Historical Lectures and Essays

"Bjarne Grimolfson was blown with his ship into the Irish Ocean; and there came worms and the ship began to sink under them. They had a boat which they had payed with seals' blu...

Paradoxical, but true. First, you must dismiss from your minds the too common notion that there is now, in England, a governing Norman aristocracy, or that there has been one, a...

They despised at first--would that they had despised always!--the luxurious life of the dwellers in the plains, and the effeminate customs of the Medes--a branch of their own ra...

The isles saw that, and feared, And the ends of the earth were afraid; They drew near, they came together; Everyone helped his neighbour, And said to his brother, Be of good cou...

But the higher calling is soon forgotten. The purer light is soon darkened in pride and selfishness, luxury and lust; as in Genesis, the sons of God see the daughters of men, th...

Whether or not the Moors left behind any traces of their blood, they left behind, at least, traces of their learning; for the university of Montpellier claimed to have been foun...

So Rondelet had been for some years Protestant. He had hidden in his house for a long while a monk who had left his monastery. He had himself written theological treatises: but...

Then, in Italy at least, the classic Renaissance gave fresh life to anatomy as to all other sciences. Especially did the improvements in painting and sculpture stir men up to a...

"The first and highest book of all healing," he says, "is called wisdom, and without that book no man will carry out anything good or useful . . . And that book is God Himself....

If the "scholar" stopped in a town, his hostess probably begged of him a charm against toothache or rheumatism. The penniless knight discoursed with him on alchemy, and the chan...

To vindicate the national honour, and to punish the guilty, as well as to save themselves from utter anarchy, the great majority of the Scotch nation had taken measures against...