ript is by no means ready for publication; nay,
the questions how, when (after what delay, seven, ten years) it, or
any portion of it, should be published are still dark to me; but on
all such points James Anthony Froude's practical summing up and
decision is to be taken as mine." No expression of confidence could
well be stronger, no discretion could well be more absolute. So far
as one man can substitute another for himself, Carlyle substituted
Froude.

Froude was under the impression that Carlyle had given him the
letters because he wanted them to be published, and did not want to
publish them. Embarrassing as the position was, he accepted it in
tranquil ignorance of what was to come. Two years after the receipt
of the memoirs and letters there arrived at his house a box of more
letters, more memoirs, dimes, odds and ends, put together without
much arrangement in the course of a long life. He was told that they
were the materials for Carlyle's biography, and was begged to
undertake it forthwith. So far as his own interests were concerned,
he had much better have declined the task. His History of England had
given him a name throughout Europe, and whatever he wrote was
sure to be well received. His English in Ireland was approaching
completion, and he had in his mind a scheme for throwing fresh light
on the age of Charles V. Principal Robertson's standard book was in
many respects obsolete. The subject was singularly attractive, and
would have furnished an excellent opportunity for bringing out the
best side of the Roman Catholic Church, which in Charles's son,
Philip, so familiar in Froude's History of England, was seen at its
worst or weakest. Charles was to him an embodiment of the
Conservative principle, which he regarded as the strongest part of
Catholicism, and as needed to counteract the social upheaval of the
Reformation. Such a book he could write in his own way, independent
of every one. The biographer of Carlyle, on the other hand, would be
involved in numerous difficulties, could hardly avoid giving
offence, and must sacrifice years of his life to employment more
onerous, as well as less lucrative, than writing a History of his
own. Carlyle, however, was persistent, and Froude yielded. After
Mrs. Carlyle's death they had met constantly, and the older man
relied upon the younger as upon a son.

Froude sat down before the mass of documents in the spirit which had
encountered the manuscripts of Simancas.