THE RELIGION, GOVERNMENT AND LAWS, LITERATURE, ARTS, COMMERCE, BY EDWARD FARR, F.S. A., AUTHOR OF "A Continuation of Hume and Smollett," "Ancient History, from various Authentic Sources 9 BODI LONDONA 1848. PREFACE. Ir is generally admitted that a History of England for Schools and Families is a desideratum in literature that while there are many Histories published for the use of young people, there is not one on which they can depend for sound information. Those Histories, moreover, for the most part are only outlines, or mere narratives of civil and military transactions. Nor are these events recorded truthfully errors particularly abound in the History commonly used in schools, and which professes to be an improved edition of the work originally written by Goldsmith. But even if this History were perfect in what it records, at the present day something more is required than the dry and often revolting details of war and bloodshed. Such details should never form the distinctive feature of a History for youth. Ambition begets ambition. The war-narrative of Homer inflamed the ambition of Alexander; and the pages of Xenophon in a great measure formed the warlike and dangerous character of Napoleon. A notice of the wars in which England has been engaged should not be omitted, but they should not form the all-absorbing topics of the pages of English History. A nation's true greatness does not consist in the victories gained by its armies: they exhibit only its physical, not its mental strength. A complete History of England must, therefore, present a view of the people at large, in their religion, government, laws, literature, arts, sciences, commerce, industry, manufactures, and manners and customs. On such principles is this History written. Its pages unfold not only the nature and progress of political events; not only relate the wars in which the monarchs of Great Britain have been engaged, internally and externally; but the nature and progress of all that appertains to the religious, moral, and social condition of the people: commencing at the earliest period, and concluding with the eleventh year of the reign of her majesty QUEEN VICTORIA. Interspersed throughout the work will be found lessons conveying moral and religious instruction: the writer conceiving that the one aim of the historian should be so to mould the minds of the young that they may become loyal and good subjects, and peaceful and useful members of the community. IVER, |