There the letter had lain, never looked at again since it was read and put away." Out of such materials Froude wrote a History which any educated person can read with undisturbed enjoyment.

He was too good an artist to let his own difficulties be seen, and they were assumed not to exist.

Froude did not write, like Stubbs, for professional students alone; he wrote for the general public, for those whom Freeman affected to despise.

So did Macaulay, whom Freeman idolised.

So did Gibbon, the greatest historian of all time.