THOMAS NELSON AND SONS

London,  Edinburgh,  Dublin,  and  New  York

1908

FOREWORD.

The Master of the Pageant spurs into the arena; he waves his baton, and the trumpets sound. In the distance you see a long procession begin to wind its way across the greensward, and as it draws nearer and nearer you recognize the form and fashion of men and women whose names are writ large in the annals of our land. Here they come—king and queen, statesman and priest, warrior and merchant, poet and man of law, shipman and craftsman, yeoman and peasant—a motley throng, all sorts and conditions of men and women, high and low, rich and poor, gentle and simple, noble and base, hero and craven; yet each in his or her several degree a maker of history. These are the “counterfeit presentments” of the men and women who through twice a thousand years have made us what we are, and our glorious land what it is.

As they troop by, let a humble chronicler—who prays that he may not be considered intrusive—recall the story of their heroisms, their trials, their sufferings, their glories, or, it may be, their failures, their treacheries, and their shames. Perchance ’twill be a twice-told tale, “familiar as household words” yet it is a recital that can never lack hearers while men love the land that bore them, and would fain find example and warning, inspiration and guidance, from the story of the past. The chronicler pretends to no philosophy save this—that since we have, under Providence, been created a “noble and puissant nation” and entrusted with a heritage without peer in the history of the world, we should be false to our sires, false to ourselves, and false to our destiny were we, by selfishness, sloth, or ignorance, to neglect to be great through “craven fears of being great.” And since the best and only true foundation of patriotism is knowledge, he would fain hope that these sketches may stimulate in some who are growing towards manhood and womanhood a humble pride in the greatness of their land and a fervent desire so to play their part that Britain may be what she was meant to be—the Vicegerent of the Almighty in the uplifting and ennoblement of the world. In this belief he echoes the prayer of the poet:—