THE POPULAR 245-7 HISTORY OF ENGLAND: An Illustrated History OF SOCIETY AND GOVERNMENT FROM THE EARLIEST BY CHARLES KNIGHT. “The harvest gathered in the fields of the Past is to be brought home for the use of VOLUME VIII. FROM THE PEACE WITH THE UNITED STATES, 1815, TO THE FINAL EXTINCTION WITH AN APPENDIX OF ANNALS, 1849-1861. LONDON: BRADBURY AND EVANS, 11, BOUVERIE STREET. 1862. [The Right of Translation is reserved by the Author.] ΤΟ HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS Albert Edward, PRINCE OF WALES, K.G., &c., &c., &c. SIR, My attempt to write a History of England more in unison with the requirements of the present age than the Histories, still in common use, which were published in the last century, has reached its close, after a continuous labour of long duration. My work is concluded at the period when your Royal Highness is about to complete your twenty-first year. On this auspicious Birth-day I present this History to your Royal Highness, dedicating it to you with profound respect. The History of our country thus soliciting your Royal Highness's gracious reception was entitled "Popular," as being intended to form a History of the People as well as a History of the State. In tracing the gradual advance of this People out of slavery, feudal oppression, and regal despotism, to the attainment of equal justice and well-guarded rights, my duty has been to show how the union of Liberty with Order has at length made the British Throne the securest in the world, reposing upon deep-rooted institutions, possessing that capacity for safe because gradual development, which, at every stage of our national progress, has been fruitful in salutary improvement. Humbly acknowledging the bounty of that Providence which has conducted this nation to a period of unexampled repose, apparent safety, and manifest prosperity, I echo the universal feeling in expressing my conviction that to the constitutional principles and public virtues of the Queen, and to the great example of private excellence exhibited by Her Majesty and the deeply-lamented Prince Consort, we owe very much of the good we now enjoy. Those social ameliorations which have been the happiest characteristics of the Queen's beneficent reign, and which it was the unwearied endeavour of your Royal Highness's illustrious Father to promote, will, I have the assured belief, receive a new impulse from your Royal Highness's fostering care. With the earnest prayer that by the Divine Blessing your Royal Highness may be strengthened in every patriotic work, and may live long in the enjoyment of all domestic happiness, surrounded by the affections of the People, I have the honour to subscribe myself, Your Royal Highness's obliged and devoted Servant, NOVEMBER, 1862. CHARLES KNIGHT. |