The hardness of his frame, and the soundness of his nerves, gave him the imperturbable temper which Marlborough is said to have valued more than money itself.

Of money Froude was always careful, and he was most judicious in his investments.

He held the Puritan view of luxury as a thing bad in itself, and the parent of evil, relaxing the moral fibre.

The sternness of temperament he had inherited from his father was concealed by an easy, sociable disposition, inclined to make the best of the present, but it was always there.

In the struggle between Knox and Mary Stuart all his sympathies are with Knox, who had the root of the matter in him, Calvinism and the moral law.