THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND: WITH A SKETCH OF OUR INDIAN AND COLONIAL EMPIRE. Бу WILLIAM FRANCIS COLLIER, LL.D., Trinity College, Dublin; Author of "School History of the British Empire," "History of English Literature," &c. T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW; 1864. 200, X. 32. PREFACE. THIS book is by no means a mere expansion of my smaller British History. In structure and in style it is completely a new work, written not so much for school-boys as for senior students, and such general readers as may wish to view the panorama of the British Nation, unfolded within a space comparatively small. A broader canvas has given room for the introduction of figures, incidents, and details, which could find no place in the slighter sketch; and, instead of adopting the common frame-work of division, afforded by the succession of Dynasties and Sovereigns, I have preferred, for the purpose of giving my readers a new and more comprehensive view of the subject, to select as central points and bases of division those colossal land-marks, which catch the eye at once as we look back along the nineteen centuries of our national existence. But, in order to prevent mistake or confusion, I have appended to each Book a copious Chronological Table, arranged according to Reigns and Royal Races, which, if carefully studied in connection with the text, will effectually preserve the symmetry and clearness of the plan. Thus, taking as the subjects of successive chapters the Representative Men, who, towering above their generation, have embodied in themselves its vital idea and achieved its grandest work, and those |