Excerpt from Rhyme and Revolution in Germany: A Study in German History, Life, Literature, and Character, 1813-1850

This book is the outcome of a desire to place in the hands of the British Public the means of studying German history and the German character at first hand. Of recent years, and parti cularly since the outbreak of war, many books have been published in this country giving the writers' opinions about the enemy, and reasons, more or less convincing, to justify those opinions. Such judgments are apt to be coloured by the writer's political opinions and national prejudices, and do not always agree. So that the layman, apart from the helpless feeling of dependence on others, is perplexed by the variety of opinions offered to him.

Of German history during the last century accounts are to be found in excellent text-books by English scholars, but even the best of text-books is, from conditions essential to its form, far from easy reading. And the same must be said of the Cambridge M odern History, where the fullest account in English is to be found. The debt owed by latter-day students of modern history to that monumental work cannot well be exaggerated, but the plan of the work, justified by its purpose, y'ves but little scope for picturesque narration, and requires the student of a particular thread in the skein of world-history to exercise much patience in unravelling it from others. To Sir A. W. Ward, and Professors Alison Phillips and Pollard, who are mainly responsible for the chapters in the Cambridge M odern History devoted to Germany since the Congress of Vienna, I have to acknowledge my obligations.

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