POSTSCRIPT.

ON completing the " Popular History of England" to the period of the Revolution of 1688, I feel it necessary to take a very brief view of my labours as far as this point; and to subjoin an explanation of what I propose to do, in carrying out my original purpose of bringing down the work to our own times.

My design, as explained in the "Introduction," was to write a Compendious History of England upon an uniform plan. I proposed that it should be a Domestic History as well as a State History-that it should include notices of Manners and of Common Life-of Commercial Intercourse -of Literature and the Arts-of all those matters illustrating the Condition of the People, which are essentially connected with the Civil, Military, and Religious Annals of the country. I have earnestly endeavoured to accomplish this purpose-not in set dissertations, under distinct heads, separated from the course of events by long intervals, but in frequent notices, either in special chapters at periods marked by characteristics of progress, or occurring as incidental illustrations of the political narrative. My constant determination to keep this purpose in view has necessarily led to an extension of my History, beyond the limits in which I thought it possible to accomplish its completion up to 1689-the period embraced by Hume and Lingard. These historians, although not wholly disregarding that class of subjects which may be included under the general name of the History of the People, gave very little prominence to such indications of Social Progress. On the contrary, I have occupied a large comparative space with matters that were once considered extraneous to History, but are now felt to be wholly within its true province. Nevertheless, I have fallen considerably short of the limits of Hume and of Lingard; and thus I may honestly affirm that I have compressed

my narrative as far as was compatible with the necessity of producing a book that should be readable,-something more than an extended chronology.

The history of every nation "has been in the main sequential." Each of its phases has been "the consequence of some prior phase, and the natural prelude of that which succeeded it."* Most especially must this great principle be borne in mind-a principle which the accomplished writer now quoted terms "the new science"-in writing upon English history, with the advantage of our modern additions to the materials of historical knowledge. It was my first endeavour to keep this principle in view, in treating of our national history, civil and ecclesiastical, before the Conquest. The early history of the Anglican Church-its martyrdoms and its conversions, its humanising influences of piety and learning, its rich endowments, its corruptions, its struggles for supremacy-is a history to be traced in all the subsequent elements of our ecclesiastical condition. Upon the Roman and Saxon civilisation were founded many of the great principles of government which have preserved their vitality amongst us during the lapse of sixteen centuries. The Norman feudality could not destroy the municipal institutions which we derived from the one, nor weaken the spirit of personal liberty which we inherited from the other. The Norman despotism was absorbed by the Anglo-Saxon freedom; and feudality could only maintain itself by the recognition, however incomplete, of the equal rights of all men before the law. From the deposition of Richard the Second to the abdication of James the Second, every act of national resistance was accomplished by the union of classes, and was founded upon some principle of legal right for which there was legal precedent. Out of the traditional and almost instinctive assertion of the popular privileges have come new developments of particular reforms, each adapted to its own age, but all springing out of that historical experience which we recognise as Constitutional. It is this step by step progress which renders it so imperative upon the modern historian not to leap over any one phase of national advance; and thus it necessarily results that it being now seen that no portion of the history of our country is unimportant, our earlier history must require an expanded treatment, if we would rightly comprehend the essential connection of every one of its parts as links of the same chain.

I have thus indicated some of the causes which have, up to the completion of this volume, carried my History about one-third in quantity beyond the bounds which I originally contemplated. For this reason I have thought it

"History, as a Condition of Social Progress," by Samual Lucas, M.A.

judicious to treat the narrative of public events, and all the subsidiary details, up to the Revolution of 1688, as forming, in some degree, a separate and complete work. With that view, I have added a copious Index to the four volumes. It is now almost the invariable custom in all competitions of students, to divide their examinations in English history into two great eras-the period before the Revolution, and the more modern period. For the period to 1689, either Hume's or Lingard's histories have been generally chosen as the works to be studied. I may venture to affirm that, in our immediate day, the growth of a sounder public sentiment repudiates such a choice of either of these books, in some respects so valuable. The political prejudices of Hume,-the ecclesiastical convictions of Lingard,— render them very unsafe guides in the formation of the principles of the youth of this kingdom. Without pretending that I have supplied the want, I trust that I have made some approaches to such a result, by an earnest desire to present a true picture of past events and opinions as far as I could realise them. In treating of the past I have endeavoured to keep steadily in view its certain influence upon the future. Without formally pointing out the tendencies of particular events, and the ultimate consequences of the prevalence of particular opinions, I have tried to evolve the conviction that, through many long and painful struggles, we have been constantly tending toward a complete union of monarchical institutions with the largest amount of freedom, whether of associated action, of public discussion, or of private conduct. In describing the religious contests of four centuries, I have striven to show how, amidst all their evils, the spirit of Protestantism has been invariably allied with the progress of liberal institutions and national independence; but at the same time I have not forgotten that the principle of toleration is the one great good that has been slowly working its way, as the passions and prejudices of Churches and Sects have yielded to the universal right of liberty of conscience,--that principle which will finally, we may hope, bind all Christian men together in a brotherhood of love. In reference to the foreign relations of England, whether in peace or war, I am not ashamed to avow that I have invariably taken a patriotic rather than a cosmopolitan view; believing that the proud nationality which England cherishes is no base ingredient of her people's character, and that every one of our truly great leaders in the physical and moral, struggles which have led to our eminence amongst the nations, has been imbued with the conviction that-

"In every thing we are sprung Of earth's first blood, have titles manifold."