Letters on the Study and Use of HistoryJ.J. Tourneisen, 1791 - 308 pages |
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ACUSILAUS affiftance againſt France allies almoſt becauſe cafe caufes cauſe CHARLES the fecond Chriftian circumftances confequence conftitution county of Burgundy courfe courſe crown defign defire Dutch emperor empire England eſtabliſh Europe faid fame fecure feemed ferve feven hundred feveral fhall fhort fhould fhow fide fince firft firſt fome fometimes foon fpirit French ftate ftill ftrength ftudy fubjects fucceffion fuccefs fuch fufficient fupport fyftem greateſt hiftorians himſelf hiſtory houfe houſe houſe of Bourbon increaſe inftance intereft juft king of France king of SPAIN laft leaſt lefs LEWIS the fourteenth lord lordship Low Countries LUCULLUS meaſures minifters moft moſt muſt nation neceffary negociations obferve occafion oppofition ourſelves paffed party peace perfons PHILIP prefent pretenfions prince principles propofed purpoſe Queen raiſed reaſon ſhe Spaniſh ſpeak ſtate ſtudy thefe themſelves theſe thofe thoſe thouſand fix hundred thouſand ſeven hundred treaty treaty of Utrecht uſe whilft whofe whole
Popular passages
Page 5 - Tillotson: and the knowledge we acquire by it is a creditable kind of ignorance, nothing more. This creditable kind of ignorance is, in my opinion, the whole benefit which the generality of men, even of the most learned, reap from the study of history...
Page 85 - ... to know. But when you asked this man a question, he overwhelmed you by pouring forth all that the several terms or words of your question recalled to his memory ; and if he omitted any thing, it was that very thing to which the sense of the whole question should have led him or confined him.
Page 113 - ... any more, till in some better age true ambition or the love of fame prevails over avarice ; and till men find leisure and encouragement to prepare themselves for the exercise of this profession, by climbing up to the
Page 5 - ... indolence, nor to gratify our vanity: as little shall we content ourselves to drudge like grammarians and critics, that others may be able to study with greater ease and profit, like philosophers and statesmen; as little shall we affect the slender merit of becoming great scholars at the expense of groping all our lives in the dark mazes of antiquity. All these mistake the true drift of study, and the true use of history.
Page 226 - Marlborough was raised to the head of the army, and indeed of the confederacy, where he, a new, a private man, a subject, acquired by merit and by management a more deciding influence, than high birth, confirmed authority, and even the crown of Great Britain, had given to King William. Not only all the parts of that vast machine, the grand alliance, were kept more compact and entire, but a more rapid and vigorous motion was given to the whole, and, instead of languishing or disastrous campaigns,...
Page 113 - They must pry into the secret recesses of the human heart, and become well acquainted with the whole moral world, that they may discover the abstract reason of all laws; and they must trace the laws of particular states, especially of their own, from the first rough sketches to the more perfect draughts; from the first causes or occasions that produced them, through all the effects good and bad that they produced.
Page 226 - ... with which he made war generally, he was looked upon as the sole centre of union that could keep together the great confederacy then forming ; and how much the French feared from his life had appeared a few years before, in the extravagant and indecent joy they expressed on a false report of his death. A short time showed how vain the fears of some, and the hopes of others, were.
Page 112 - I might instance in other professions the obligation men lie under of applying themselves to certain parts of History; and I can hardly forbear doing it in that of the Law, — in its nature the noblest and most beneficial to mankind, in its abuse and debasement the most sordid and the most pernicious. A lawyer now is nothing more (I speak of ninetynine in a hundred at least...
Page 25 - London at least by the establishment of great corporations, was a reason of party to others : and I make no doubt that the opportunity of amassing immense estates by the management of funds, by trafficking in paper, and by all the arts of jobbing, was a reason of private interest to those who supported and improved this scheme of iniquity, if not to those who devised it.
Page 15 - Now nothing can contribute more to prevent us from being tainted with this vanity, than to accustom ourselves early to contemplate the different nations of the earth, in that vast map which history spreads before us in their rise and their fall, in their barbarous and civilised states, in the likeness and unlikeness of them all to one another, and of each to itself.