Freeman, Edward A.

Edward A. (1823-1892), a noted English historian. He was a graduate of Oxford University, and in 1873 he became professor of modern history in that institution. A list of his published works includes over thirty titles. Among these are several volumes on cathedral architecture and various antiquities. His most famous book is The History of the Norman Conquest. Other works are Growth of the English Constitution, Historical Essays, The Ottoman Power in Europe, Methods of Historical Study. Mr. Freeman was a patient investigator, a man of immense learning, a seeker for truth, a pugnacious opponent, a persistent glorifier of the Teuton, and a man of the highest and kindliest character. In 1863 his reputation for sagacity as a historian received a severe shock in the United States. In this year he published the first part of a work entitled The History of Federal Government from the Achaean League to the Disruption of the United States. Americans, acting on the principle that "the wish is father to the thought," have never forgiven him fully for believing that the experiment of a free government in the New World had proved a failure; when, as a matter of fact, Freeman was one of the Stuart-Mill group of ardent Northern sympathizers,--but he had lost hope. The wish was not father to the thought, any more than with Hawthorne, who publicly despaired at about the same time. We are indebted to Freeman's scholarly pages for a number of pertinent extracts. See Macaulay; Hume; Green; Lingard