WOMEN AND POLITICS. {3} Somewhat more than 300 years ago, John Knox, who did more than any man to mould the thoughts of his nation–and indeed of our English Puritans likewise–was writing a little book on the ‘Regiment of Women,’ in which he proved woman, on account of her natural inferiority to man, unfit to […]

FROUDE’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND {1} Footnote: {1} North British Review, No. LI., November 1856.–‘A History of England, from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth.’ By J. A. Froude, M.A., late Fellow of Exeter college, Oxford. London: J. W. Parker and Son, West Strand. 2 vols. 1856. There appeared a few years since […]

PLAYS AND PURITANS {1} The British Isles have been ringing for the last few years with the word ‘Art’ in its German sense; with ‘High Art,’ ‘Symbolic Art,’ ‘Ecclesiastical Art,’ ‘Dramatic Art,’ ‘Tragic Art,’ and so forth; and every well-educated person is expected, nowadays, to know something about Art. Yet in spite of all translations […]

A LECTURE DELIVERED AT WINCHESTER, MARCH 17, 1869. Ladies,–I have chosen for the title of this lecture a practical and prosaic word, because I intend the lecture itself to be as practical and prosaic as I can make it, without becoming altogether dull. The question of the better or worse education of women is one […]

The scholar, in the sixteenth century, was a far more important personage than now. The supply of learned men was very small, the demand for them very great. During the whole of the fifteenth, and a great part of the sixteenth century, the human mind turned more and more from the scholastic philosophy of the […]

RONDELET, THE HUGUENOT NATURALIST {358} FOOTNOTE: {358} A Life of Rondelet, by his pupil Laurent Joubert, is to be found appended to his works; and with it an account of his illness and death, by his cousin, Claude Formy, which is well worth the perusal of any man, wise or foolish. Many interesting details beside, […]

I cannot begin a sketch of the life of this great man better than by trying to describe a scene so picturesque, so tragic in the eyes of those who are wont to mourn over human follies, so comic in the eyes of those who prefer to laugh over them, that the reader will not […]

Whether the British race is improving or degenerating? What, if it seem probably degenerating, are the causes of so great an evil? How they can be, if not destroyed, at least arrested?–These are questions worthy the attention, not of statesmen only and medical men, but of every father and mother in these isles. I shall […]

A LECTURE DELIVERED AT WINCHESTER, MAY 31, 1869. Ladies,–I have been honoured by a second invitation to address you here, from the lady to whose public spirit the establishment of these lectures is due. I dare not refuse it: because it gives me an opportunity of speaking on a matter, knowledge and ignorance about which […]

Fresh from the Marbles of the British Museum, I went my way through London streets. My brain was still full of fair and grand forms; the forms of men and women whose every limb and attitude betokened perfect health, and grace, and power, and a self-possession and self-restraint so habitual and complete that it had […]

“Die Natur ist die Bewegung.” Who are these who follow us softly over the moor in the autumn eve? Their wings brush and rustle in the fir-boughs, and they whisper before us and behind, as if they called gently to each other, like birds flocking homeward to their nests. The woodpecker on the pine-stems knows […]

The point from which to start, in order best to appreciate the change from ocean to sea, is perhaps Biarritz. The point at which to stop is Cette. And the change is important. Between the two points races are changed, climates are changed, scenery is changed, the very plants under your feet are changed, from […]

NORTH DEVON {1} Note: {1} Fraser’s Magazine, July 1849. I.–EXMOOR. We were riding up from Lynmouth, on a pair of ragged ponies, Claude Mellot and I, along the gorge of Watersmeet. And as we went we talked of many things; and especially of some sporting book which we had found at the Lyndale Hotel the […]

A Charm of Birds {1} Footnote: {1} Fraser’s Magazine, June 1867. Is it merely a fancy that we English, the educated people among us at least, are losing that love for spring which among our old forefathers rose almost to worship? That the perpetual miracle of the budding leaves and the returning song-birds awakes no […]

CHALK-STREAM STUDIES. {1} Note: {1} Fraser’s Magazine, September 1858. Fishing is generally associated in men’s minds with wild mountain scenery; if not with the alps and cataracts of Norway, still with the moors and lochs of Scotland, or at least with the rocky rivers, the wooded crags, the crumbling abbeys of Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Hereford, or […]

A certain sadness is pardonable to one who watches the destruction of a grand natural phenomenon, even though its destruction bring blessings to the human race. Reason and conscience tell us, that it is right and good that the Great Fen should have become, instead of a waste and howling wilderness, a garden of the […]

MY WINTER GARDEN. {1} Note: {1} Fraser’s Magazine, January 1858. So, my friend: you ask me to tell you how I contrive to support this monotonous country life; how, fond as I am of excitement, adventure, society, scenery, art, literature, I go cheerfully through the daily routine of a commonplace country profession, never requiring a […]

Cyrus, Servant of the Lord {4} FOOTNOTE: {4} This lecture was given in America in 1874. I wish to speak to you to-night about one of those old despotic empires which were in every case the earliest known form of civilisation. Were I minded to play the cynic or the mountebank, I should choose some […]

ANCIENT CIVILISATION {5} {6} FOOTNOTE: {5} This lecture was given in America in 1874. FOOTNOTE: {6} This lecture and the two preceding ones,being published after the author’s death, have not hadthe benefit of his corrections. There is a theory abroad in the world just now about the origin of the human race, which has so […]

WOMAN’S WORK IN A COUNTRY PARISH {1} Footnote: {1} This lecture was one of a series of “Lectures to Ladies,” given in London in 1855, at the Needlewoman’s Institution. I have been asked to speak a few words to you on a lady’s work in a country parish. I shall confine myself rather to principles […]