“There lies one,” said the Earl over the coffin, “who never feared the face of mortal man.”  “Morton,” says Froude, “spoke only of what he knew; the full measure of Knox’s greatness neither he nor any man could then estimate.  It is as we look back over that stormy time, and weigh the actors in it one against the other, that he stands out in his full proportions.  No grander figure can be found, in the entire history of the Reformation in this island, than that of Knox.  Cromwell and Burghley rank beside him for the work which they effected, but, as politicians and statesmen, they had to labour with instruments which soiled their hands in touching them.  In purity, in uprightness, in courage, truth and stainless honour, the Regent and Latimer were perhaps his equals; but Murray was intellectually far below him and the sphere of Latimer’s influence was on a smaller scale.  The time has come when English history may do justice to one but for whom the Reformation would have been overthrown among ourselves; for the spirit which Knox created saved Scotland; and if Scotland had been Catholic again, neither the wisdom of Elizabeth’s Ministers, nor the teaching of her Bishops, nor her own chicaneries, would have preserved England from revolution.  His was the voice that taught the peasant of the Lothians that he was a free man, the equal in the sight of God with the proudest peer or prelate that had trampled on his forefathers.  He was the one antagonist whom Mary Stuart could not soften nor Maitland deceive.  He it was who had raised the poor commons of his country into a stern and rugged people, who might be hard, narrow, superstitious and fanatical, but who nevertheless were men whom neither king, noble, nor priest could force again to submit to tyranny.  And his reward has been the ingratitude of those who should have done most honour to his memory.”

The spirit of this fine passage may be due to the great Scotsman with whom Froude’s name will always be inseparably associated.  But Froude knew the subject as Carlyle did not pretend to know it, and his verdict is as authoritative as it is just.  It is knowledge, even more than brilliancy, that these twelve volumes evince.  Froude had mastered the sixteenth century as Macaulay mastered the seventeenth, with the same minute, patient industry.  When he came to write he wrote with such apparent facility that those who did not know the meaning of historical research thought him shallow and superficial.

The period during which Froude was studying the reign of Elizabeth must be pronounced the happiest of his life.  He was a born historian, and loved research.  He had opportunities of acquiring knowledge opened to no one before, and it concerned those events which above all others attracted him.  His second wife was the most sympathetic of companions, thoroughly understanding all his moods.  She was fond of society, and induced him to frequent it.  Froude was disinclined to go out in the evening, and would,