In history we are beginning to feel that the vices and vicissitudes of
kings and queens, the dates of battles and wars, are far less important
than the development of human thought, the progress of art, of science,
and of law, and the subject is on that very account even more interesting
than ever. I will, however, only mention, and that rather from a literary
than a historical point of view, Herodotus, Xenophon (the _Anabasis_),
Thucydides, and Tacitus (_Germania_); and of modern historians, Gibbon's
_Decline and Fall_ ("the splendid bridge from the old world to the new"),
Hume's _History of England_, Carlyle's _French Revolution_, Grote's
_History of Greece_, and Green's _Short History of the English People_.

Science is so rapidly progressive that, though to many minds it is the
most fruitful and interesting subject of all, I cannot here rest on that
agreement which, rather than my own opinion, I take as the basis of my
list. I will therefore only mention Bacon's _Novum Organum_, Mill's
_Logic_, and Darwin's _Origin of Species_; in Political Economy, which
some of our rulers do not now sufficiently value, Mill, and parts of
Smith's _Wealth of Nations_, for probably those who do not intend to make
a special study of political economy would scarcely read the whole.

Among voyages and travels, perhaps those most frequently suggested are
Cook's _Voyages_, Humboldt's _Travels_, and Darwin's _Naturalist's
Journal_; though I confess I should like to have added many more.

Mr. Bright not long ago specially recommended the less known American
poets, but he probably assumed that every one would have read Shakespeare,
Milton (_Paradise Lost_, _Lycidas_, _Comus_ and minor poems), Chaucer,
Dante, Spencer, Dryden, Scott, Wordsworth, Pope, Byron, and others, before
embarking on more doubtful adventures.