In a word, the glorious victories of our warriors, the more peaceful achievements of wise and patriotic statesmen, the triumphs of our inventors and philanthropists, and the masterpieces of our great writers, have alike been shown to the readers as important factors in the complex life of their country, and as the result of elements essential to a healthy national growth. The greatest possible care has been bestowed upon the literary style of this and the preceding volumes, and every sentence has been moulded with a view to its pronunciability as well as to its correctness. It is hoped that the result will be found most valuable in promoting the higher qualities of elocution-intelligence, expressiveness, and fluency. Attention is again called to the admirable vignettes, all of which have been specially prepared for this series and are genuine historical portraits. Further, the general illustration of the volume has received scrupulous care; only engravings of artistic merit and educative value have been admitted, while the excellent maps help to make the book a small historic library within itself. An element of no less importance will be found in the notes, which contain a great mass of information it would have been impossible otherwise to present within the limits of the book. Finally, it is hoped that the promise given in the closing lines of the preceding volume has been fulfilled,—that those who study this book will be enabled "to understand with what wise beneficence God has ordered every part of the upbringing and education of our country, to fit it to perform its great and solemn duties to itself and to the whole world ;" and that the young will more and more feel that the great lesson of our history both to the individual and to the nation is "This above all-to thine ownself be true; had been so rapid; this island, Protestant though she was, had at last won a place among the great powers of Europe.1 Accession of James.-James was the only son of the beautiful but unfortunate Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots. Before his mother's death, and while only an infant of twelve months, he had been proclaimed King of Scotland.2 On the death of Elizabeth the throne of England was his by right of birth, and Elizabeth on The her death-bed had named James to succeed her. very first act of his first Parliament was to declare him "lineally, justly, and lawfully next and sole heir to the blood royal of this realm." "3 Every party in the State had special reasons for believing that he would favour their purposes. The Catholics thought that they had little to fear and much to hope from the son of Mary Stuart. The Puritans believed that as James had been trained under Presbyterian influences, 5 6 |