Part 39

FREPPEL, CHARLES EMILE (1827-1891), French bishop and politician, was born at Oberehnheim (Obernai), Alsace, on the 1st of June 1827. He was ordained priest in 1849 and for a short time taught history at the seminary of Strassburg, where he had previously received his clerical training. In 1854 he was appointed professor of theology at the Sorbonne, and became known as a successful preacher. He went to Rome in 1869, at the instance of Pius IX., to assist in the steps preparatory to the promulgation of the dogma of papal infallibility. He was consecrated bishop of Angers in 1870. During the Franco-German war Freppel organized a body of priests to minister to the French prisoners in Germany, and penned an eloquent protest to the emperor William I. against the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine. In 1880 he was elected deputy for Brest and continued to represent it until his death. Being the only priest in the Chamber of Deputies since the death of Dupanloup, he became the chief parliamentary champion of the Church, and, though no orator, was a frequent speaker. On all ecclesiastical affairs Freppel voted with the Royalist and Catholic party, yet on questions in which French colonial prestige was involved, such as the expedition to Tunis, Tong-King, Madagascar (1881, 1883-85), he supported the government of the day. He always remained a staunch Royalist and went so far as to oppose Leo XIII.'s policy of conciliating the Republic. He died at Angers on the 12th of December 1891. Freppel's historical and theological works form 30 vols., the best known of which are: _Les Peres apostoliques et leur epoque_ (1859); _Les Apologistes chretiens au II^e siecle_ (2 vols., 1860); _Saint Irenee et l'eloquence chretienne dans la Gaule aux deux premiers siecles_ (1861); _Tertullien_ (2 vols., 1863); _Saint Cyprien et l'Eglise d'Afrique_ (1864); _Clement d'Alexandrie_ (1865); _Origene_ (2 vols., 1867).

There are interesting lives by E. Cornut (Paris, 1893) and F. Charpentier (Angers, 1904).

FRERE, SIR HENRY BARTLE EDWARD (1815-1884), British administrator, born at Clydach in Brecknockshire, on the 29th of March 1815, was the son of Edward Frere, a member of an old east county family, and a nephew of John Hookham Frere, of _Anti-Jacobin_ and _Aristophanes_ fame. After leaving Haileybury, Bartle Frere was appointed a writer in the Bombay civil service in 1834, and went out to India by way of Egypt, crossing the Red Sea in an open boat from Kosseir to Mokha, and sailing thence to Bombay in an Arab dhow. Having passed his examination in the native languages, he was appointed assistant collector at Poona in 1835. There he did valuable work and was in 1842 chosen as private secretary to Sir George Arthur, governor of Bombay. Two years later he became political resident at the court of the rajah of Satara, where he did much to benefit the country by the development of its communications. On the rajah's death in 1848 he administered the province both before and after its formal annexation in 1849. In 1850 he was appointed chief commissioner of Sind, and took ample advantage of the opportunities afforded him of developing the province. He pensioned off the dispossessed amirs, improved the harbour at Karachi, where he also established municipal buildings, a museum and barracks, instituted fairs, multiplied roads, canals and schools.

Returning to India in 1857 after a well-earned rest, Frere was greeted at Karachi with news of the mutiny. His rule had been so successful that he felt he could answer for the internal peace of his province. He therefore sent his only European regiment to Multan, thus securing that strong fortress against the rebels, and sent further detachments to aid Sir John Lawrence in the Punjab. The 178 British soldiers who remained in Sind proved sufficient to extinguish such insignificant outbreaks as occurred. His services were fully recognized by the Indian authorities, and he received the thanks of both houses of parliament and was made K.C.B. He became a member of the viceroy's council in 1859, and was especially serviceable in financial matters. In 1862 he was appointed governor of Bombay, where he effected great improvements, such as the demolition of the old ramparts, and the erection of handsome public offices upon a portion of the space, the inauguration of the university buildings and the improvement of the harbour. He established the Deccan College at Poona, as well as a college for instructing natives in civil engineering. The prosperity--due to the American Civil War--which rendered these developments possible brought in its train a speculative mania, which led eventually to the disastrous failure of the Bombay Bank (1866), an affair in which, from neglecting to exercise such means of control as he possessed, Frere incurred severe and not wholly undeserved censure. In 1867 he returned to England, was made G.C.S.I., and received honorary degrees from Oxford and Cambridge; he was also appointed a member of the Indian council.

In 1872 he was sent by the foreign office to Zanzibar to negotiate a treaty with the sultan, Seyyid Burghash, for the suppression of the slave traffic. In 1875 he accompanied the prince of Wales to Egypt and India. The tour was beyond expectation successful, and to Frere, from Queen Victoria downwards, came acknowledgments of the service he had rendered in piloting the expedition. He was asked by Lord Beaconsfield to choose between being made a baronet or G.C.B. He chose the former, but the queen bestowed both honours upon him. But the greatest service that Frere undertook on behalf of his country was to be attempted not in Asia, but in Africa. Sir Bartle landed at Cape Town as high commissioner of South Africa on the 31st of March 1877. He had been chosen by Lord Carnarvon in the previous October as the statesman most capable of carrying his scheme of confederation into effect, and within two years it was hoped that he would be the first governor of the South African Dominion. He went out in harmony with the aims and enthusiasm of his chief, "hoping to crown by one great constructive effort the work of a bright and noble life." In this hope he was disappointed. As he stated at the close of his high commissionership, a great mistake seemed to have been made in trying to hasten what could only result from natural growth, and the state of South Africa during Frere's tenure of office was inimical to such growth.

Discord or a policy of blind drifting seemed to be the alternatives presented to Frere upon his arrival at the Cape. He chose the former as the less dangerous, and the first year of his sway was marked by a Kaffir war on the one hand and by a rupture with the Cape (Molteno-Merriman) ministry on the other. The Transkei Kaffirs were subjugated early in 1878 by General Thesiger (the 2nd Lord Chelmsford) and a small force of regular and colonial troops. The constitutional difficulty was solved by Frere dismissing his obstructive cabinet and entrusting the formation of a ministry to Mr (afterwards Sir) Gordon Sprigg. Frere emerged successfully from a year of crisis, but the advantage was more than counterbalanced by the resignation of Lord Carnarvon early in 1878, at a time when Frere required the steadiest and most unflinching support. He had reached the conclusion that there was a widespread insurgent spirit pervading the natives, which had its focus and strength in the celibate military organization of Cetywayo and in the prestige which impunity for the outrages he had committed had gained for the Zulu king in the native mind. That organization and that evil prestige must be put an end to, if possible by moral pressure, but otherwise by force. Frere reiterated these views to the colonial office, where they found a general acceptance. When, however, Frere undertook the responsibility of forwarding, in December 1878, an ultimatum to Cetywayo, the home government abruptly discovered that a native war in South Africa was inopportune and raised difficulties about reinforcements. Having entrusted to Lord Chelmsford the enforcement of the British demands, Frere's immediate responsibility ceased. On the 11th of January 1879 the British troops crossed the Tugela, and fourteen days later the disaster of Isandhlwana was reported; and Frere, attacked and censured in the House of Commons, was but feebly defended by the government. Lord Beaconsfield, it appears, supported Frere; the majority of the cabinet were inclined to recall him. The result was the unsatisfactory compromise by which he was censured and begged to stay on. Frere wrote an elaborate justification of his conduct, which was adversely commented on by the colonial secretary (Sir Michael Hicks Beach), who "did not see why Frere should take notice of attacks; and as to the war, all African wars had been unpopular." Frere's rejoinder was that no other sufficient answer had been made to his critics, and that he wished to place one on record. "Few may now agree with my view as to the necessity of the suppression of the Zulu rebellion. Few, I fear, in this generation. But unless my countrymen are much changed, they will some day do me justice. I shall not leave a name to be permanently dishonoured."

The Zulu trouble and the disaffection that was brewing in the Transvaal reacted upon each other in the most disastrous manner. Frere had borne no part in the actual annexation of the Transvaal, which was announced by Sir Theophilus Shepstone a few days after the high commissioner's arrival at Cape Town. The delay in giving the country a constitution afforded a pretext for agitation to the malcontent Boers, a rapidly increasing minority, while the reverse at Isandhlwana had lowered British prestige. Owing to the Kaffir and Zulu wars Sir Bartle had hitherto been unable to give his undivided attention to the state of things in the Transvaal. In April 1879 he was at last able to visit that province, and the conviction was forced upon him that the government had been unsatisfactory in many ways. The country was very unsettled. A large camp, numbering 4000 disaffected Boers, had been formed near Pretoria, and they were terrorizing the country. Frere visited them unarmed and practically alone. Even yet all might have been well, for he won the Boers' respect and liking. On the condition that the Boers dispersed, Frere undertook to present their complaints to the British government, and to urge the fulfilment of the promises that had been made to them. They parted with mutual good feeling, and the Boers did eventually disperse--on the very day upon which Frere received the telegram announcing the government's censure. He returned to Cape Town, and his journey back was in the nature of a triumph. But bad news awaited him at Government House--on the 1st of June 1879 the prince imperial had met his death in Zululand--and a few hours later Frere heard that the government of the Transvaal and Natal, together with the high commissionership in the eastern part of South Africa, had been transferred from him to Sir Garnet Wolseley.

When Gladstone's ministry came into office in the spring of 1880, Lord Kimberley had no intention of recalling Frere. In June, however, a section of the Liberal party memorialized Gladstone to remove him, and the prime minister weakly complied (1st August 1880). Upon his return Frere replied to the charges relating to his conduct respecting Afghanistan as well as South Africa, previously preferred in Gladstone's Midlothian speeches, and was preparing a fuller vindication when he died at Wimbledon from the effect of a severe chill on the 29th of May 1884. He was buried in St Paul's, and in 1888 a statue of Frere upon the Thames embankment was unveiled by the prince of Wales. Frere edited the works of his uncle, Hookham Frere, and the popular story-book, _Old Deccan Days_, written by his daughter, Mary Frere. He was three times president of the Royal Asiatic Society.

His _Life and Correspondence_, by John Martineau, was published in 1895. For the South African anti-confederation view, see P. A. Molteno's _Life and Times of Sir John Charles Molteno_ (2 vols., London 1900). See also SOUTH AFRICA: _History_.

FRERE, JOHN HOOKHAM (1769-1846), English diplomatist and author, was born in London on the 21st of May 1769. His father, John Frere, a gentleman of a good Suffolk family, had been educated at Caius College, Cambridge, and would have been senior wrangler in 1763 but for the redoubtable competition of Paley; his mother, daughter of John Hookham, a rich London merchant, was a lady of no small culture, accustomed to amuse her leisure with verse-writing. His father's sister Eleanor, who married Sir John Fenn (1739-1794), the learned editor of the _Paston Letters_, wrote various educational works for children under the pseudonyms "Mrs Lovechild" and "Mrs Teachwell." Young Frere was sent to Eton in 1785, and there began an intimacy with Canning which greatly affected his after life. From Eton he went to his father's college at Cambridge, and graduated B.A. in 1792 and M.A. in 1795. He entered public service in the foreign office under Lord Grenville, and sat from 1796 to 1802 as member of parliament for the close borough of West Looe in Cornwall.

From his boyhood he had been a warm admirer of Pitt, and along with Canning he entered heart and soul into the defence of his government, and contributed freely to the pages of the _Anti-Jacobin_, edited by Gifford. He contributed, in collaboration with Canning, "The Loves of the Triangles," a clever parody of Darwin's "Loves of the Plants," "The Needy Knife-Grinder" and "The Rovers." On Canning's removal to the board of trade in 1799 he succeeded him as under-secretary of state; in October 1800 he was appointed envoy extraordinary and plenipotentiary to Lisbon; and in September 1802 he was transferred to Madrid, where he remained for two years. He was recalled on account of a personal disagreement he had with the duke of Alcudia, but the ministry showed its approval of his action by a pension of L1700 a year. He was made a member of the privy council in 1805; in 1807 he was appointed plenipotentiary at Berlin, but the mission was abandoned, and Frere was again sent to Spain in 1808 as plenipotentiary to the Central Junta. The condition of Spain rendered his position a very responsible and difficult one. When Napoleon began to advance on Madrid it became a matter of supreme importance to decide whether Sir John Moore, who was then in the north of Spain, should endeavour to anticipate the occupation of the capital or merely make good his retreat, and if he did retreat whether he should do so by Portgual or by Galicia. Frere was strongly of opinion that the bolder was the better course, and he urged his views on Sir John Moore with an urgent and fearless persistency that on one occasion at least overstepped the limits of his commission. After the disastrous retreat to Corunna, the public accused Frere of having by his advice endangered the British army, and though no direct censure was passed upon his conduct by the government, he was recalled, and the marquess of Wellesley was appointed in his place.

Thus ended Frere's public life. He afterwards refused to undertake an embassy to St Petersburg, and twice declined the honour of a peerage. In 1816 he married Elizabeth Jemima, dowager countess of Erroll, and in 1820, on account of her failing health, he went with her to the Mediterranean. There he finally settled in Malta, and though he afterwards visited England more than once, the rest of his life was for the most part spent in the island of his choice. In quiet retirement he devoted himself to literature, studied his favourite Greek authors, and taught himself Hebrew and Maltese. His hospitality was well known to many an English guest, and his charities and courtesies endeared him to his Maltese neighbours. He died at the Pieta Valetta on the 7th of January 1846. Frere's literary reputation now rests entirely upon his spirited verse translations of Aristophanes, which remain in many ways unrivalled. The principles according to which he conducted his task were elucidated in an article on Mitchell's _Aristophanes_, which he contributed to _The Quarterly Review_, vol. xxiii. The translations of _The Acharnians_, _The Knights_, _The Birds_, and _The Frogs_ were privately printed, and were first brought into general notice by Sir G. Cornewall Lewis in the _Classical Museum_ for 1847. They were followed some time after by _Theognis Restitutus, or the personal history of the poet Theognis, reduced from an analysis of his existing fragments_. In 1817 he published a mock-heroic Arthurian poem entitled _Prospectus and Specimen of an intended National Work, by William and Robert Whistlecraft, of Stowmarket in Suffolk, Harness and Collar Makers, intended to comprise the most interesting particulars relating to King Arthur and his Round Table_. William Tennant in _Anster Fair_ had used the _ottava rima_ as a vehicle for semi-burlesque poetry five years earlier, but Frere's experiment is interesting because Byron borrowed from it the measure that he brought to perfection in _Don Juan_.

Frere's complete works were published in 1871, with a memoir by his nephews, W. E. and Sir Bartle Frere, and reached a second edition in 1874. Compare also Gabrielle Festing, _J. H. Frere and his Friends_ (1899).

FRERE, PIERRE EDOUARD (1819-1886), French painter, studied under Delaroche, entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1836 and exhibited first at the Salon in 1843. The marked sentimental tendency of his art makes us wonder at Ruskin's enthusiastic eulogy which finds in Frere's work "the depth of Wordsworth, the grace of Reynolds, and the holiness of Angelico." What we can admire in his work is his accomplished craftsmanship and the intimacy and tender homeliness of his conception. Among his chief works are the two paintings, "Going to School" and "Coming from School," "The Little Glutton" (his first exhibited picture) and "_L'Exercice_" (Mr Astor's collection). A journey to Egypt in 1860 resulted in a small series of Orientalist subjects, but the majority of Frere's paintings deal with the life of the kitchen, the workshop, the dwellings of the humble, and mainly with the pleasures and little troubles of the young, which the artist brings before us with humour and sympathy. He was one of the most popular painters of domestic genre in the middle of the 19th century.

FRERE-ORBAN, HUBERT JOSEPH WALTHER (1812-1896), Belgian statesman, was born at Liege on the 24th of April 1812. His family name was Frere, to which on his marriage he added his wife's name of Orban. After studying law in Paris, he practised as a barrister at Liege, took a prominent

## part in the Liberal movement, and in June 1847 was returned to the

Chamber as member for Liege. In August of the same year he was appointed minister of public works in the Rogier cabinet, and from 1848 to 1852 was minister of finance. He founded the Banque Nationale and the Caisse d'Epargne, abolished the newspaper tax, reduced the postage, and modified the customs duties as a preliminary to a decided free-trade policy. The Liberalism of the cabinet, in which Frere-Orban exercised an influence hardly inferior to that of Rogier, was, however, distasteful to Napoleon III. Frere-Orban, to facilitate the negotiations for a new commercial treaty, conceded to France a law of copyright, which proved highly unpopular in Belgium, and he resigned office, soon followed by the rest of the cabinet. His work _La Mainmorte et la charite_ (1854-1857), published under the pseudonym of "Jean van Damme," contributed greatly to restore his party to power in 1857, when he again became minister of finance. He now embodied his free-trade principles in commercial treaties with England and France, and abolished the _octroi_ duties and the tolls on the national roads. He resigned in 1861 on the gold question, but soon resumed office, and in 1868 succeeded Rogier as prime minister. In 1869 he defeated the attempt of France to gain control of the Luxemburg railways, but, despite this service to his country, fell from power at the elections of 1870. He returned to office in 1878 as president of the council and foreign minister. He provoked the bitter opposition of the Clerical party by his law of 1879 establishing secular primary education, and in 1880 went so far as to break off diplomatic relations with the Vatican. He next found himself at variance with the Radicals, whose leader, Janson, moved the introduction of universal suffrage. Frere-Orban, while rejecting the proposal, conceded an extension of the franchise (1883); but the hostility of the Radicals, and the discontent caused by a financial crisis, overthrew the government at the elections of 1884. Frere-Orban continued to take an active part in politics as leader of the Liberal opposition till 1894, when he failed to secure re-election. He died at Brussels on the 2nd of January 1896. Besides the work above mentioned, he published _La Question monetaire_ (1874); _La Question monetaire en Belgique_ in 1889; _Echange de vues entre MM. Frere-Orban et E. de Laveleye_ (1890); and _La Revision constitutionnelle en Belgique et ses consequences_ (1894). He was also the author of numerous pamphlets, among which may be mentioned his last work, _La Situation presente_ (1895).