Meanwhile his position was altered, and altered, as it seems, without his knowledge.

Carlyle's original executors were his brother, Dr.Carlyle, and John Forster.
Forster died in 1876, and by a codicil dated the 8th of November, 1878, Froude's name was put in the place of his, Sir James Stephen, the eminent jurist, afterwards a judge of the High Court, being added as a third.

At that time Froude was engaged, to Carlyle's knowledge, upon the first volume of the Life.

At Carlyle's request he had given up the editorship of Fraser's Magazine, which brought him in a comfortable income of four hundred a year, and he had wholly devoted himself to the service of his master.

Carlyle expected that he would soon follow his wife.