The history of the Victorian Age will never be written: we know too much about it.

Perhaps the best test of a man's intelligence is his capacity for making a summary.

The stability and peace which seemed to be so firmly established by the brilliant monarchy of Francis I vanished with the terrible outbreak of the Wars of Religion.

It is probably always disastrous not to be a poet.

English dramatic literature is, of course, dominated by Shakespeare; and it is almost inevitable that an English reader should measure the value of other poetic drama by the standards which Shakespeare has already implanted in his mind.

Discretion is not the better part of biography.

Though, with the ascendancy of Louis, the political power of the nobles finally came to an end, France remained, in the whole complexion of her social life, completely aristocratic.