He shows sometimes an indifference to dry details, as when he makes Gladstone dissolve Parliament in 1873 immediately after his defeat on the Irish University Bill, and represents Russia as having by her own act repealed the Black Sea Clauses in the Treaty of Paris.

Startling too is his assertion that the Parliament of 1868 did nothing for England or Scotland, on account of its absorption in Irish affairs.

But he was not writing a formal history, and these points did not appeal to him at all.

He drew with inimitable skill a picture of the despised and fantastic Jew, vain as a peacock and absurdly dressed, alien in race and in his real creed, smiling sardonically at English ways, enthusiasms, and institutions, until he became, after years of struggle and obloquy, the idol of what was then the proudest aristocracy in the world.
Disraeli's peculiar humour just suited Froude's taste.

Disraeli never laughed.