Fraser had a high literary reputation, and among its regular contributors was John Skelton, writing under the name of "Shirley," who became one of Froude's most intimate friends.

In the Table Talk of Shirley* are some interesting extracts from Froude's letters, as well as a very vivid description of Froude himself.

On the 12th of January, when he was only just installed, Froude began a correspondence kept up for thirty years by a brief note about Thelatta, a political romance by Skelton, with an odd, mixed portrait of Canning and Disraeli, very pleasant to read, but now almost, I do not know why, neglected.
-- * Blackwood, 1895.
-- Froude is hardly just to it.

"I have read Thalatta," he writes, "and now what shall I say?
for it is so charming, and it might be so much more charming.

There is no mistake about its value.