With a firm foot and a strong head he walked freely over cliffs where a false step would have meant a fall of a thousand feet.

No man of letters was ever more devoted to exercise and sport.

Though subject, like most men, and all editors, to fits of despondency, he had a sound mind in a healthy frame, and his pessimism was purely theoretical.
-- * Short Studies, vol.ii.pp.

217-308.
-- Froude's History, the great work of his life, was completed in 1870.
He deliberately chose, after the twelve volumes, to leave Elizabeth at the height of her power, mistress of the seas, with Spain crushed at her feet.

As he says himself, in the opening paragraph of his own Conclusion, "Chess-players, when they have brought their game to a point at which the result can be foreseen with certainty, regard their contest as ended, and sweep the pieces from the board." Froude had accomplished his purpose.