Lectures and Essays
Goldwin Smith Lectures and Essays Table of Contents
Lectures and Essays...... 1 Goldwin Smith...... 1 PREFATORY NOTE...... 1 THE GREATNESS OF THE ROMANS...... 2 THE GREATNESS OF ENGLAND...... 11 THE GREAT DUEL OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY...... 22 THE LAMPS OF FICTION...... 35 AN ADDRESS DELIVERED TO THE OXFORD SCHOOL OF SCIENCE AND ART AT THE DISTRIBUTION OF PRIZES...... 38 THE ASCENT OF MAN...... 44 PROPOSED SUBSTITUTES FOR RELIGION...... 52 THE LABOUR MOVEMENT...... 58 WHAT IS CULPABLE LUXURY? ...... 73 A TRUE CAPTAIN OF INDUSTRY...... 80 A WIREPULLER OF KINGS...... 91 THE EARLY YEARS OF THE CONQUEROR OF QUEBEC...... 102 FALKLAND AND THE PURITANS...... 111 THE EARLY YEARS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN...... 122 ALFREDUS REX FUNDATOR...... 135 THE LAST REPUBLICANS OF ROME...... 144 AUSTEN−LEIGH'S MEMOIR OF JANE AUSTEN...... 157 PATTISON'S MILTON...... 161 COLERIDGE'S LIFE OF KEBLE...... 166
i Lectures and Essays
Goldwin Smith
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• PREFATORY NOTE. • THE GREATNESS OF THE ROMANS • THE GREATNESS OF ENGLAND • THE GREAT DUEL OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY • THE LAMPS OF FICTION • AN ADDRESS DELIVERED TO THE OXFORD SCHOOL OF SCIENCE AND ART AT THE DISTRIBUTION OF PRIZES • THE ASCENT OF MAN. • PROPOSED SUBSTITUTES FOR RELIGION • THE LABOUR MOVEMENT • WHAT IS CULPABLE LUXURY? • A TRUE CAPTAIN OF INDUSTRY. • A WIREPULLER OF KINGS. • THE EARLY YEARS OF THE CONQUEROR OF QUEBEC • FALKLAND AND THE PURITANS • THE EARLY YEARS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN • ALFREDUS REX FUNDATOR • THE LAST REPUBLICANS OF ROME • AUSTEN−LEIGH'S MEMOIR OF JANE AUSTEN • PATTISON'S MILTON • COLERIDGE'S LIFE OF KEBLE.
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PREFATORY NOTE.
These papers have been reprinted for friends who sometimes ask for the back numbers of periodicals in which they appeared. The great public is sick of reprints, and with good reason.
The volume might almost have been called Contributions to Canadian Literature, for of the papers not originally published in Canada several were reproduced in Canadian journals. Political subjects have been excluded both to keep a volume intended for friends free from anything of a party character and because the writer looks forward to putting the thoughts scattered over his political essays and reviews into a more connected form.
The papers on 'The Early Years of the Conqueror of Quebec,' 'A Wirepuller of Kings,' 'A True Captain of Industry' and 'Early Years of Abraham Lincoln' can hardly pretend to be more than accounts of books to which
Lectures and Essays 1 Lectures and Essays they relate, but they interested some of their readers at the time and there are probably not many copies of the books in Canada. All the papers have been revised, so that they do not appear here exactly as they were in the periodicals from which they are reprinted.
TORONTO, Feb. 16, 1881
THE GREATNESS OF THE ROMANS
Rome was great in arms, in government, in law. This combination was the talisman of her august fortunes. But the three things, though blended in her, are distinct from each other, and the political analyst is called upon to give a separate account of each. By what agency was this State, out of all the States of Italy, out of all the States of the world, elected to a triple pre−eminence, and to the imperial supremacy of which, it was the foundation? By what agency was Rome chosen as the foundress of an empire which we regard almost as a necessary step in human development, and which formed the material, and to no small extent the political matrix of modern Europe, though the spiritual life of our civilization is derived from another source? We are not aware that this question has ever been distinctly answered, or even distinctly propounded. The writer once put it to a very eminent Roman antiquarian, and the answer was a quotation from Virgil