chapters are extremely interesting, and doubly characteristic,
because they illustrate at the same time his practical shrewdness
and his intense prejudice. For these reasons, and also because in
many instances his advice was followed, it may be worth while to
give some account of his pencil jottings, written when Carlyle's
hand was still firm, and as legible as they were fifty years ago.
Upon the first chapter as a whole, Carlyle's judgment, though
critical, was highly favourable.

"This," he wrote, "is a vigorous, sunny, calm, and wonderfully
effective delineation; pleasant to read; and bids fair to give much
elucidation to what is coming. Curious too as got mainly from good
reading of the Statutes at large! Might there be with advantage (or
not) some subdivision into sections, with headings, etc? Also, here
and there, some condensation of the excerpts given--condensation
into narrative where too longwinded? Item, for symmetry's sake (were
there nothing else) is not some outline of spiritual England a
little to be expected? Or will that come piece-meal as we proceed?
Hint, then, somewhere to that effect? Also remember a little that
there was an Europe as well as an England? In sum, Euge." Such
praise from such a man was balm to Froude's wounds and tonic to his
nerves. Practically expelled from his college, regarded by his own
family as almost a black sheep, he found himself taken up, and
treated as an equal, by a writer of European fame, whom of all his
contemporaries he most admired. In deference to Carlyle he rewrote
his opening paragraphs, and added useful dates. European history and
spiritual England do come into far greater prominence "as we
proceed." The abbreviation and summary of extracts might, I think,
have been carried farther with advantage. But it is curious that
Froude was attacked for the precisely opposite fault of treating his