THE ENGLISHMAN'S LIBRARY. COMPRISING A SERIES OF HISTORICAL, BIOGRAPHICAL, AND NATIONAL INFORMATION, UNDER THE FOLLOWING HEADS:- ENGLISH HISTORY, AND LIVES OF EMINENT STATESMEN ; ENGLISH SCENES, AND ESSAYS ON SUBJECTS OF LIVES OF EMINENT ENGLISH PHILOSOPHERS WRITERS, ETC.; AND PATRIOTIC POETRY. BEING A SELECTION FROM THE ORIGINAL ARTICLES LONDON. PRINTED FOR CHARLES KNIGHT, 7, PALL-MALL EAST. PREFACE. THE People of England are distinguished by a zeal for knowledge, for which they are mainly indebted to that happy Constitution in Church and State, which not only permits but encourages a generous spirit of inquiry, essential to the attainment of enlightened views and sound principles. So long as they were oppressed by papal superstition and arbitrary power, the progress of national intelligence was checked by those restraints which still impede the advancement of other nations; but when civil and religious freedom were firmly established in this favoured land-when the liberty of the subject and the rights of property were protected by equal laws, and the light of the Reformation dispelled the errors of the Church of Rome, by opening the Sacred Scriptures to the understandings of the people, they eagerly burst through the chains of ignorance, in which they had so long been held, and pressed forward with an energy and an ardour in the pursuit of knowledge, which enabled them to surpass every other country in the variety, extent, and solidity of those acquirements, which have raised the British character to a preeminence at once felt and acknowledged throughout the world. But it is not to minister to the national pride of our countrymen that we make this assertion. There is already too much disposition to draw unfavourable comparisons, and to disgust foreigners by our partial, and often unjust, reflections. The People of England ought to be the wisest as well as the most pious nation under Heaven, for none ever before enjoyed advantages, religious as well as political, so important as those we have received. The pure doctrines of the Church of England, tried in the fire of persecution, and sealed with the blood of her martyrs, have produced a reformation in the morals of the people, which nothing but a conviction of the solemn truths of Revelation could have effected. They have exposed all those wretched expedients, to which mankind, in every age of the world, have resorted, to satisfy conscience at the expense of duty; and have substituted in their stead that Christian obedience which is the only sure test of sincere faith. The Law of England, founded on the basis of Christianity, has incorporated the established Religion with our civil Constitution, and by this happy union of interests has given mutual support to the whole system. The principles of our national institutions are so openly promulgated and so generally understood, that they are interwoven with our individual opinions and feelings, and govern our conduct in private as well as in public affairs. To this we owe the high character of the British Parliament, the piety of our Clergy, the purity of our Magistracy, the integrity of our Merchants, the upright and manly spirit of the People. To this also we are indebted for that reputation for probity and honour which we have attained in our political and commercial intercourse with foreign nations. The enlightened principles thus diffused amongst our countrymen have produced an enlargement of understanding which delights in the attainment of knowledge. In this free country, the artisan as well as the philosopher enjoys advantages of intellectual improvement elsewhere unattainable. The discoveries of the ablest men have been rendered comprehensible to the humblest; the profoundest theories have been applied to the comfort and convenience of ordinary life; the simple artificer is capable of promoting those useful inventions, which sprung from researches the most profound; and the learning of the ablest divines and scholars is laid open to the capacity of the mechanic and the cottager. Education of every kind and degree is provided for the advancement of general information, and while universities and schools are open to the rich, instruction is now offered gratuitously to the poor, that they may equally participate in the advantages thus widely bestowed. But as the facility of acquiring information has so rapidly increased, it becomes the more important that the disposition to profit of it should receive a right direction. Education must be founded in Christian principles or it will produce inevitable mischief. The ability to read and write, unless directed to this one great object, will but prepare the youthful mind for the reception of the most pernicious errors. In |