His suggestions were always excellent, as sound and just as they were careful and kind.
One criticism, which Froude disregarded, shows not only Carlyle's wide knowledge (that appears throughout), but also that his long residence south of the Tweed never made him really English.

It refers to Froude's description of the English volunteers at Calais who "were for years the terror of Normandy," and of Englishmen generally as "the finest people in all Europe," nurtured in profuse abundance on "great shins of beef." "This," says Carlyle, "seems to me exaggerated; what we call John- Bullish.

The English are not, in fact, stronger, braver, truer, or better than the other Teutonic races: they never fought better than the Dutch, Prussians, Swedes, etc., have done.

For the rest, modify a little: Frederick the Great was brought up on beer-sops (bread boiled in beer), Robert Burns on oatmeal porridge; and Mahomet and the Caliphs conquered the world on barley meal." David Hume would have thoroughly approved of this note.

Froude's patriotism was incorrigible, and he left the passage as it stood.