PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON; LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET, PUBLISHER IN ORDINARY TO HER MAJESTY. M.DCCC.LIII. PREFACE. IN 1848 I prepared and published a small pamphlet, called "The Text-Book of the Constitution," in which were arranged the texts of Magna Carta, the Petition of Right, and the Bill of Rights, with historical comments, and with remarks on the People's Charter and other political topics of that year. Independently of its politics, that pamphlet has been found useful as an historical compilation; but the extent to which its latter pages were occupied with political discussions, made me unwilling either to employ it myself or to see it employed by others in education. I do not wish to disavow any of the opinions which I expressed in it, but a teacher of History has no right to avail himself of the position in which he stands towards his pupils, for the purpose of training up broods of young Tories, Whigs, or Radicals, according to his own party predilections. I therefore intended to prepare an edition of that little treatise, which should deal only with the Past, and in which the spirit of party pamphlet should be entirely got rid of. But the work has grown under the pen; and I have been led to make additions, omissions, and re-arrangements, which have rendered it a distinct book, and one to which the name it now bears is much more applicable than the title of its predecessor would have been. Except in the earlier part of the volume, I have entirely avoided ecclesiastical topics. I have found it impossible to deal with them, without mingling in some of the hottest controversies of the present day. My obligations to Guizot, Palgrave, Kemble, Latham, Worsaae, Bowyer, Warren, Macculloch, Forsyth, Pashley, and, above all, to Hallam, are self-apparent in these pages. Wherever I have found truths well stated by others, I have preferred useful compilation to worthless novelty. E. S. CREASY. University College, London. October 13, 1853. |