Makers of History
Henry IV.
By JOHN S. C. ABBOTT
WITH ENGRAVINGS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
1904
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight
hundred and fifty-six, by
Harper & Brothers,
in the Clerk's office of the District Court of the Southern District of
New York.
Copyright, 1884, by Susan Abbot Mead.
PREFACE.
History is our Heaven-appointed instructor. It is the guide for thefuture. The calamities of yesterday are the protectors of to-day.
The sea of time we navigate is full of perils. But it is not anunknown sea. It has been traversed for ages, and there is not a sunkenrock or a treacherous sand-bar which is not marked by the wreck ofthose who have preceded us.
There is no portion of history fraught with more valuable instructionthan the period of those terrible religious wars which desolated thesixteenth century. There is no romance so wild as the veritablehistory of those times. The majestic outgoings of the Almighty, asdeveloped in the onward progress of our race, infinitely transcend, inall the elements of profoundness, mystery, and grandeur, all thatman's fancy can create.
The cartoons of Raphael are beautiful, but what are they when comparedwith the heaving ocean, the clouds of sunset, and the pinnacles of theAlps? The dome of St. Peter's is man's noblest architecture, but whatis it when compared with the magnificent rotunda of the skies?
John S. C. Abbott.
Brunswick, Maine, 1856.