The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Preface
• Historical and Political Essays
• Thoughts On History
• The Political Value of History
• The Empire: Its Value and Its Growth
• Ireland In the Light of History
• Formative Influences
• Carlyle's Message to His Age.
• Israel Among the Nations 1
• Madame De StaËl
• The Private Correspondence of Sir Robert Peel
• Edward Henry, Fifteenth Earl of Derby
• Henry Reeve, C.B., F.s.a., D.C.L.
• Henry Hart Milman, D.D., Dean of St. Paul's.
• Queen Victoria As a Moral Force
• Old-age Pensions

PREFACE

When Mr. Lecky had finished his last work, ‘The Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland,’ he did not intend to write another long book. His health was broken; he had said most of what he wished to say. But he proposed collecting in a volume a few Essays which he had written at different times. As concentration was to him one of the first conditions of good work, he did not often allow his attention to be diverted from the book he was writing by giving addresses or contributing articles to reviews or magazines, unless he had some special reason for doing so. The number is, therefore, small. He began revising them; and made some additions to ‘Thoughts on History,’ ‘The Empire,’ ‘The Memoir of the Fifteenth Earl of Derby,’ ‘Queen Victoria as a Moral Force’; but he unfortunately did not live to complete the revision of the others.

In publishing this volume I have endeavoured to carry out his intentions. Besides the Essays which he had revised, I have included all that seemed to me to possess a permanent value. Even though some of them deal with questions of the day, the philosophic spirit in which they are treated may give them more than a transitory interest, and the forcible arguments that are adduced may still have weight in the future.

ELISABETH LECKY.

The Essays ‘Thoughts on History,’ ‘Formative Influences,’ ‘Madame de Stael,’ ‘Israel among the Nations,’ ‘Old-age Pensions,’ appeared originally in the American Review, the Forum—the first under the title of ‘The Art of Writing History’; ‘Ireland in the Light of History,’ in the North American Review. Those on Sir Robert Peel, Mr. Henry Reeve, and Dean Milman were written for the Edinburgh Review. The Essay on ‘Queen Victoria as a Moral Force’ appeared first in the Pall Mall Magazine, ‘Carlyle's Message to His Age’ in the Contemporary Review. ‘The Political Value of History’ was a presidential address delivered before the Birmingham and Midland Institute; ‘The Empire,’ an inaugural address delivered at the Imperial Institute; and the ‘Memoir of the Fifteenth Earl of Derby’ was originally prefixed to the volumes of his speeches and addresses.