BY M. C. M. SIMPSON, TRANSLATOR OF NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE'S LETTERS TO KING JOSEPH ;" MEMOIR, LETTers, and remains of ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE," &c. 1491-23 H668.55.3 29. 1875, March 2 the Harvard Advocate. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. BY THE AUTHOR. 1837. IT is more necessary in a Summary than in any other form of composition to remember for whom it is written. This book is primarily intended to serve as a text book for young students. As it may chance, however, to fall into the hands of readers of a different class, I think it right to explain the object and form of my Précis, lest false expectations should be raised as to its contents. In the first place I have laid more stress upon Political events than upon the History of Religion, of Institutions, of Commerce, of Literature, or of Art. I am aware that the latter is the more important study, but it is desirable to begin with the former. I have given no great number of facts or dates in this little book. It is a Summary; not a table of historical events such as those which I have previously published. My "Table of Dates and Synchronisms" were so to speak simple repositories in which a date might be sought, or a fact verified. But my present object is entirely different; it is to leave durable impression of Modern History as a whole on the minds of my young readers. a To attain this end I found it necessary, first, to mark out broadly and simply the dramatic unity which characterises the History of the last three Centuries and then to present the ideas which have successively influenced its course, not in the form of abstract statements, but in that of characteristic facts which might lay hold of the imagination of the young. These facts are few but typical, so that the same instances may present a succession of pictures to the child, and a chain of ideas to the maturer student. I am stating, it must be remembered, what I have desired to do rather than what I have succeeded in doing. The affairs of the Northern and Eastern nations of Europe occupy a comparatively small space in this Summary. The narrow bounds within which it had to be kept have not allowed me to develop their history as fully as that of the nations which have led the march of European civilization. ITALY.-TURKISH WAR, 1453-1494 · Splendour of Italy (Venice, Florence, Rome, &c.)-Its real decline Condottieri, tyrannies and conspiracies-Machi- avellian policy-Imminent conquest: Turks, Spaniards, French-Siege of Constantinople, 1453-Attempt of John of Calabria on the kingdom of Naples, 1460-1464-Diver- sions of the Albanian Scanderbeg, of Hunniades, and of Matthias Corvinus in Hungary-Projected crusade which failed by the death of Pius II., 1464-Venice invites the Turks; siege of Otranto, 1480-The Venetians invite René WESTERN EUROPE.-FRANCE AND THE LOW COUNTRIES, ENG- LAND AND SCOTLAND, SPAIN AND PORTUGAL, IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY $1. France, 1453-1494.-Conclusion of the English wars- |