OF THE WISE AND GOOD, OR Visits to Remarkable Places IN ENGLISH HISTORY AND LITERATURE, BY MRS. S. C. HALL, WM. HOWITT, THOS. GRATTAN, PROF. RHOADS, REV. THOS. BRAINERD, D.D., PROF. JNO. S. HART, REV. JOSEPH BELCHER, D.D., REV. THEO. L. CUYLER, J. G. WHITTIER, REV. JOEL PARKER, d.d. Profusely Illustrated PHILADELPHIA: J. W. BRADLEY, 48 N. FOURTH STREET. P Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by WILLIS P. HAZARD, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of Penn. sylvania. WOR 20JUN 34 Preface. THERE is no more common mistake than that of supposing that Americans are, as compared with other nations, without national recollections. Though our republic is young, our nation is old. We have an inheritance in John Milton and Oliver Cromwell, in Shakspeare and Spenser, and Chaucer, and Wickliffe, and Alfred, and Caedmon, in the Long Parliament, and Battle Abbey, and Doomsday Book, and in all the other great names and events of early English history, just as inalienable as that of the most loyal subjects of Queen Victoria. Every great stream has a delta at its mouth. England is one, we are the other, of the two main channels through which the long stream of AngloSaxon life is emptying itself into the great ocean of modern civilization. This delta commences with the reign of George III., less than a cen (iii) |