XIV***


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LORD'S LECTURES

BEACON LIGHTS OF HISTORY, VOLUME XIV

THE NEW ERA

A Supplementary Volume, by Recent Writers,
as Set Forth in the Preface and Table of Contents.

BY JOHN LORD, LL.D.,

AUTHOR OF "THE OLD ROMAN WORLD," "MODERN EUROPE,"
ETC., ETC.







PUBLISHERS' PREFACE.

In preparing the new edition of Dr. Lord's great work, it has been
thought desirable to do what the venerable author's death in 1894 did
not permit him to accomplish, and add a volume summarizing certain broad
aspects of achievement in the last fifty years. It were manifestly
impossible to cover in any single volume--except in the dry, cyclopaedic
style of chronicling multitudinous facts, so different from the vivid,
personal method of Dr. Lord--all the growths of the wonderful period
just closed. The only practicable way has been to follow our author's
principle of portraying _selected historic forces_,--to take, as
representative or typical of the various departments, certain great
characters whose services have signalized them as "Beacon Lights" along
the path of progress, and to secure adequate portrayal of these by men
known to be competent for interesting exposition of the several themes.

Thus the volume opens with a paper on "Richard Wagner: Modern Music," by
Henry T. Finck, the musical critic of the _New York Evening Post_, and
author of various works on music, travel, etc.; and then follow in order
these: "John Ruskin: Modern Art," by G. Mercer Adam, author of "A Precis
of English History," recently editor of the _Self-Culture Magazine_ and
of the Werner Supplements to the Encyc