Les Bourbons, ces enfants des dieux, Unissent leurs tiges fécondes![6] The idea expressed above will not be generally accepted. The smallness of the scene which it unfolds will prevent the second work from interesting so much as the first. And yet there have been critics who have felt the importance of the history of Geneva. May we be permitted to give a few examples? The _London Review_ says: 'For the narrowness of the field—a small city—the variety of characters presented may well astonish us. The dew-drop is big enough to hold an image of the heavens and earth; and a city closely studied mirrors an empire. The story is crowded with incidents and surprises, with heroic deeds and endurance, and also with foul deeds and shames.' Some reviewers have gone so far as to place the facts of the second work above those of the first. The _New York Observer_ says: 'The story of the times in which the Swiss Reformation was wrought is surrounded with a sublimity, romantic grandeur, and interest that attach to no part of the great German movement under Luther.' We omit the remarks of other journals, particularly of the _Saturday Review_, which rejoices to see 'the Genevese champions of liberty brought to light.' We must, however, quote one more, the _Patriot_, which says: 'Geneva is one of the smallest and one of the most heroic cities of Europe. Had it been predicted, its history would have been incredible. Geneva defied not only the Duke of Savoy and the Pope, but the Emperor Charles V., and dared also his scarcely less powerful rival Francis I.; and in spite of them all it won, first, its political and then its religious liberties, and not for itself only but for Northern Europe. More than once it was the Thermopylæ of Protestantism and freedom, bravely held by an heroic little band scarcely more in comparison with those who sought to destroy them than the three hundred men of Leonidas in comparison with the Persians.' But if the opinions of some were favourable to the little city, the criticisms of others were not so; and as the author will again speak of Geneva in this volume, and (God willing) in others, he desires to say a word of explanation with reference to these objections. If the work is found uninteresting, the fault must be ascribed to the historian, not to the history. The talent of one of the great masters of history would have prevented all reproach; but the workman damaged the work. Can the present generation have become so fastidious as to cease to feel interest in what is great and beautiful of itself, and to need all the refinements of style in order to revive its morbid tastes?