Studies in Literature and History

There is, indeed, in the correspondence of this remarkable group a tone of frankness and sincerity which, combined with the absence of malice and a strong element of fun, distin...

But Walpole was quite aware of the difficulties that beset any writer who endeavours to relate the history of a very recent period, especially of that part to which his own life...

The word Hero is one of those Greek words which have been adopted into all European languages, because they signify precisely a universal idea of the thing. He must be strong an...

For a strong contrast to _Dustypore_, both in subject and style of treatment, we may take a story which merits notice, even though it be hardly long enough to be ranked among In...

Vorontzoff had now been twice beaten off by Shamil: he had been repulsed, and had nearly lost his army in the forests; his troops had been hurled back with slaughter from the mo...

It may be said, generally, of fine letter-writing that it is a distinctive product of a high civilisation, denoting the existence of a cultured and leisurely class, implying the...

Mr. Colvin mentions, in his preface, that Stevenson's talk was irresistibly sympathetic and inspiring, full of matter and mirth. It cannot be denied that between correspondence...

Feuds of the most bitter and hostile character, we are told, were an everyday occurrence, and were carried on with the most ferocious animosity on both sides. The feud was inher...

But during the twenty years that intervene between the dates, taken roughly, of Scott's worst novel and Thackeray's best, the flood tide of romanticism had risen to its highest...

fall upon cold and fastidious ears. 'The day will come,' said Mazzini in after-years, 'when the democracy will acknowledge its debt to Byron;' but the demos is notoriously ungra...

His intense imagination summons up a bright and luxurious vision of the pre-Christian civilisation in Greece and Rome, as yet little affected by the deeper spiritualism of Asia;...

Simultaneously Benedetti, the French ambassador at Berlin, had been ordered to seek an interview with the Prussian king, and to impress upon him the necessity of appeasing the j...

On the other hand, his imaginative faculty comes out in his speculation upon the probable changes in the development of the American people that might follow their separation in...

This very cursory survey of the main influences and circumstances that have shaped the course and set the fashion of our modern novel of adventure may be useful in explaining it...

If we look back upon the ancient world, as it was known to Greece and to Rome, and as it can be dimly surveyed through the records of classic antiquity, we find that before the...

I think I may have said enough to prove, briefly and superficially, the importance, in Central and South-Eastern Europe, of the ideas of Race and Religion, the necessity of unde...

There can be no doubt, indeed, that in the novels of this period two main features of the modern story, the word-painting of scenery and the analysis of subjective emotions, are...

An astonishment that most Londoners of his time would have assuredly shared; unless, indeed, the West-end doorstep has gained wonderfully by the scrubbing of sixty years. On the...

Mr. Stephen is himself a large-minded Utilitarian. He will have nothing to do with a transcendental basis of morals; and the dogmatist who dislikes cross-examination is out of h...

Meadows Taylor has treated this subject with very creditable success. He had lived long in that part of the country; he knew the localities; he was unusually conversant with the...

I have now endeavoured, very imperfectly, to show how Race and Religion still powerfully affect society, and trouble politics, throughout a great part of the world. How far they...

An unsophisticated audience would have laughed outright at such a comical performance. And we can see how Scott, as a poet of the battlefield, had become possessed with the idea...

Mr. Swinburne's dramatic work, at any rate, takes us out of the strife and turmoil of theologic war; we are on firm historic ground, dealing with authentic events and persons. T...

In Mr. Stephen's second volume James Mill is the principal figure, as the apostle of Benthamism, though he also describes briefly, in his terse and incisive style, the lives and...

'The stanza of Spenser is, perhaps, too slow and dignified for narrative, though I confess it is the measure after my own heart; Scott alone, of the present generation, has hith...

It is cheerfully admitted by the German historians who are cited in this volume that the train of incidents which produced so well-timed an explosion was scientifically laid by...

This era of long and sanguinary contest may be said to have begun, on a deliberate plan, with the appointment of General Yermoloff, in 1816, to be commander-in-chief in Georgia,...

I do not know that the mysterious disappearance of Buddhism from India can be accounted for by any great political revolution, like that which brought Islam into India. It seems...

'The greatest problems of the time were either economical or closely connected with economical principles. Mill had followed the political struggles with the keenest interest; h...

'Dans toutes les langues, dans tous les pays, courait la falsification offensée lancée par Bismarck. L'effet de cette publicité effroyable se produisit d'abord en Allemagne avec...

On the whole, whether we assume that the object of a novel is to illustrate history, or to present a faithful reflection of life and manners, or to render strenuous action drama...

The picture of gamblers in a grimy tavern, the unconscious humour of Lyndon's heroic lament, the comparison between the cardsharpers' discomfiture and the fall of mighty warrior...

Mr. Stephen has no difficulty in exposing the shortcomings and inadequacy of these doctrines. But he is writing the history of certain political ideas; so his main object is to...

Now, the drawback to the composition of histories on this ample and elaborate scale is obviously this--that the ordinary man or woman can hardly be expected to read them, or at...

When, therefore, we survey the history of religions, though this sketch is necessarily very imperfect and inadequate, we find Mohammedanism still identified with the fortunes of...

Mr. Leslie Stephen combines the faculty of acute and searching criticism with a style that is singularly clear, incisive, and exact. His wide knowledge of English literature, an...

In the Second Series of his _Asiatic Studies_ the late Sir Alfred Lyall republished a number of articles that he had contributed to various Reviews up to the year 1894. After th...

Scott, Sir Walter: Head of modern romantic school of fiction, 5. Abandoned poetry for prose, 6. Transferred dialogue from the drama to the novel, 108. His historical insight, 11...