History of the Latin and Teutonic nations from 1494 to 1514.

Front matter

GEORGE BELL & SONS.

New Edition, with a New Biographical Supplement of upwards of 9700 Names.

WEBSTER'S COMPLETE DICTIONARY

Contents

Vol. I. The Life of Shakespeare, The Tempest. The Two Gentlemen of Verona. The Merry Wives of Windsor. Measure for Measure.

Voi IL Comedy of Errors. Much Ado about Nothing. Love's Labour Lost Midsummer Night's Dream. Merchant of Venice,

VoL III. As You Like It. Taming of the Shrew. All's Well that

Preface

IT has been ray privilege, not only to have been entrusted by the world-renowned historian with the task of translating this work, but also, in personal interviews, to have been instructed by him how to proceed, in order to meet his views and wishes.

His demand, that I should adhere literally to the text, could not be disregarded. Therefore, in presenting this translation to the public, I have confidence that the sacrifice of literary style to scrupulous fidelity will not be imputed to me as a fault.

For myself, I modestly claim that my rendering of this work into English is, with all its blemishes, a fairly faithful reproduction of the author's words and meaning.

Few men, and still fewer historians, have been permitted to draw the space of seventy years within the range of their practical experience ; Leopold von Eanke was allowed to see his nation, whose life and struggles at the commencement of the sixteenth century he has so vividly and realistically depicted, raise itself from abasement to a first and foremost position among the Latino-Teutonic nations. Possibly it was the resuscitation of the feeling of G-erman unity, after the close of the Napoleonic wars, which awoke in him the desire to show how the energy and independence of the G-erman national character asserted themselves in the middle ages.

The third edition of the original (1885) lacks any special introduction by the author ; but I cannot omit reproducing here a sentence contained in the preface to the first edition (1824), which clearly shows the historian's feeling as to the treatment of history : —

VI PREFACE.

" A strict representation of facts, be it ever so narrow and unpoetical, is, beyond donbt, the first law."

During an interview I had the pleasure to have with him a few weeks previous to his death, the historian made some observations of such interest that I should be unwilling to withhold them from publication. The conversation turned upon the sources of his historical information, when Professor von Banke, in effect, said as follows : — " Great as is the respect and veneration in which I hold Sir Walter Scott, I cannot help regretting that he was not more available for the purposes of a historian than he is. If fiction must be built upon facts, facts should never be contorted to meet the ends of the novelist. What valuable lessons were not to be drawn from facts to which the great English novelist had the key ; yet, by reason of the fault to which I have referred, I have been unable to illustrate many of my assertions by reference to him."

This statement, read together with the passage from the preface to the first edition of the original, shows the fears entertained by Professor von Eanke, that history might suffer at the hands of the novelist, and, at the same time, contains an expression of hope that it may be seriously used by posterity as a valuable storehouse for practical advantage, and never treated as fictitious matter.

It were presumptuous in me to attempt any comment upon the work now set before the English public. I shall be content if I have been able to make plain the meaning of the most distinguished historian of our era.

P. A. Ashworth.

Temple,

November, 1886.

LATIN AND TEUTONIC NATIONS.