[Gutenberg 47447] • Essay on the Life and Institutions of Offa, King of Mercia, A.D. 755-794

Example in this ebook

AN ESSAY, rex strenuissimus; vir religiosus.”

Hoveden.

The attention of the student is so universally directed in modern days to the attainment of Classic Literature, and to the knowledge of that period of History which has been stamped at once as the age of the purest taste and of the highest philosophy, that the youth of our country are too generally in entire ignorance of the early history of their own race; and with few, with very few, exceptions know no more than the names of those who in the “dark ages,” as they are erroneously termed, exercised an important influence over the well-being of England.

All error is prolific in its offspring—the stigma of darkness which has been passed upon the period that elapsed between the fourth and the tenth centuries has caused them if not actually to be shunned, at least to be lightly esteemed in the course of study; and the useful lessons to be acquired from the conduct of men in all but a state of nature, have been neglected for the sake of those to be deduced from society as it has conventionally existed in a highly civilized state. It is not here intended to be denied but that much may be learned by this method of procedure; yet is it unhesitatingly advanced as a necessary axiom in polity, that the state of nature should be first regarded, and the different improvements upon, or at least alterations from, that state afterwards compared, for the purpose of introducing a still higher degree of amelioration. In no condition can the natural propensities of man be learned so readily as in a natural condition; and the more civilization has increased in any country, so much the more difficult will it be to lay down a Code of Laws which shall have the effect of correcting the natural evils and vicious propensities of the natives of the clime.

It might, perhaps, at first sight, appear that these remarks are not peculiarly applicable to the subject of the present Essay; but this is by no means the case. The object of History is to make the experience of past ages subservient to the use of the present; and the object of Education to enable the existing generation to take advantage of the experience so afforded. But if that portion of History most rich in traits of nature, most prolific in change, most useful in developing the workings of unsophisticated mind, be neglected, it were absurd to imagine that the present age could derive the benefit such period affords from other sources, which are undeniably less adequate to bestow it.

Circumscribed, however, as a brief composition of such a nature as the present must necessarily be, it is not perhaps advisable to enlarge upon a point of opinion that might admit of controversy. It may possibly be deemed sufficient to bear out, at least partially, the position laid down, to direct attention to the state of England at the period of its History preceding the accession of Offa to the crown of Mercia, and then trace briefly his mingled career of glory and of crime.

To be continue in this ebook