tation was a too frequent
habit with him. In his second chapter he applies to Henry the famous
passage in Tacitus's character of Galba, and changes capax imperii
to dignus imperil, though dignus would have required imperio, and
would then have made inferior sense. Some of Carlyle's queries were
productive of really substantial results; for instance, the simple
words "such as" brought out the fact that the spoils of the
monasteries were in part devoted to national defence. "Inveterate
frenzy" is Froude's description of the years covered by the reign of
Edward IV. "Fine healthy years in the main, for all their fighting,"
notes Carlyle. "See the Paston Letters, for one proof." Some of his
recommendations are racily colloquial. "Give us time of day" is his
mode of asking for more dates. Henry's instructions to his Secretary
or Ambassador at Rome he pronounces "very rough matter to set upon
the table uncooked," and recommends an Appendix, unluckily without
avail. "Abridge, redact," he exclaims towards the end, but there was
no abridgment and no redaction. On the other hand, "prestige,"
stigmatised by Carlyle as "a bad newspaper word," was rejected for
"influence," and his insistence that English only should be used in
the text, foreign languages being confined to notes, was accepted by
Froude. That "new doctrines ever gain readiest hearing among the
common people" he left to stand as a general proposition, although,
as Carlyle reminded him, "in Germany it was by no means the common
people who believed Luther first, but the Elector of Saxony, Philip
of Hesse, etc., etc.--Scotland too."

The conclusion at which Carlyle arrived after reading the second
chapter is less favourable than his verdict upon the first.
Inasmuch, however, as some of the modifications suggested were made,
though by no means all of them, and as Carlyle's notions of history
are worth knowing on their own account, I will transcribe his words,
which are dated the 27th of September, 1855:

"This chapter contains a great deal of well meditated knowledge,
just insight, and sound thinking; seems calculated to explain the
Phaenomenon of the Reformation to an unusual degree, in fact has
great merit of many kinds, historical among the rest. But it seems
to me (1) to be more of a Dissertation than a Narrative; to want
dates, specific details, outline of every kind. (2) The management
might surely be mended? It does not "begin at the beginning" (which
indeed is th