The World's Greatest Books — Volume 10 — Lives and Letters

I dined to-day in the City, and then went to christen Will Frankland's child; Lady Falconbridge was one of the godmothers; this is a daughter of Oliver Cromwell, and extremely l...

The remaining years of his life were largely spent in systematic onslaughts upon the policy of Lord Palmerston, and in opposition to military expenditure. It was with the purpos...

On our arrival in Moscow a change had taken place in my views of things. My sentiment of reverence for Grandmamma had changed to one of sympathy. As she covered my cheeks with k...

It was at this time that the cardinal formed the project of the destruction of the Huguenot party, and of laying siege to La Rochelle. The Duke of Buckingham came with a powerfu...

How fair were the illusions of freedom and of the future! I asked little--only a manor where I should be the favourite of the lord of the land, his daughter's lover, her brother...

Nisbet was immediately promoted, and honours awaited Nelson in England. The freedom of the cities of Bristol and London were conferred on him, and he received a pension of £1,00...

She asked her confessor to place the executioner so that she need not gaze on Degrais, who, you _will remember_, tracked her to England, and ultimately arrested her at Liège. Af...

Commerce and industry had been paralysed in Florence by the incessant commotions of past years. The immense sums paid to the French king had together with sums spent on war drai...

I was now sent, together with two other priests, Joazar and Judas, by the principal men of Jerusalem, to Galilee, to persuade the ill men there to lay down their arms, and to te...

Martin Luther, "the monk who shook the world," was born Nov. 10, 1483, at Eisleben, in Germany. In 1507 he was ordained a priest, and became popular almost immediately as a prea...

Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, or Pliny the Younger, was born in 62 A.D. at Novum Comum, in the neighbourhood of Lake Como, in the north of Italy. His family was honourable,...

At the time when your majesty admitted me to your counsels and confided to me the direction of public affairs I may say with truth that the Huguenots divided the state with your...

After this, though much occupied with labour and love, he found leisure occasionally to clothe the various moods of his mind in verse. It was as early as seventeen that he wrote...

Acknowledgement and thanks for permitting the use of the following selections in this volume, viz., "The Courtships of Queen Elizabeth," and "The Love Affairs of Mary Queen of S...

There is a supreme will in the universe. Some one makes the universal life his secret care. To know what that supreme will is, we must obey it implicitly. No reproaches against...

The two judges charged with the interrogation of the prisoners in our affair, of whom there seemed to be a considerable number, came daily, and held their interviews in a room i...

In the summer of 1805 Napoleon was again at Boulogne, but his plan of invasion was wrecked by the failure of the French fleet to reach the Channel. When Napoleon learned that th...

On her return to Edinburgh a few weeks later Mary publicly married Bothwell--she swore afterwards against her will, but, in any case, to the anger and disgust of her subjects. S...

He died in ignorance of the real grandeur of his discovery. What visions of glory would have broken upon his mind could he have known that he had indeed discovered a new contine...

Major Martin Andrew Hume, born in London on December 8, 1847, and educated at Madrid, comes of an English family, the members of which have resided in Spain for a hundred years....

Soon after the commencement of the Winter Session, the office of Sheriff-depute of Selkirkshire became vacant, and the Duke of Buccleuch used his influence with Mr. Henry Dundas...

Lord Byron's pecuniary embarrassments now accumulated upon him, and just a year after his marriage, and shortly after the birth of their daughter, I received a letter which brea...

He chose for his emissary one Jehan Simier, an experienced gallant, who soon wooed Elizabeth to such good purpose that she fell violently in love with the messenger, as well as...

But Bernard's period of retirement was drawing to a close; he was becoming indispensable to his contemporaries. In 1128 he was called to the Council of Troyes, at which the Orde...

He resided in England from August to February, 1785. During that brief period he began to write his "History of Geneva," and he showed his versatility by composing for a young r...

Queen Elizabeth first saw the light at Greenwich Palace, where, says Heywood, "she was born on the eve of the Virgin's nativity, and died on the eve of the Virgin's annunciation...

1766. Sept. 14. I preached in the natural amphitheatre at Gwennap; far the finest I know in the kingdom. It is a round, green hollow, gently shelving down, about 50 feet deep; b...