Excerpt from Romances of the French Theatre That was, in effect, though not of course in actual words, the exclamation drawn from Cardinal Newman when James Anthony Froude told the truth in a contribution to a series of Lives of the Saints. That was also, in effect, Matthew Arnold's exclamation when Prof. Dowden told the truth, or as much of it as he could ascertain, about Shelley. More than one reviewer has, from time to time, raised similar objections to the present writer's essays in biographical veracity. It is not the sort of thing which it is worth while to get angry about; but it may be worth while to review the objections philosophically and see what they amount to, and on what principles, if on any, they depend. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.