CASSELL'S ILLUSTRATED

HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

New and Revised Edition.

*

FROM THE FRENCH REVOLUTION (JULY, 1792) TO THE DEATH OF GEORGE III. (JANUARY, 1820).

CASSELL, PETTER, GALPIN & Co.:

LONDON, PARIS & NEW YORK.

228 d 6.

PREFACE.

HE period which this Volume embraces is one fraught with a multitude of incidents grave and gay, terrible, painful, and pleasing. We find ourselves at the very outset (1792) contemplating the fiendish massacres of a French Revolution, which saw not only the horrible murders of its innocent victims, but also the downfall and deaths of its short-lived favourites. We tell the story and history of the amiable Louis XVI. who, sprung from regal ancestors, was despoiled of his kingly rights and privileges, thrust with his family into a noisome prison, where he, in common with the rest suffered the most unheard-of degradation, insults, and cruelty, and was at length released from a life that had become burdensome, by death on the scaffold, which in his case lost that ignominy usually attached to such last penalties of the law, for "nothing in his life became him like the leaving it." We also speak at length of the sore fate of his wife-the beautiful, accomplished, and unfortunate Marie Antoinette, and are more than inclined to consider the shortcomings which marked her early life atoned for by the heroic attitude she assumed in her latter days. Complete mention is made of the dastardly cowards who acted so important a part in this fearful tragedy, and whose names are inscribed upon the page of history, standing forth in boidest type as "a byeword and shaking of the head to the nations"-Robespierre, Marat, Danton, with their myriad cut-throat followers less scheming but as bloodthirsty as their Mephistophelean masters.

We pass on gladly from the events of this melancholy period, and by the aid of the seven-leagued boots renowned in nursery fable, step over many an interesting point, till we approach the beginning of the nineteenth century. This is an all-important era. Out of the ruins of intestine war France had arisen by the direction of a master-hand to a foremost place among the nations.

One nation after another succumbed to

the gigantic capabilities of the man; and ere long we find that he had even cherished the idea of an invasion of England. However, from the attitude which Englishmen assumed, Napoleon plainly saw that that notion of his was a mistake, and the time had not yet come. Meanwhile, all his attempts to cripple our sovereignty on the seas were futile, and were at length stultified at Trafalgar, though the victory cost us the life of a gallant admiral, who died in the discharge of his duty. The glorious career of Wellington in the Peninsula cramped Napoleon's progress in the South. From conquest to conquest the Iron Duke marched on, and by his example encouraged the other nations to take heart. They bided their time, however, but neither theirs nor Napoleon's was long in coming. The ill-fated invasion of Russia marked his final downfall. spell was removed from the eyes of the French nation, and they only saw in the many conscriptions that were ruthlessly levied so many hecatombs of all who were near and dear to them to gratify the vanity and ambition of a wicked man. At last the crisis arrived: Waterloo overthrew one of the greatest and worst of conquerors, and he was sent into retirement on the lonely ocean isle, and the world was thus rid of the greatest despot it has ever seen.

The

The annals of our own nation are carefully narrated at great length. Its political history is so laid down,

as to be clear to the understanding of all. Its social side-the rise and progress of the people in education, and a more liberal and charitable way of thinking, is distinctly marked. All those features which worked together for a better understanding between government and governed, and gradually led up (among other things) to the emancipation of the Catholics and Parliamentary reform, are chronicled as more worthy of record than the bloody triumphs of victorious generals. The fact that this Volume includes all the events that occurred between the year 1792 and the close of George the Third's long reign will give the best idea of the immense ground we cover and the mass of information in store for the reader. Not the least interesting chapter we believe will be that in which we review what happened in the reign of George III. in the departments of science, art, literature, and manufactures. This reign was peculiarly fertile in these good works; and, contrasted with the preceding, reveals a revolution which commands our heartiest sympathies and admiration as fully as that Revolution with which we open the Volume inspires us with horror and loathing.