PREFACE. THE present volume of Cameos has not, to my regret, been able to go beyond the period of the great struggle between England and Spain. I had hoped to have made it cover the two wars more or less of Religion that ensued, namely the Thirty Years' War, and the Great Rebellion; but events were too crowded, and characters too defined to allow of compression, and it seemed better to close with the deaths of the two great actors in the mighty scene, Philip and Elizabeth, than to continue until peace was fully and technically made. January 13, 1883. C. M. YONGE. |