THE CROWN HISTORY OF ENGLAND BEING OUR COUNTRY'S HISTORY FROM THE EARLIEST RECORDS PREFACE. THIS Volume is an abridgement of my "Popular History of England" in eight octavo volumes, and is executed by a member of my family, under my general superintendence. In the Introduction to the "Popular History," speaking of Goldsmith's admission that "the very name of abridgement implies imperfection," I said "It is not the mere want of space that constitutes the inherent defect of an abridgement; it is that the scale of its composition is not uniform." This defect, I believe, will not be discovered in the present book. It has been the continuous labour of nearly three years, not accomplished by making entire extracts of the most striking passages of a larger history, and holding them together by short connecting threads of narrative; but by recasting the whole upon a scale of composition which, aiming at uniformity, enables the several parts to retain their just proportions. Thus, I may venture to state that there is no important fact of our political and social progress therein omitted. Space is gained, without leaving awkward gaps in a story which has no long intervals in which the historian can say "all is barren." The "Popular History" was entitled a "History of Society and Government." The "Crown History" embraces, in the same way, the State History and the Domestic. In a few cases, there are separate chapters on the National Industry, on Literature, on the Arts; but in every period will be found |