History Books

INTRODUCTION With Commodore Dupont's capture, on November 7, 1861, of two earth forts which the rebels had recently thrown up at Hilton Head and Bay Point, South Carolina, the Sea Island region became Union territory. The planters and their families having fled precipitately, the United States Government found itself in possession of almost everything that had been theirs, the two chief items... more...

CHAPTER I. ~~ THE STORY OF ROMULUS AND OF NUMA. Æneas of Troy, coming to the land of Italy, took to wife Lavinia, daughter of King Latinus, and built him a city, which he called Lavinium, after the name of his wife. And, after thirty years, his son Ascanius went forth from Lavinium with much people, and built him a new city, which he called Alba. In this city reigned kings of the house and lineage of... more...

CHAPTER I. EXTENT OF THE EMPIRE. "Behold, a tree in the midst of the earth, and the height thereof was great; the tree grew and was strong: and the height thereof reached unto heaven, and the sight thereof to the end of all the earth."—Dan. iy. 10, 11. The limits of Babylonia Proper, the tract in which the dominant power of the Fourth Monarchy had its abode, being almost identical with those... more...

This life of Napoleon was first published in 1896 as a book: for the years 1895-96 it ran as a serial in the pages of the Century Magazine. Judging from the sales, it has been read by many tens if not hundreds of thousands of readers; and it has been extensively noticed in the critical journals of both worlds. Throughout these fourteen years the demand has been very large and steady, considering the... more...

I propose to describe the Greatness and the Misery of the old Roman world; nor is there any thing in history more suggestive and instructive. A little city, founded by robbers on the banks of the Tiber, rises gradually into importance, although the great cities of the East are scarcely conscious of its existence. Its early struggles simply arrest the attention, and excite the jealousy, of the... more...

The present period is so distinguished for historical research, that the publication of an English Chronicle, written in the fifteenth century, will not it is presumed require any other prefatory remarks to recommend it to attention, than a brief account of the MSS. from which it has been transcribed. Two copies are extant in the British Museum; the one in the Harleian MS. 565, the other in the... more...

CHAPTER I OPPOSING CLAIMS International disputes that end in war are not generally questions of absolute right and wrong. They may quite as well be questions of opposing rights. But, when there are rights on both sides; it is usually found that the side which takes the initiative is moved by its national desires as well as by its claims of right. This could hardly be better exemplified than by the... more...

CHAPTER I CANADA IN 1672 The Canada to which Frontenac came in 1672 was no longer the infant colony it had been when Richelieu founded the Company of One Hundred Associates. Through the efforts of Louis XIV and Colbert it had assumed the form of an organized province.[] Though its inhabitants numbered less than seven thousand, the institutions under which they lived could not have been more elaborate... more...

CHAPTER I The State of Greece from the earliest Times to the Commencement of the Peloponnesian War Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the history of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, beginning at the moment that it broke out, and believing that it would be a great war and more worthy of relation than any that had preceded it. This belief was not without its grounds. The preparations of... more...

To return now to the date from which I started. On the 6th of August, 1695, Harlay, Arch-bishop of Paris, died of epilepsy at Conflans. He was a prelate of profound knowledge and ability, very amiable, and of most gallant manners. For some time past he had lost favour with the King and with Madame de Maintenon, for opposing the declaration of her marriage— of which marriage he had been one of the... more...