Europe Books

BRITAIN BEFORE WRITTEN HISTORY BEGAN 1. The Earliest Inhabitants of England. England was inhabited for many centuries before its written history began. The earliest races that possessed the country were stunted, brutal savages. They used pieces of rough flint for tools and weapons. From flint too they produced fire. They lived by hunting and fishing, and often had no homes but caves and rock shelters.... more...

PARIS, September, 1805. My LORD:—I was lately invited to a tea-party by one of our rich upstarts, who, from a scavenger, is, by the Revolution and by Bonaparte, transformed into a Legislator, Commander of the Legion of Honour, and possessor of wealth amounting to eighteen millions of livres. In this house I saw for the first time the famous Madame Chevalier, the mistress, and the indirect cause of... more...

Henry was not ignorant of these intentions of his enemies, and he prepared himself for defence. He ordered troops to be levied in different parts of the kingdom, and put them under the command of the duke of Bedford and earl of Oxford. He confined the marquis of Dorset, who, he suspected, would resent the injuries suffered by his mother, the queen dowager; and, to gratify the people by an appearance of... more...

PREFACE The rules of the Royal Institution forbid (and wisely) religious or political controversy.  It was therefore impossible for me in these Lectures, to say much which had to be said, in drawing a just and complete picture of the Ancien Régime in France.  The passages inserted between brackets, which bear on religious matters, were accordingly not spoken at the Royal Institution. But more.  It... more...

PREFACE. The indulgence with which the History of the Rise of the Dutch Republic was received has encouraged me to prosecute my task with renewed industry. A single word seems necessary to explain the somewhat increased proportions which the present work has assumed over the original design. The intimate connection which was formed between the Kingdom of England and the Republic of Holland, immediately... more...

PREFACE TO THE FIFTH VOLUME. I HAVE thought it right to publish that portion of the continuation of the "History of England" which was fairly transcribed and revised by Lord Macaulay. It is given to the world precisely as it was left: no connecting link has been added; no reference verified; no authority sought for or examined. It would indeed have been possible, with the help I might have... more...

INTRODUCTORY "A Clerk ther was of Oxenford also,That unto logik hadde longe y-goAs lene was his hors as is a rake,And he was not right fat, I undertake;But loked holwe, and therto soberly,Ful thredbar was his overest courtepy,For he had geten him yet no benefyce,Ne was so worldly for to have offyce.For him was lever have at his beddes heedTwenty bokes, clad in blak or reed,Of Aristotle and his... more...

PREFACE. Once more I come before the public with a work on the history of a nation which is not mine by birth. It is the ambition of all nations which enjoy a literary culture to possess a harmonious and vivid narrative of their own past history. And it is of inestimable value to any people to obtain such a narrative, which shall comprehend all epochs, be true to fact and, while resting on thorough... more...

GEOGRAPHY OF GREECE. Greece is the southern portion of a great peninsula of Europe, washed on three sides by the Mediterranean Sea. It is bounded on the north by the Cambunian mountains, which separate it from Macedonia. It extends from the fortieth degree of latitude to the thirty-sixth, its greatest length being not more than 250 English miles, and its greatest breadth only 180. Its surface is... more...

"OPENS AMID ILL OMENS." The closest student of history would find it hard indeed to turn to the account of any other royal reign which opened under conditions so peculiar and so unpropitious as those which accompanied the succession of George the Fourth to the English throne. Even in the pages of Gibbon one might look in vain for the story of a reign thus singularly darkened in its earliest... more...