The History Of England During The Thirty Years Peace 1816 1846 1830 1846 PDF Download

Excerpt from The History of England During the Thirty Years' Peace: 1816-1846, Vol. 1 After an interval of a year, Mr. Knight invited me to take up the work, and carry it to a conclusion, on my own responsibility as regarded the authorship. It was gratifying to me to be invited to prosecute any work begun by him 3 and it was in itself a labour peculiarly tempting to me. The only reluctance I felt was from shame at the contrast which must immediately be evident between the remarkable beauty, as it appears to me, of the opening chapters, and the inferior quality of the following Books. As Mr. Knight was, however, really unable to resume, I joyfully agreed to work out his scheme. For the whole of the History, after the First Book, I am thus solely responsible. Yet, though left entirely free to do my work as I thought proper, there is one subject on which, from the circumstances of the case, I have not felt at liberty to speak - Mr. Knight's own relation to the history of his time. One blessed result of the Peace has been the leisure and Opportunity it has afforded for the cultivation of the popular intelligence and in this mighty work, I suppose it will be admitted on every hand, that no one has done so much as he. Under any other circumstances of public ation, a review of his benefactions to the nation would have been taken in the eleventh chapter of the Third Book, in connection with the notice of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. It grieves me that such a statement should not appear in its proper place: and I do not see why I should not make some reference to the subject here, without his knowledge - though at some risk of his displeasure. I have mentioned in the text the leading publications of the Diffusion Society: and I may here explain that many of the most important and in uential of them are owing to Mr. Knight. Before he became connected with the Society, the plan was to issue the well-known Treatises on Scientific subjects. To his junction with the Association, to his inventive resource, his sagacity, his knowledge of the popular mind and its needs, and his most disinterested toil, we owe that long series of valuable works which forms a fine feature of the time - The Penny Cyclopaedia, The British Almanac and Companion, The Penny Magazine, and The Library of Entertaining Knowledge. The Journal of Education, and The Gallery of Portraits, were his undertakings. As for what more he has done, by his own resources, without aid from the organization of any Society, it is only necessary to refer to the book-shelves of all the homes in the land and its Colonies, where the dwellers can read, from the palace library to the. Cottage window. This reference is enough. It saves myself and my readers from the ingratitude of Wholly overlooking one of the chief national blessings of the period of the Peace. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."