No student of history can fail to see the moral interest of the Middle Ages, any more than an artist can fail to see their aesthetic interest.

The Roman legions were formed in the first instance of citizen soldiers, who yet had been made to submit to a rigid discipline, and to feel that in that submission lay their strength.

It is evident that in the period designated as that of the kings, when Rome commenced her career of conquest, she was, for that time and country, a great and wealthy city.

There are the manufacturing multitudes of England; they must have work, and find markets for their work; if machines and the Black Country are ugly, famine would be uglier still.

The materials of the novelist must be real; they must be gathered from the field of humanity by his actual observation.

Ancient history, besides the still unequalled excellence of the writers, is the best instrument for cultivating the historical sense.

But if anyone supposes that there was no commercial fraud in the Middle Ages, let him study the commercial legislation of England for that period, and his mind will be satisfied, if he has a mind to be satisfied and not only a fancy to run away with him.