Alexander was the hero of the Greeks. He was King of Macedon, a country lying north of Greece proper. He headed an army of his countrymen, and made an excursion for conquest and glory into Asia. He made himself master of all that quarter of the globe, and reigned over it in Babylon, till he brought himself to an early grave by the excesses into which his boundless prosperity allured him.

His fame rests on his triumphant success in building up for himself so vast an empire, and the admiration ...

The favourable reception given to the first edition of the ensuing work, and the interest that was taken in the extraordinary and romantic career of the Knights Templars, induced me to publish a second edition greatly enlarged, and to introduce various collateral matters of an antiquarian and local character, interesting only to a comparatively small number of readers.

This enlarged edition having been exhausted, it occurred to me, in preparing a third edition for the press, that the work mig...

THE Mesopotamian civilization shares with the Egyptian civilization the honour of being one of the two earliest civilizations in the world, and although M. J. de Morgan’s excavations at Susa the ruined capital of ancient Elam, have brought to light the elements of an advanced civilization which perhaps even antedates that of Mesopotamia, it must be remembered that the Sumerians who, so far as our present knowledge goes, were the first to introduce the arts of life and all that they bring wi...

At last, however, the Queen proved with child, and was brought to bed of a daughter. There was a very fine christening; and the Princess had for her godmothers all the Fairies they could find in the whole kingdom (they found seven), that every one of them might give her a gift, as was the custom of Fairies in those days, and that by this means the Princess might have all the perfections imaginable.

After the ceremonies of the christening were over, all the company returned to the King's pala...

History does not inform us when and how this beautiful peninsula—called Hispania by the Romans—first became in-habited. Whether the earliest emigrants crossed the straits of Gibraltar from Africa, or came from Asia, coasting the shores of the Mediterranean, or descended from France through the defiles of the Pyrenees, can now never be known. The first glimpse we catch of Spain, through the haze of past ages, reveals to us the country inhabited by numerous barbaric tri-bes, fiercely hostil...

"The Spanish Tragedy", or "Hieronimo" is Mad Again is an Elizabethan tragedy written by Thomas Kyd between 1582 and 1592. Highly popular and influential in its time, The Spanish Tragedy established a new genre in English theatre, the revenge play or revenge tragedy. Its plot contains several violent murders and includes as one of its characters a personification of Revenge.

"The Spanish Tragedy" was often referred to (or parodied) in works written by other Elizabethan playwrights, including W...

That department of anatomical research to which the name topographical strictly applies, as confining itself to the mere account of the form and relative location of the several organs comprising the animal body, is almost wholly isolated from the main questions of physiological and transcendental interest, and cannot, therefore, be supposed to speak in those comprehensive views which anatomy, taken in its widest signification as a science, necessarily includes.

While the anatomist contents...

In this book I have ventured to wander in some degree from the well-trodden road and to lead the reader by other ways to the comprehension of his subject. My intention has been to induce him to think of the bones as they exist in the body rather than as they lie on the table before him, and to do this I have laid stress because he must use the prepared specimens on the meaning of small details and on the relations of the bone, and have relegated the pure description of the dry bone to a secon...

A BOOK OF DISCOVERY

"The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest Times to the Finding of the South Pole"

A LITTLE OLD WORLD

No story is complete unless it begins at the very beginning. But where is the beginning? Where is the dawn of geographyâ€"the knowledge of our earth? What was it like before the first explorers made their way into distant lands? Every day that passes we are gaining fresh knowledge of the dim and silent past.

Every day men are patiently digging in the...

The Symposium is a philosophical text by Plato dated c. 385–370 BC. It depicts a friendly contest of extemporaneous speeches given by a group of notable men attending a banquet. The men include the philosopher Socrates, the general and political figure Alcibiades, and the comic playwright Aristophanes. The speeches are to be given in praise of Eros, who is the god of love and desire, and the son of Aphrodite.

Of all the works of Plato the Symposium is the most perfect in form, and may be tr...