In after life Froude, who never bore malice, used to say that his father had been right in leaving him to his own resources, and that the necessity of providing for himself was, in his instance, as in so many others, the foundation of his career.

He owed much to his publisher, John Parker, who was liberal, generous, and confiding.

Publishers, like mothers-in-law, have got a bad name from bad jokes.

Parker, by trusting Froude, and relieving him from anxiety while he wrote, smoothed the way for a memorable contribution to English history which after many vicissitudes has now an established place as a work of genius and research.
The principles on which he worked are explained in a contribution to the volume of Oxford Essays for the year 1855.

The subject of this brilliant though forgotten paper is the best means of teaching English history, and the author's judgments upon modern historians are peculiar.