een rescued from obscurity
and threatened destruction. By the side of the voluminous histories and
chronicles long since printed, a rich store of contemporary
correspondence and hitherto inedited memoirs has been accumulated,
supplying at once the most copious and the most trustworthy fund of
life-like views of the past. The magnificent "Collection de Documents
Inedits sur l'Histoire de France," still in course of publication by the
Ministry of Public Instruction, comprehends in its grand design not only
extended memoirs, like those of Claude Haton of Provins, but the even
more important portfolios of leading statesmen, such as those of
Secretary De l'Aubespine and Cardinal Granvelle (not less indispensable
for French than for Dutch affairs), and the correspondence of monarchs,
as of Henry the Fourth. The secrets of diplomacy have been revealed.
Those singularly accurate and sensible reports made to the Doge and
Senate of Venice, by the ambassadors of the republic, upon their return
from the French court, can be read in the collections of Venetian
Relations of Tommaseo and Alberi, or as summarized by Ranke and Baschet.
The official statements drawn up for the eyes of the public may now be
confronted with and tested by the more truthful and unguarded accounts
conveyed in cipher to all the foreign courts of Europe. Including the
partial collections of despatches heretofore put in print, we possess,
regarding many critical events, the narratives and opinions of such apt
observers as the envoys of Spain, of the German Empire, of Venice, and
of the Pope, of Wurtemberg, Saxony, and the Palatinate. Above all, we
have access to the continuous series of letters of the English
ambassadors and minor agents, comprising Sir Thomas Smith, Sir Nicholas
Throkmorton, Walsingham, Jones, Killigrew, and others, scarcely less
skilful in the use of the pen than in the art of diplomacy. This English
correspondence, parts of which were printed long ago by Digges, Dr.
Patrick Forbes, and Haynes, and other portions by Hardwick, Wright,
Tytler-Fraser, etc., can now be read in London, chiefly in the Record
Office, and is admirably analyzed in the invaluable "Calendars of State
Papers (Foreign Series)," published under the direction of the Master of
the Rolls. Too much weight can scarcely be given to this source of
information and illustration. One of the learned editors
enthusiastically remarks concerning a part of it (the letters of
Throkmorton[2]