Historical Essays   By: James Ford Rhodes (1848-1927)

BY JAMES FORD RHODES, LL.D., D.Litt.

Author of the History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the Final Restoration of Home Rule at the South in 1877

New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1909

All rights reserved

Copyright, 1909, By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and electrotyped. Published December, 1909.

Norwood Press J. S. Cushing Co. Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

PREFACE

In offering to the public this volume of Essays, all but two of which have been read at various places on different occasions, I am aware that there is some repetition in ideas and illustrations, but, as the dates of their delivery and previous publication are indicated, I am letting them stand substantially as they were written and delivered.

I am indebted to my son, Daniel P. Rhodes, for a literary revision of these Essays; and I have to thank the editors of the Atlantic Monthly , of Scribner's Magazine , and of the Century Magazine for leave to reprint the articles which have already appeared in their periodicals.

Boston, November, 1909.

CONTENTS

I. History 1 President's Inaugural Address, American Historical Association, Boston, December 27, 1899; printed in the Atlantic Monthly of February, 1900.

II. Concerning the Writing of History 25 Address delivered at the Meeting of the American Historical Association in Detroit, December, 1900.

III. The Profession of Historian 47 Lecture read before the History Club of Harvard University, April 27, 1908, and at Yale, Columbia, and Western Reserve Universities.

IV. Newspapers as Historical Sources 81 A Paper read before the American Historical Association in Washington on December 29, 1908; printed in the Atlantic Monthly of May, 1909.

V. Speech prepared for the Commencement Dinner at Harvard University, June 26, 1901. (Not delivered) 99

VI. Edward Gibbon 105 Lecture read at Harvard University, April 6, 1908, and printed in Scribner's Magazine of June, 1909.

VII. Samuel Rawson Gardiner 141 A Paper read before the Massachusetts Historical Society at the March Meeting of 1902, and printed in the Atlantic Monthly of May, 1902.

VIII. William E. H. Lecky 151 A Paper read before the Massachusetts Historical Society at the November Meeting of 1903.

IX. Sir Spencer Walpole 159 A Paper read before the Massachusetts Historical Society at the November Meeting of 1907.

X. John Richard Green 169 Address at a Gathering of Historians on June 5, 1909, to mark the Placing of a Tablet in the Inner Quadrangle of Jesus College, Oxford, to the Memory of John Richard Green.

XI. Edward L. Pierce 175 A Paper read before the Massachusetts Historical Society at the October Meeting of 1897.

XII. Jacob D. Cox 183 A Paper read before the Massachusetts Historical Society at the October Meeting of 1900.

XIII. Edward Gaylord Bourne 189 A Paper read before the Massachusetts Historical Society at the March Meeting of 1908.

XIV. The Presidential Office 201 An Essay printed in Scribner's Magazine of February, 1903.