Excerpt from The Days of Queen Anne To the students of history and of literature alike, the age of Queen Anne is a subject of special interest and importance. It was the Augustan age of English literature and of French as well. It was a period of great conflicts in arms, of fierce controversy in the political world. It was a time of marvelous advancement in science. It was a formative period which influences to a notable degree the daily life of the present time. We see this influence in our architecture and our house furnishings; in our proverbial expressions and our habits of thought; even in our dress and our manners. "Robinson Crusoe" and "Gulliver's Travels" are still the delight of childhood. Newton and Locke are still studied in our colleges. "The Spectator" is still the model of English prose. Pope's couplets are still a part of our practical philosophy. All classes of people throughout the English-speaking world are living in the light of that marvelous era; and wherever the French language is spoken the influence of the Augustan age is felt to-day as it is among ourselves. When Macaulay undertook to write a history of England which should compete in interest with "the last novel," there was the keenest anticipation of his work relating to the age of Queen Anne. Unfortunately, his history stopped abruptly with the death of William the Third - the very day on which Queen Anne became the sovereign of the "three kingdoms." The magnificent work of Macaulay, as left thus, is practically the history of a single reign, with a brief review of the period preceding it. The world has not ceased to mourn the untimely death of the man best qualified to write the history of the age of Queen Anne. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.