"vaguely, like an ignorant man in an ill-arranged museum." By the use
of different sorts of type, it has been practicable to introduce a
considerable amount of detail without breaking the main current of the
narrative, or making it too long. By means of these additional
passages, and by appending lists of books at the close of the several
periods, the attempt has been made to aid younger students in carrying
forward the study of history beyond the usual requirements of the
class-room. I make no apology for the sketches presented of the history
of science, literature, art, and of moral and material decline or
improvement. Professor Seeley, in his interesting book on _The
Expansion of England_, is disposed to confine history to the civil
community, and to the part of human well-being which depends on
that. "That a man in England," he tells us, "makes a scientific
discovery or paints a picture, is not in itself an event in the history
of England." But, of course, as this able writer himself remarks,
"history may assume a larger or a narrower function;" and I am
persuaded that to shut up history within so narrow bounds, is not
expedient in a work designed in part to stimulate readers to wide and
continued studies.

One who has long been engaged in historical study and teaching, if he
undertakes to prepare such a work as the present, has occasion to
traverse certain periods where previous investigations have made him
feel more or less at home. Elsewhere at least his course must be to
collate authorities, follow such as he deems best entitled to credit,
and, on points of uncertainty, satisfy himself by recurrence to the
original sources of evidence. Among the numerous works from which I
have derived assistance, the largest debt is due, especially in the
ancient and mediaeval periods, to Weber's _Lehrbuch der
Weltgeschichte_, which (in its nineteenth edition, 1883) contains