The condition of England was to him more important than any constitutional change, any triumph in diplomacy, or any victory in war, and this fact explains apparently inconsistent admiration of Peel, who though a Parliamentary statesman, had accomplished a solid achievement for the benefit of the people.

Carlyle in his own writings is an almost insoluble enigma.

To have given the true solution is the supreme merit of Froude.* -- * John Nichol, a name still dear in Scotland, formerly Professor of Literature at the University of Glasgow, who wrote on Carlyle for Mr.Morley's English Men of Letters in 1892, says in his preface: "Every critic of Carlyle must admit as constant obligation to Mr.Froude as every critic of Byron to Moore, or of Scott to Lockhart ....

I must here be allowed to express a feeling akin to indignation at the persistent, often virulent, attach directed against a loyal friend, betrayed, it may be, by excess of faith, and the defective reticence that often belongs to genius, to publish too much about his hero.

But Mr.Froude's quotation, in defence, from the essay on Sir Walter Scott, requires no supplement: it should be remembered that he acted with the most ample authority; that the restrictions under which he was first entrusted with the MSS.