Europe Books

INTRODUCTION It will be very reasonably asked why I should consent, though upon a sort of challenge, to write even a popular essay in English history, who make no pretence to particular scholarship and am merely a member of the public. The answer is that I know just enough to know one thing: that a history from the standpoint of a member of the public has not been written. What we call the popular... more...

Chapter 1.1.I. Louis the Well-Beloved. President Henault, remarking on royal Surnames of Honour how difficult it often is to ascertain not only why, but even when, they were conferred, takes occasion in his sleek official way, to make a philosophical reflection. 'The Surname of Bien-aime (Well-beloved),' says he, 'which Louis XV. bears, will not leave posterity in the same doubt. This... more...

The present is the best collected edition of the important works of Schiller which is accessible to readers in the English language. Detached poems or dramas have been translated at various times since the first publication of the original works; and in several instances these versions have been incorporated into this collection. Schiller was not less efficiently qualified by nature for an historian... more...

INTRODUCTION. Fox’s “History of the Reign of James II.,” which begins with his view of the reign of Charles II. and breaks off at the execution of Monmouth, was the beginning of a History of England from the Revolution, upon which he worked in the last years of his life, for which he collected materials in Paris after the Peace of Amiens, in 1802—he died in September, 1806—and which was first... more...

INTRODUCTION Of late years, that is to say, within the last thirty odd years, there has existed a certain amount of doubt as to whether or no the work known to us as "The History of the Four Last Years of the Queen," was really the product of Swift's pen. That a work of this nature had occupied Swift during his retirement at Windsor in 1713, is undoubted. That the work here reprinted from... more...

HENRIE THE SECOND, The Second Sonne of Geffrey Plantagenet. An. Reg. 1. Henrie the second of that name, a French man borne, the second sonne of Geffrey Plantagenet earle of Aniou, begotten of Maud the empresse, daughter to Henrie the first, began his reigne ouer England the fiue and twentith of October, in the yeare after the creation of the world 5121. and in the yeare after the incarnation of our... more...

Chapter I. — KURFURST FRIEDRICH I. Burggraf Friedrich, on his first coming to Brandenburg, found but a cool reception as Statthalter. ["Johannistage" (24 June) "1412," he first set foot in Brandenburg, with due escort, in due state; only Statthalter (Viceregent) as yet: Pauli, i. 594, ii. 58; Stenzel, Geschichte des Preussischen Staats (Hamburg, 1830, 1851), i. 167-169.] He came as... more...

CHAPTER I The topography of a country is to some extent a prophecy of its future. Had there been no Mississippi coursing for three thousand miles through the North American Continent, no Ohio and Missouri bisecting it from east to west, no great inland seas indenting and watering it, no fertile prairies stretching across its vast areas, how different would have been the history of our own land. Russia... more...

CHAPTER I ANCESTRY 'My father and mother were both Kerry men,' as the saying goes in my native land, and better never stepped. It was my misfortune, but not my fault, that I was born at Bath and not in Kerry. However, my earliest recollection is of Dingle, for I was only three months old when I was taken back to Ireland, and up to that time I did not study the English question very deeply,... more...

CHAPTER I. I PURPOSE to write the history of England from the accession of King James the Second down to a time which is within the memory of men still living. I shall recount the errors which, in a few months, alienated a loyal gentry and priesthood from the House of Stuart. I shall trace the course of that revolution which terminated the long struggle between our sovereigns and their parliaments, and... more...