it is because in the first the art is carrying him out of himself,
and making him forget just for a little that the age is so entirely
out of joint." A very fine and discriminating piece of criticism.

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* April 10th, 1849.
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The immediate effect of The Nemesis, the only effect it ever had,
was disastrous. Whatever else it might be, it was undoubtedly
heretical, and in the Oxford of 1849 heresy was the unpardonable
sin. The Senior Tutor of Exeter, the Reverend William Sewell, burnt
the book during a lecture in the College Hall. Sewell, afterwards
founder and first Warden of Radley, was a didactic Churchman, always
talking or writing, seldom thinking, who contributed popular
articles to The Quarterly Review. The editor, Lockhart, knew their
value well enough. They tell one nothing, he said, they mean
nothing, they are nothing, but they go down like bottled velvet.
Sewell's eccentricities could not hurt Froude. But more serious
consequences followed. The Governing Body of Exeter, the Rector* and
Fellows, called upon him to resign his Fellowship. This they had no
moral right to do, and Froude should have rejected the demand. For
though his name and college were on the title-page of the book, the
book itself was a work of fiction, and he could not justly be held
responsible for the opinions of the characters. Expulsion was,
however, held out to him as the alternative of resignation.

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* Dr. Richards.
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