PREFACE.

E now present to the Public the Seventh Volume of our HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

It comprises a period of twenty-seven years, from the Accession of George the Fourth, in 1820, to the Irish Famine in 1847, and thus embraces many events of the utmost importance. The changes that are here described were the immediate forerunners of that state of enlightenment and liberal-mindedness which now prevails. The History, therefore, records the passing away of much that was old

and the substitution of much that was new.

The events of these twenty-seven years, though they are of course fresh in the memory of the older men amongst us, yet seem to us to require a clear and precise narrative, even more than those of two or three hundred years ago. The information respecting them, it is true, has been gathered into a few continuous historical records, but these cannot be easily consulted. It lies scattered also through formidable files of newspapers, musty pamphlets, biographies, and diaries. Further, many of the events are of a character which rendered it impossible to recount them fairly at the time when they took place, or even for many years afterwards. Party prejudice on one side or the other warped the judgment and falsified the records. For instance, what contemporary could have written a fair account of the Divcrce of Queen Caroline, or of the Reform Bill? It has been our business to consult every source of information within our reach, and to give a narrative which will, we hope, be found as impartial as every historical mamalive ought to be. In recounting great struggles like that for the Repeal of the Corn Laws, we have tried to realise the position of each of the contending parties, and to give each of them full credit for sincerity and truth. Above all, we have striven, in going over these old battle-fields of class against class, to say not one word that might serve to re-kindle the old animosities, or give new life to scandals that are now happily passing into oblivion.

The next Volume we shall commence with an account of the "Year of Revolutions," 1848-particularly recording the Chartist demonstration in this country. We shall go carefully over the History of Italy during that stormy period of her annals which ended with the fatal day of Novara, to serve as a preface to the detailed narrative we purpose giving of the French Campaign in Lombardy in 1859, and the brilliant achievements of Garibaldi in Naples and Sicily in the following year. The Crimean War will receive full attention at our hands: we shall recount the negotiations that preceded it, and endeavour, as far as the nature of the case permits, to relate the events connected with it in the same spirit of dispassionate inquiry after the truth as dictated our researches on the subjects alluded to above.

It is almost needless to say that, while we recount these events at length, we shall leave space for a full narrative of the Indian Mutiny-a struggle without parallel in our annals, whether we regard its horrors or the heroism displayed by the handful of Europeans who were suddenly attacked, and had to hold their wn against fearful odds, with but little prospect of relief.