PREFACE.
FROM the time of Dean
Swift
downwards to our own
days, many Political Histories of the Reign of Queen
Anne have been written, but its Social Life we have
been left to gather mainly from the efforts of novelists,
who have been more or less conscientious, according
to their knowledge, in placing it before us.
No doubt the drudgery of the work, the wading
through all the newspapers, and reading all the
literature of the time, has deterred many from attempting
what, in its execution, has proved a very pleasant
task; for in doing it, one has got to be thoroughly
identified with the age-its habits and
customswhich, being taken from the very words of the people
then living, writing for living people, who could
contradict their statements, if false or exaggerated, a
charm was lent to the task, which fully compensated
for its labour.
All history, unless it is contemporary, must
necessarily, if honest, be a compilation, and my idea is,
that it should honestly be avowed as such, and the
authorities given for all facts; and this I have done,
even at the risk of proving wearisome.
In compiling it, my task has been similar to one
who, having a necklace of old beads, finds it broken,
and the beads scattered hither and thither. His
business, naturally, is to gather them together, and
string them so as to satisfy criticism. He may not
pick them all up, and he may not please everyone's
taste in his arrangement, but his course is
clearhe should not add new beads of his own to supply
deficiencies, but should confine himself to putting
together all he can find in the best manner he
possibly can.
The almost total absence of domestic news in
the newspapers has compelled me to draw largely on
the essays and descriptive books of the time, and in
one or two instances I have ventured to transcribe
(as in the case of Misson) from works published, or
written, two or three years before Anne actually
reigned-but the facts were precisely the same as
then obtained, so that much has been gained thereby.
The Illustrations might, undoubtedly, have been
made more artistic and unreal-but I have carefully
taken them from contemporary prints, and prefer to
present them in all their uncouthness and reality.
