It is one of Froude's chief merits that he never fails to see the wood for the trees, never forgets general propositions to lose himself in details.

A novice whose own mind is a blank may read whole chapters of Gardiner without discovering that any events of much significance happened in the seventeenth century.
He will not read many pages of Froude before he perceives that the sixteenth century established our national independence.
Two of Froude's pet hobbies may be found in his Inaugural Lecture.
There is the theory that judgment falls upon idleness and vice, which he adopted from Carlyle.

There is his own doctrine that the Statute Book furnishes the most authentic material of history.

It is no answer to say that preambles are inserted by Ministers, who put their own case and not the case of the nation.

In the use or reception of all evidence allowance must be made for the source from which it comes.