But to
get what you want you will have to look into side sources, and inquire
in all directions.
I remember getting Collins' _Peerage_ to read--a very poor peerage as
a work of genius, but an excellent book for diligence and fidelity--I
was writing on Oliver Cromwell at the time. (Applause.) I could get no
biographical dictionary, and I thought the peerage book would help
me, at least tell me whether people were old or young; and about all
persons concerned in the actions about which I wrote. I got a great
deal of help out of poor Collins. He was a diligent and dark London
bookseller of about a hundred years ago, who compiled out of all kinds
of treasury chests, archives, books that were authentic, and out
of all kinds of things out of which he could get the information he
wanted. He was a very meritorious man. I not only found the solution
of anything I wanted there, but I began gradually to perceive this
immense fact, which I really advise every one of you who read history
to look out for and read for--if he has not found it--it was that
the kings of England all the way from the Norman Conquest down to
the times of Charles I.
Pages:
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151