We have been made
acquainted, not only with the deeds, but with the thoughts, of Charles
V., Philip II., Elizabeth Tudor, Cortes, Alva, Farnese, William the
Silent, and a host of other actors in some of the most striking scenes
of history. But we have also been tempted into forgetting that those
were not isolated scenes, that they belonged to a drama which had long
been in progress, and that the very energy they displayed, the power put
forth, the conquests won, were indicative of previous struggles and a
long accumulation of resources. Of what are called the Middle Ages the
general notion might, perhaps, be comprised in the statement that they
were ages of barbarism and ignorance, of picturesque customs and aimless
adventure. "I desire to know nothing of those who knew nothing," was the
saying, in reference to them, of the French _philosophe_. "Classical
antiquity is nearer to us than the intervening darkness," said Hazlitt.
And Hume and Robertson both consider that the interest of European
history begins with the revival of letters, the invention of printing,
the colonization of America, and the great contests between consolidated
monarchies and between antagonistic principles and creeds.
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