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Shakespeare and Precious Stones
residence was at Prague, covers the greater part of Shakespeare's life. In spite of many failings and mistakes, this monarch did much to foster the study of the arts and sciences of his age, so far as he was able to understand them. That he was for a time the dupe of adventurers and alchemists, such as the half-visionary John Dee and the altogether unscrupulous Edward Kelley, was no unusual experience in those days, when the dividing line between true science and charlatanism was too indistinctly marked to be easily discernible.
The greatest of all the sovereigns of Shakespeare's time was Henry IV of France, unquestionably the greatest of French kings, despite the fact that the primacy has often been accorded to the Roi Soleil, Louis XIV. The powerful and ductile personality that was able to put an end to the destructive religious wars of France and to lay a firm foundation for the strongly-centralized power of a later time, a foundation which the great statesman Richelieu broadened and deepened, deserves all the credit that should be given to those who conquer the first apparently insurmountable difficulties in the realization of a great aim.
How brief was the reign of most of the popes
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