At this period M. Guizot lived in a quiet retired house in a small street behind the Madeleine, which he has rendered in some degree famous by the indefatigable labours of which it was the scene. He has since lived in sumptuous palaces; but it is probable that in this modest abode he had more real enjoyment than when seated amid the magnificence of high official pomp. Though he was well known to be poor, and to be dependent on literature for a livelihood, his condition, which in England would have been considered one of the most degraded possible, was no drawback to his social position, and his residence was the resort of nearly all the most eminent men of the day both in literature and in politics. On his reception nights his little rooms were crowded with people of distinction, anxious to partake the intellectual feast served out on such occasions; for no substantial viands were there to regale them beyond a cup of tea, dispensed by the fair hands of Madame Guizot and one or two female friends--often the late Duchess de Broglie, a woman of superior attainments. Yet sorrow, too, fell on him in this otherwise cherished home, for here his wife died in the course of 1827, and shortly after her his only son. With her dying breath she besought him to marry one of her nieces, who resided with them; and in the following year he fulfilled her wish by espousing Eliza Dillon, the eldest, whom he has likewise had the misfortune to lay in the tomb, after bearing him two daughters. It was in this same year, 1828, that the liberal ministry of M. de Martignac was formed, one of whose first acts was to restore M. Guizot to his professorship of modern history in the Sorbonne, and in which situation he will he perhaps hereafter held to have earned his chiefest glory. The lectures that M. Guizot delivered from his university chair have been collected into two publications, the one entitled 'A Course of Modern History,' in six volumes, and the other 'The History of Civilisation in Europe.' This latter course has been very much admired, has passed into all modern languages, and attained a most extensive celebrity. It was delivered on his resumption of his chair in the session of 1828, and more than one translation of it has already appeared in English. But recent events have given to the work an additional interest and importance, justifying its renewed publication and as it will pass into the hands of a fresh class of readers, a few words on its purport, scope, and execution, will scarcely be considered misplaced:-- {xiii}