ch
close the third volume of Short Studies, describe his journey in his
most agreeably colloquial style. A piece of literary criticism
adorns the entry for September 4th. "I have been feeding hitherto on
Greek plays: this morning I took Homer instead, and the change is
from a hot-house to the open air. The Greek dramatists, even
Aeschylus himself, are burdened with a painful consciousness of the
problems of human life, with perplexed theories of Fate and
Providence. Homer is fresh, free, and salt as the ocean."

No sooner had Froude landed at Cape Town than he began tracing all
its evils to responsible government. The solidity of the houses
reminded him that they were built under an absolute system. "What is
it which has sent our Colonies into so sudden a frenzy for what they
call political liberty?" A movement which has been in steady
progress for thirty years can scarcely be called sudden, even though
it be regarded as a frenzy, and so far back as 1776 there were
British colonists beyond the seas who attached some practical value
to freedom. A drive across the peninsula of Table Mountain suggested
equally positive reflections of another kind. "Were England wise in
her generation, a line of forts from Table Bay to False Bay would be
the northern limit of her Imperial responsibilities."

This had been the cherished policy of Lord Grey at the Colonial
Office, and the Whigs generally inclined to the same view. But it
was already obsolete. Lord Kimberley had proceeded on exactly the
opposite principle, and Lord Carnarvon's object in Federation was
certainly not to diminish the area of the British Empire.

If Froude talked in South Africa as he wrote in his journal, his
conversation must have been more interesting than discreet. "Every
one," he wrote from Port Elizabeth, on the 27th of September, 1874,
"approves of the action of the Natal Government in the Langalibalele
affair. I am told that if Natal is irritated it may petition to
relinquish the British connection, and to be allowed to join the
Free States. I cannot but think that it would have been a wise
policy, when the Free States were thrown off, to have attached Natal
to them." Lord Carnarvon disapproved of the Natal Government's
action, released Langalibalele, and recalled the Lieutenant-
Governor. His policy was as wise as it was courageous, and no
proposal to relinquish the British connection followed. Froude was a
firm believer in the Dutch method of dealin