τὰ τῆς τύχης οὐκ ἄνευ φύσεως, ἢ συγκλώσεως καὶ ἐπιπλοκῆς τῶν προνοία διοικουμένων. MARCUS AURELIUS. Wir tragen die Lasten unserer Väter, wie wir ihr Gutes empfangen haben, und so leben die Menschen in der That in der ganzen Vergangenheit und Zukunft, und nirgend weniger als in der Gegenwart. NOVALIS. Libr. PREFACE. HE present volume, like its predecessor, is in THE tended to serve as a handbook of English history, and makes no pretensions to be an exhaustive narrative. The period which it embraces is one of great constitutional importance, and one for which we possess copious materials. By the time these have been thoroughly sifted we shall probably understand the history of families and property, the chronological order of events, and even the gradual changes in the distribution of population and wealth, as completely as we know them for any times but our own. In all these respects there is no reason why history should be less certain than geology; and the discrepancies observed in the statements of conflicting historians are really evidence to the wealth of material, and promise positive results, when the whole field has been explored. It is true, that, when all this shall have been done, only the dry bones of the past will have been collected. The processes of that silent growth, by which the society of men has successively taken up new forms of life, never holding altogether by its past, nor altogether resigning it, must be comprehended by |