Europe Books

JOURNEY TO PARIS. We passed through Kent in our way to France, on Sunday the first of May 1814. This day's journey was very delightful. The whole scenery around us,—the richness of the fields and woods, then beginning to assume the first colours of spring; the extent and excellence of the cultivation; the thriving condition of the towns, and the smiling aspect of the neat and clean villages... more...

AT LOUGH MASK. Westport, Co. Mayo, Oct. 24. The result of several days' incessant travelling in county Mayo is a very considerable modification of the opinion formed at the first glance at this, the most disaffected part of Ireland. On reaching Claremorris, in the heart of the most disturbed district, I certainly felt, and not for the first time, that as one approaches a spot in which law and... more...

THE HISTORIC THAMES England has been built up upon the framework of her rivers, and, in that pattern, the principal line has been the line of the Thames. Partly because it was the main highway of Southern England, partly because it looked eastward towards the Continent from which the national life has been drawn, partly because it was better served by the tide than any other channel, but mainly because... more...

CHAPTER I. "MORE, ALAS! THAN THE QUEEN'S LIFE!" "The Queen is pretty well," Swift wrote to Lord Peterborough on May 18, 1714, "at present, but the least disorder she has puts all in alarm." Swift goes on to tell his correspondent that "when it is over we act as if she were immortal; neither is it possible to persuade people to make any preparations against an evil... more...

THE FIRST CHAPTER. MULMUCIUS. Matth. West. Polyd. Now to proceede with the aforesaid authors, Mulmucius DunwallГ…ВЌ, or as other saie Dunuallo Mulmucius, the sonne of Cloton (as testifieth th'english chronicle and also Geffrey of Monmouth) got the vpper hand of the other dukes or rulers: and after his fathers deceasse began his reigne ouer the whole monarchie of Britaine, in the... more...

I went this summer to Forges, to try, by means of the waters there, to get rid of a tertian fever that quinquina only suspended. While there I heard of a new enterprise on the part of the Princes of the blood, who, in the discredit in which the King held them, profited without measure by his desire for the grandeur of the illegitimate children, to acquire new advantages which were suffered because the... more...

CHAPTER I THE CAUSES OF THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR"After the fatal year 1866, the Empire was in a state of decadence."--L. GREGOIRE,Histoire de France. The irony of history is nowhere more manifest than in the curious destiny which called a Napoleon III. to the place once occupied by Napoleon I., and at the very time when the national movements, unwittingly called to vigorous life by the great... more...

Boundaries and Devolution of the Empire of Germany during the Carlovingian Dynasty. 800-911. The Ocean on the north, the Danube on the south, the Rhine on the west, and the Sarmatian Provinces on the east, are the boundaries assigned by Tacitus to Antient Germany. It formed the most extensive portion of the territories of Charlemagne; descended, at his decease, to his son, Lewis the Debonnaire; and, on... more...

When king Richard had resigned (as before is specified) the scepter and crowne; Henrie Plantagenet borne at Bullingbroke in the countie of Lincolne, duke of Lancaster and Hereford, earle of Derbie, Leicester, and Lincolne, sonne to Iohn of Gant duke of Lancaster, with generall consent both of the lords & commons, was published, proclamed, and declared king of England and of France, and lord of... more...

CHAPTER I.  SCOTLAND AND THE ROMANS. If we could see in a magic mirror the country now called Scotland as it was when the Romans under Agricola (81 A.D.) crossed the Border, we should recognise little but the familiar hills and mountains.  The rivers, in the plains, overflowed their present banks; dense forests of oak and pine, haunted by great red deer, elks, and boars, covered land that has long... more...