He prefaced an article on the present Sir George Trevelyan's Life of Macaulay, a daring attack upon that historian for the very faults that were attributed to himself, with the following sentences: "Every man who has played a distinguished part in life, and has largely influenced either the fortunes or the opinions of his contemporaries, becomes the property of the public.

We desire to know, and we have a right to know, the inner history of the person who has obtained our confidence." This doctrine would not have been universally accepted.

Tennyson, for instance, would have vehemently denied it.

But it is at least frankly expressed, and Carlyle must have known very well what sort of biography Froude would write.
If Froude dwelt on Carlyle's failings, it was because he knew that his reputation would bear the strain.

He has been justified by the result, for Carlyle's fame stands higher to-day than it ever stood before.