HISTORICAL STUDIES. BY HERMAN MERIVALE. DIPLIOTHEEK LONDON. LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGMAN, ROBERTS, & GREEN. PREFACE. SOME OME of the Essays contained in this volume have already appeared in periodical publications; others have been altered from their original shape, or nearly rewritten. Several are now published for the first time. I have thought it sufficient to mention this, without specifying to which class each belongs. By way of introduction to the first series, 'On some of the Precursors of the French Revolution,' I cannot do better than transcribe the nervous sentences in which Louis Blanc has summed up the career and influence of those men of the eighteenth century who, in their several capacities, contributed to bring about the crowning event which was accomplished at the end of it. 'The apostles of the doctrine of calm inquiry introduced in these days, into their worship of Thought, the enthusiasm and the passions of sectaries. Prodigious labours to be undertaken, a thousand dangers to be run, tyranny to be cajoled or braved, the moral education of whole races of men to be effected over again, the human conscience to be liberated from uncertainty and from terror, nothing of all this made them hesitate: because, |