ot deal at all, except to borrow from
it for his own purposes, as he used to borrow from the History in The
Saturday Review. In the other fifth, the preliminary pages, he
discovered two misprints of names, one mistake of fact, and three or
four exaggerations. Not one of these errors is so grave as his own
statement, picked up from some bad lawyer, that "the preamble of an
Act of Parliament need not be received as of any binding effect." The
preamble is part of the Act, and gives the reasons why the Act was
passed. Of course the rules of grammar show that being explanatory it
is not an operative part; but it can be quoted in any court of
justice to explain the meaning of the clauses.

In his Annals of an English Abbey Froude allowed "Robert Fitzwilliam"
to pass for Robert Fitzwalter in his proofs, and upon this conclusive
evidence that Froude was unfit to write history Freeman pounced with
triumphant exultation. He had some skill in the correction of
misprints, and would have been better employed in revising proof-
sheets for Froude than in "belabouring" him. Froude said that
Becket's name "denoted Saxon extraction." An anonymous biographer,
not always accurate, says that both his parents came from Normandy.
It is probable, though by no means certain, that in this case the
biographer was right, and Froude corrected the mistake when, in
consequence of Freeman's criticisms, he republished the articles.
Froude, on the authority of Edward Grim, who knew Becket, and wrote
his Life, referred to the cruelty and ferocity of Becket's
administration as Chancellor. Freeman declared that "anything more
monstrous never appeared from the pen of one who professed to be
narrating facts." Froude not only "professed" to be narrating facts:
he was narrating them. The only question is whether they happened in
England, in Toulouse, or in Aquitaine. Freeman exposed his own
ignorance by alleging that Grim meant the suppression of the free
lances, which happened before Becket became Chancellor. He did not in
fact know the subject half so well as Froude, though Froude might
have more carefully qualified his general words. Froude's account of
Becket's appointment to the Archbishopric of Canterbury, his
scruples, and how he overcame them, is described by Freeman as "pure
fiction." It was taken from William of Canterbury, and, though open
to doubt upon some points, is quite as likely to be true as the
narrative preferred by Freeman. The most serio