lection of materials
rather than a book, is pronounced to be the one good modern history,
though Froude denounces, with friendly candour, Carlyle's
"distempered antagonism to the prevailing fashions of the age." The
most characteristic part of this essay, however, is that which
recommends the Statutes, with their preambles, as the best text-
book, and the following passage would be confidently assigned by
most critics to the History itself:

"Who now questions, to mention an extreme instance, that Anne
Boleyn's death was the result of the licentious caprice of Henry?
and yet her own father, the Earl of Wiltshire, her uncle, the Duke
of Norfolk, the hero of Flodden Field, the Privy Council, the House
of Lords, the Archbishop and Bishopsm, the House of Commons, the
Grand Jury of Middlesex, and three other juries, assented without,
as far as we know, an opposing voice, to the proofs of her guilt,
and approved of the execution of the sentence against her."

Froude was not, however, so much absorbed in the work of his life
that he could not form and express strong opinions upon the great
events passing around him. His view of the Russian war and of the
French alliance was set forth with much plainness of speech in a
letter to Max Muller:*

"I felt in the autumn (and you were angry at me for saying so) that
the very worst thing which could happen for Europe would be the
success of the policy with which France and England were managing
things. Happily the gods were against it too, as now, after having
between us wasted sixty millions of money and fifty thousand human
lives, we are beginning to discover. But I have no hope that things
will go right, or that men will think reasonably, until they have
first exhausted every mode of human folly. I still think Louis
Napoleon the d--d'est rascal in Europe (for which again you will be
angry with me), and that his reception the other day in London will
hereafter appear in history as simply the most shameful episode in
the English annals. Thinking this, you will not consider my opinion
good for anything, and therefore I need not inflict it upon you.
Humbugs, however, will explode in the present state of the
atmosphere, and the Austrian humbug, for instance, is at last, God
be praised for it, exploding. John Bull, I suppose, will work
himself into a fine fever about that; but he will think none the
worse of the old ladies in Downing Street who are made fools of: and
will be none the