of Froude himself. On the 12th of January, when he was only just
installed, Froude began a correspondence kept up for thirty years by
a brief note about Thelatta, a political romance by Skelton, with
an odd, mixed portrait of Canning and Disraeli, very pleasant to
read, but now almost, I do not know why, neglected.

--
* Blackwood, 1895.
--

Froude is hardly just to it. "I have read Thalatta," he writes, "and
now what shall I say? for it is so charming, and it might be so much
more charming. There is no mistake about its value. The yacht scene
made me groan over the recollections of days and occupations exactly
the same. To wander round the world in a hundred tons schooner would
be my highest realisation of human felicity." Even the name of the
book must have appealed to Froude. For more than almost any other
man of letters he loved the sea. Yachting was his passion. He
pursued it in youth despite of qualms, and in later life they
disappeared. Constitutionally fearless, and an excellent sailor, a
voyage was to him the best of holidays, invigorating the body and
refreshing the brain.

Froude was already at work on the reign of Elizabeth, and in March,
1861, he went to Spain for two months. This was the occasion of his
earliest visit to Simancas, where he was allowed free access to the
diplomatic correspondence and other records there collected and
kept. The advantage to Froude of these documents, especially the
despatches from the Spanish Ambassadors in London to the Government
at Madrid, was enormous, and it is from them that the last volumes