Europe Books

At the Mermaid. Thus Raleigh, thus immortal Sidney shone (Illustrious names!) in great Eliza's days. --Thos. Edwardes.   The numberless diamond-shaped window panes of the Mermaid Tavern are twinkling like so many stars in the chill December air of London. It is the last meeting of the Mermaid Club for the year 1596, and not a member is absent. As they drop in by twos and threes and gather in... 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...

In this book I have had old stories written down, as I have heard them told by intelligent people, concerning chiefs who have have held dominion in the northern countries, and who spoke the Danish tongue; and also concerning some of their family branches, according to what has been told me. Some of this is found in ancient family registers, in which the pedigrees of kings and other personages of high... more...

LECTURE I THE SEA CRADLE OF THE REFORMATION Jean Paul, the German poet, said that God had given to France the empire of the land, to England the empire of the sea, and to his own country the empire of the air. The world has changed since Jean Paul's days. The wings of France have been clipped; the German Empire has become a solid thing; but England still holds her watery dominion; Britannia does... more...

RECOLLECTIONS OF THE PARISIAN INSURRECTION. The desire of appreciating de visu the results of a five month's siege in a town of two million inhabitants, unexampled in the annals of humanity, made me leave London on the twentieth of March. Hardly landed in the Capital of France which I thought of finding tranquil and occupied in exercising its genius in repairing the disasters caused by the enemy,... more...

INTRODUCTION Among other things, the licensing act of 1737 stipulated that Covent Garden and Drury Lane exclusively were the patented and licensed theaters (respectively) in London, a fact directly related to the revolt of prestigious players six years later. Although there were sporadic performances of "legitimate" drama in unlicensed playhouses between 1737 and 1743, full-time professional... more...

Richard's Mother.The great quarrel between the houses of York and Lancaster.Terrible results of the quarrel.Origin of it.The mother of King Richard the Third was a beautiful, and, in many respects, a noble-minded woman, though she lived in very rude, turbulent, and trying times. She was born, so to speak, into one of the most widely-extended, the most bitter, and the most fatal of the family... more...

eader, these Travels of mine into Scotland, were not undertaken, neither in imitation, or emulation of any man, but only devised by myself, on purpose to make trial of my friends both in this Kingdom of England, and that of Scotland, and because I would be an eye-witness of divers things which I had heard of that Country; and whereas many shallow-brained Critics, do lay an aspersion on me, that I was... more...

The Memoirs, of which a new translation is now presented to the public, are the undoubted composition of the celebrated princess whose name they bear, the contemporary of our Queen Elizabeth; of equal abilities with her, but of far unequal fortunes. Both Elizabeth and Marguerite had been bred in the school of adversity; both profited by it, but Elizabeth had the fullest opportunity of displaying her... more...

INTRODUCTION No library of Court documents could pretend to be representative which ignored the famous "Memoirs" of the Duc de Saint-Simon. They stand, by universal consent, at the head of French historical papers, and are the one great source from which all historians derive their insight into the closing years of the reign of the "Grand Monarch," Louis XIV: whom the author shows to be... more...