NEW HISTORICAL WORK BY G. P. R. J ABIES, ESQ. 



Jmt published, in 3 vols. Svo. cloth, 

 THE 



LIFE OF HENEY THE FOUKTH, 



KING OF FRANCE AND NAVARRE. 

 By G. P. R. JAMES, Esq. 



AUTHOR OP "THE LIFE AND TIMES OF LOUIS THE FOURTEENTH." 



"Never was historian more scrupulously correct, more rigorously 

 veracious than Mr. James ; he even deteriorates occasionally from the 

 interest of his narrative, rather than allow his imagination to colour 

 the picture, and contents himself in general with an animated detail of 

 external events, appearing convinced that the duties of the historian 

 and historical novelist are almost diametrically opposed to one another. 

 In the 'Life of Henry the Fourth' he has produced a highly valuable 

 work, which will retain its standard worth for ever." 



New Quarterly Review. 



" There are few writers better known or more deservedly popular 

 than Mr. James : for few have written so many books, and so many 

 of these charming, instructive, and interesting. He has rendered 

 fiction as spirit-moving as if it were fact, because he has invested it 

 with all the vraisemblance of truth ; and in the work before us he has, 

 by stepping into the wide domain of history, fortunately selected a 

 hero whose life is full of adventure, and an epoch deeply tinged with 

 the horrors, and in some instances brightly illuminated with the purest 

 chivalry of the wildest romance. To write the Life and the Times of 

 Henry IV. of France, required on the part of the author little of 

 imagination, and nothing of fancy in illustration of its events. The 

 events have but to be arranged ; they only demand a due research into 

 contemporary documents, and then, under the pen of a practised 

 writer, they grow into a narrative of thrilling interest. Such is the 

 work before us. It is a carefully composed history of that transition 

 in France in which popular feeling became for the first time an essential 

 element in polity — in which kings and oligarchies were convinced of 

 the necessity that it should be baffled, coerced, deluded, cajoled, or 

 trampled out of the soil of France, as if it were a noxious weed. It 

 is impossible to read this work without being pleased, and it is equally 

 impossible to read it without being instructed ; for Mr. James has, by 

 the abundant use of that valuable series of publications, for which 

 France is indebted to Louis Philippe, thrown a great deal of light upon 

 many transactions, which before were either misapprehended or im- 

 perfectly understood. Finally, we declare that there seldom has been 

 a more valuable contribution to history than these three volumes of 

 1 The Life of Henry the Fourth of France and Navarre.' " 



Morning Herald. 



T. & W. Boone, Publishers^ 29> New Bond Street, London. 



