Excerpt from A New and Popular Pictorial Description of England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and the British Islands An acquaintance with these scenes and objects is not to be regarded as a means of mere literary recreation. England has not struggled through the trials of successive ages for naught. She does not, like Spain or Italy, or even France, boast of slow improvements in a few matters of secondary importance, while the chief objects of national progress are disregarded. England early accomplished her emancipation from Rome, and has ever maintained it; and not only religion, but literature, art, and the whole civil, and social condition of the people, have received benefits ia numerable and inestimable. 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.