2-181 THE 44281 HISTORY OF ENGLAND: FROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD TO THE DEATH OF ELIZABETH. BY SHARON TURNER, ESQ., F.S.A. & R.A.S.L. IN TWELVE VOLUMES. VOL. IX. THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE REIGN OF HENRY THE LONDON: PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS. PREFACE. THE HE Author's first work on the Anglo-Saxons, and the subsequent one on the History of England during THE MIDDLE AGES, having carried on the account of our national transactions to the death of Henry VII. the next period of the subject was the MODERN HISTORY of our Country; which has been justly remarked, by Lord Bolingbroke, to begin with the reign of HENRY VIII. At this division it was pleasing to have arrived; because so much disagreeable labor had been unavoidably endured in examining, for the preceding volumes, what ancient remains could be found of the fifteen hundred years which occupied their pages, that the mind rejoiced to have quitted those æras of human society, which seem darker from being less literary; and to have reached an epocha, brighter because more recorded; and better, because more earnestly pursuing and valuing intellectual and moral merit. But a cursory inspection soon ascertained, that if the materials were more agreeable and abundant, they would not require less industry or less meditation than the anterior ones, to make them available in an historical composition. The perception of this certainty, and that love of repose which, as age advances, becomes one of its greatest enjoyments, induced the Author to suspend his enquiries, and to abandon this extensive branch of his original design to younger eyes, |