Froude never "pretended to more knowledge than he really had." So far from "enjoying a reputation for learning which was undeserved," he disguised his learning rather than displayed it, and wore it lightly, a flower.

That Freeman should have "considered it to be a positive duty to expose" a man whose knowledge was so much wider and whose industry was so much greater than his own is strange.

That he did his best for years, no doubt from the highest motives, to damage Froude's reputation, and to injure his good name, is certain.
With the general reader he failed.

The public had too much sense to believe Froude was merely, or chiefly, or at all, an ecclesiastical pamphleteer.

But by dint of noisy assertion, and perpetual repetition, Freeman did at last infect academic coteries with the idea that Froude was a superficial sciolist.