desponding view of the present.

I should very imperfectly execute the task which I have
undertaken if I were merely to treat of battles and sieges, of
the rise and fall of administrations, of intrigues in the palace,
and of debates in the parliament. It will be my endeavour to
relate the history of the people as well as the history of the
government, to trace the progress of useful and ornamental arts,
to describe the rise of religious sects and the changes of
literary taste, to portray the manners of successive generations
and not to pass by with neglect even the revolutions which have
taken place in dress, furniture, repasts, and public amusements.
I shall cheerfully bear the reproach of having descended below
the dignity of history, if I can succeed in placing before the
English of the nineteenth century a true picture of the life of
their ancestors.

The events which I propose to relate form only a single act of a
great and eventful drama extending through ages, and must be very
imperfectly understood unless the plot of the preceding acts be
well known. I shall therefore introduce my narrative by a slight
sketch of the history of our country from the earliest times. I
shall pass very rapidly over many centuries: but I shall dwell at
some length on the vicissitudes of that contest which the
administration of King James the Second brought to a decisive
crisis.1

Nothing in the early existence of Britain indicated the greatness
which she was destined to attain. Her inhabitants when first they
became known to the Tyrian mariners, were little superior to the