When he says that Froude's article was "plausible, and more than plausible," he is quite right.

It is more than plausible, because it is true.

After vainly trying to explain away some of the errors brought home to him by Froude, and leaving others unnoticed, he complains, with deep and obvious sincerity, that Froude had not read his books, nor even his articles in Encyclopaedias.

He exhibits a striking instance of his own accuracy.

In his defence against the rather absurd charge of not going, as Macaulay had gone, to see the places about which he wrote, Froude pleaded want of means.
Freeman rejoined that Macaulay was at one time of his life "positively poor." He was so for a very short time when his Fellowship at Trinity came to an end.