IRELAND AND AMERICA Froude had made history the business of his life, and he had no sooner completed his History of England than he turned his attention to the sister people.

The Irish chapters in his great book had been picked out by hostile critics as especially good, and in them he had strongly condemned the cruel misgovernment of an Englishman otherwise so humane as Essex.

While he was in Ireland he had examined large stores of material in Dublin, which he compared with documents at the Record Office in London, and he contemplated early in 1871, if not before, a book on Irish history.

For this task he was not altogether well qualified.

The religion of Celtic Ireland was repugnant to him, and he never thoroughly understood it.