Preface to Hildebrand: An Historical Tragedy founded upon the life and character of the great Pope Gregory VII.

    HILDEBRAND, who, as Gregory VII., was perhaps the greatest of all the Popes, was one of the strongest personalities in European history. Few men have had so powerful and so enduring an influence on the spiritual and social conditions of the modern world as he has had.
    This tragedy grew out of the author’s admiration for the great and dauntless spirit of the man, whose famous answer, “I am Rome”—flung back, in his lonely banishment, at those who would have had him temporize with Henry of Germany, so that he might, at least, die in Rome—is one of the greatest rebukes to “compromise” in all history [Page 253].