A guide to modern English history

Prefatory Note

THE Second Part of this work is twice as long as the First Part, although it runs over only four years and a few months, or about one-third of the time surveyed in the First Part. This want of proportion, although excessive, is in a great measure justified by the excessive value of the work done for the British Commonwealth in the years now surveyed. These years, 1830-35, are full of the virtue and wisdom which make Modern England supremely worthy of a student's contemplation ; it seems not too much to say that they form a period of paramount importance in the universal history of legislation and government. The book does not profess to be a history in the ordinary sense. In the selection of topics there may be detected some fantasy or partiality ; but it should in fairness be observed that, as some topics neglected in Part J. are considered more synoptically in Part II., so there are now some other topics, such as the Bank Charter, set aside for treatment in Part III. or IV.