Our belief is that the books may profitably be used by all grades of historical students between the standards of fourth-form boys in secondary schools and undergraduates at Universities. What differentiates students at one extreme from those at the other is not so much the kind of subject-matter dealt with, as the amount they can read into or extract from it.
In regard to choice of subject-matter, while trying to satisfy the natural demand for certain "stock" documents of vital importance, we hope to introduce much fresh and novel matter. It is our intention that the majority of the extracts should be lively in style—that is, personal, or descriptive, or rhetorical, or even strongly partisan—and should not so much profess to give the truth as supply data for inference. We aim at the greatest possible variety, and lay under contribution letters, biographies, ballads and poems, diaries, debates, and newspaper accounts. Economics, London, municipal, and social life generally, and local history, are represented in these pages.
The order of the extracts is strictly chronological, each being numbered, titled, and dated, and its authority given. The text is modernised, where necessary, to the extent of leaving no difficulties in reading.
We shall be most grateful to teachers and students who may send us suggestions for improvement.
S E. WINBOLT.
KENNETH BELL.
NOTE TO THIS VOLUME
(1603-1660)
I have to acknowledge, with thanks to Messrs. Longmans, Green and Co., leave to reprint the letter to Buckingham, given on [p. 25] of this book, from the edition of the Works of Francis Bacon (edited by Ellis Spedding and Heath); to Professor Firth and the Clarendon Press, Oxford, leave to reprint the passage from Ludlow's "Memoirs," given on [p. 80] of this book; and to Professor Firth, leave to reprint the passage from his edition of the "Clarke Papers," given on [pp. 81-84]. These passages add very greatly to any value which the book may possess, and I am most grateful for permission to use them.
K. N. B.
Hampstead,
June, 1912.