It is hardly necessary for us to say that this is an excellent
book excellently translated. The original work of Professor Ranke
is known and esteemed wherever German literature is studied, and
has been found interesting even in a most inaccurate and
dishonest French version. It is, indeed, the work of a mind
fitted both for minute researches and for large speculations. It
is written also in an admirable spirit, equally remote from
levity and bigotry, serious and earnest, yet tolerant and
impartial. It is, therefore, with the greatest pleasure that we
now see this book take its place among the English classics. Of
the translation we need only say that it is such as might be
expected from the skill, the taste, and the scrupulous integrity
of the accomplished lady who, as an interpreter between the mind
of Germany and the mind of Britain, has already deserved so well
of both countries.

The subject of this book has always appeared to us singularly
interesting. How it was that Protestantism did so much, yet did
no more, how it was that the Church of Rome, having lost a large
part of Europe, not only ceased to lose, but actually regained
nearly half of what she had lost, is certainly a most curious and
important question; and on this question Professor Ranke has
thrown far more light than any other person who has written on
it.

There is not, and there never was on this earth, a work of human
policy so well deserving of examination as the Roman Catholic
Church. The history of that Church joins together the two great
ages of human civilisation. No other institution is left standing
which carries the mind back to the times when the smoke of