And his reward has been the ingratitude of those who should have done most honour to his memory." The spirit of this fine passage may be due to the great Scotsman with whom Froude's name will always be inseparably associated.

But Froude knew the subject as Carlyle did not pretend to know it, and his verdict is as authoritative as it is just.

It is knowledge, even more than brilliancy, that these twelve volumes evince.

Froude had mastered the sixteenth century as Macaulay mastered the seventeenth, with the same minute, patient industry.

When he came to write he wrote with such apparent facility that those who did not know the meaning of historical research thought him shallow and superficial.
The period during which Froude was studying the reign of Elizabeth must be pronounced the happiest of his life.