Page:Readings in European History Vol 2.djvu/11

 In its spirit and arrangement this second volume is like the first. Its contents, however, are drawn from resources far more abundant than those which were available for the earlier period. With the opening of the sixteenth century the historical material expands in a most surprising manner. Indeed, one is sometimes tempted to think that the mass of sources of all kinds for the times of Luther, Charles V, Francis I, and Henry VIII equals in bulk all that we have for the history of the western world before their day. Moreover, men begin to write of their own age with a clearness and cogency and a wealth of intimate detail which we miss in what comes down to us from the earlier centuries. The difficulty is no longer to find apt and varied illustrations of the conditions and trend of events, but rather to avoid being overwhelmed by those which press in from all sides. I have not therefore had the heart to keep the chapters of this volume within the modest bounds prescribed for those in the first, for I found it much easier to bring to an end a quotation from the than from the of Commines. But even if I have devoted forty pages to "Napoleon and Europe," that is not excessive, although there may be but ten on "Charles Martel and Pippin."

I have been greatly aided in the search for appropriate extracts by Dr. Charles A. Beard, Lecturer in History in