals.  In his zeal to justify the penal laws against Catholics Froude accepted without sufficient inquiry evidence which could only have satisfied one willing to believe the worst.

—­ * English in Ireland, vol. i. pp. 417-434. + Ibid., p. 417. —­

Several years afterwards, in 1878, the subject was fully discussed, and Froude’s conclusions were shown to be unsound, by another historian, William Edward Hartpole Lecky.  Lecky was a much more formidable critic than Freeman.  Calm in temperament and moderate in language, he could take part in an historical controversy without getting into a rage.  Freeman, after pages of mere abuse, would pounce with triumphant ejaculations upon a misprint.  Lecky did not waste his time either on scolding or on trifles.