Excerpt from Charles the Third of Spain: The Stanhope Essay, 1900
No foreign historical personage, of those who deserve to be remembered, is so little studied and known as Charles III., and yet in some ways he is the most sympathetic figure in the annals of Spain, and, with Henry IV. of France, the most deserving Bourbon monarch. The undeserved neglect which has been his portion is largely due to the want of that precision and definiteness without which no interest can be awakened. The difficulty of dealing with most historical subjects lies in the dimness that time imparts to all events, when men and actions come down to us strained through many men's minds of everything personal or precise; not as contemporaries saw them, but as the fancy of subsequent ages has pictured them. This is particularly the case in Spanish history. The flattery of contemporaries, the want of a spirit of criticism, the grave punctilious character of the Spanish nobility, did not tend to foster a disposition to intelligent criticism or just description.
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