Cornewall Lewis, Richard Trench, then Dean of Westminster, and Henry
Thomas Buckle, once famous as a scientific historian. He called on
the Carlyles at their house in Chelsea, and began an intimacy only
broken by death. Carlyle himself was an excellent adviser in
Froude's peculiar field. He had the same Puritan leanings, the same
sympathy with the Reformation, the same hostility to ecclesiastical
interference with secular affairs, unless, as in the case of John
Knox, the interference was directed against Rome. Froude considered
him not unlike Knox in humour, keenness of intellect, integrity, and
daring. History was the one form of literature outside Goethe and
Burns for which he really cared. He had translated Wilhelm Meister
in 1824, and it was probably at his suggestion that Froude
translated Elective Affinities for Bohn's Library in 1850. Scottish
history and Scottish character Carlyle knew as he knew his Bible.
His assistance and encouragement, which were freely given, proved
invaluable to Froude.

Froude settled steadily down to work, dividing his time between
London and Devonshire. Shooting and fishing had for the time to be
dropped. For recreation he joined an archery club, where, as James
Spedding told him, you were always sure of your game. In after life
Froude, who never bore malice, used to say that his father had been
right in leaving him to his own resources, and that the necessity of
providing for himself was, in his instance, as in so many others,
the foundation of his career. He owed much to his publisher, John
Parker, who was liberal, generous, and confiding. Publishers, like
mothers-in-law, have got a bad name from bad jokes. Parker, by
trusting Froude, and relieving him from anxiety while he wrote,
smoothed the way for a memorable contribution to English history
which after many vicissitudes has now an established place as a work