Uniform with the Present Work. SCHOOL HISTORY OF ROME, Abridged from Dean MERIVALE'S General History of Rome, with the sanction of the Author, by C. PULLER, M.A. late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. (In preparation.) SCHOOL HISTORY OF GREECE BY GEORGE W. COX, M.A. AUTHOR OF 'TALES OF ANCIENT GREECE''MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS' PREFACE. IN reducing to the size of the present volume my General History of Greece, I have made no attempt to compress into a smaller space the substance of the whole contents of the larger work. Any such attempts can end only in stripping the subject of all life, and in leaving before the reader a mass of bare facts which can be retained only by an effort of memory, and which, therefore, can be remembered to no good purpose. Even in the most elaborate histories the narrative of facts is commonly on much the same scale as that of smaller works; the difference between the two lying chiefly in the sifting of evidence, the analysis of motives, the clearing up of obscure, or difficult, or controverted points, and in the more thorough treatment of political and constitutional questions. All these, however, are matters which have comparatively little interest for the young, and may in great measure be set aside in a volume specially intended for their use. On the other hand, the descriptions of great deeds or memorable scenes, and the pictures of personal character, all, in short, which can bring before us in living reality the men about whom we write, and the places in which they played their part in life, should be as full and vigorous as in works prepared for the most critical of historical scholars. |