nty-six parish churches, and laid waste the parishes in
order to make the New Forest; and this in a tract of the very poorest
land in England, where the churches must then have stood at about one
mile and two hundred yards from each other. The truth is, that all the
churches are still standing that were there when William landed, and the
whole story is a sheer falsehood from the beginning to the end.

319. But, this is a mere specimen of these romances; and that too, with
regard to a matter comparatively unimportant to us. The important
falsehoods are, those which misguide us by statement or by inference,
with regard to the state of the people at the several epochs, as
produced by the institutions of the country, or the measures of the
Government. It is always the object of those who have power in their
hands, to persuade the people that they are better off than their
forefathers were: it is the great business of history to show how this
matter stands; and, with respect to this great matter, what are we to
learn from any thing that has hitherto been called a history of England!
I remember, that, about a dozen years ago, I was talking with a very
clever young man, who had read twice or thrice over the History of
England, by different authors; and that I gave the conversation a turn
that drew from him, unperceived by himself, that he did not know how
tithes, parishes, poor-rates, church-rates, and the abolition of trial
by jury in hundreds of cases, came to be in England; and, that he had
not the smallest idea of the manner in which the Duke of Bedford came to
possess the power of taxing our cabbages in Covent-Garden. Yet, this is
history. I have done a great deal, with regard to matters of this sort,
in my famous History of the PROTESTANT REFORMATION; for I may truly call
that famous, which has been translated and published in all the modern
languages.

320. But, it is reserved for me to write a complete history of the
country from the earliest times to the present day; and this, God giving
me life and health, I shall begin to do in monthly numbers, beginning on
the first of September, and in which I shall endeavour to combine
brevity with clearness. We do not want to consume our time over a dozen
pages about Edward the Third dancing at a ball, picking up a lady's
garter, and making that garter the foundation of an order of knighthood,
bearing the motto of '_Honi soit qui mal y pense_? It is not stuff like
this; but we