E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Josephine Paolucci, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations in color. See 38790-h.htm or 38790-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/38790/pg38790-images.html) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/38790/38790-h.zip) [Illustration: ST. PAUL'S FROM THE RIVER THAMES] ENGLAND by FRANK FOX Author of "Ramparts of Empire" "Peeps at the British Empire," "Australia and Oceania" With 32 Full-Page Illustrations in Colour London Adam and Charles Black 1914 AUTHOR'S PREFACE To bring within the limits of one volume any detailed description of England--her history, people, landscapes, cities--would be impossible. I have sought in this book to give an impression of some of the most "English" features of the land, devoting a little space first to an attempt to explain the origins of the English people. Thus the English fields and flowers and trees, the English homes and schools are given far more attention than English cities, English manufactures; for they are more peculiar to the land and the people. More markedly than in any superiority of her material greatness England stands apart from the rest of the world as the land of green trees and meadows, the land of noble schools and of sweet homes: Green fields of England! wheresoe'er Across this watery waste we fare, One image at our hearts we bear, Green fields of England, everywhere. Sweet eyes in England, I must flee Past where the waves' last confines be, Ere your loved smile I cease to see, Sweet eyes in England, dear to me! Dear home in England, safe and fast, If but in thee my lot lie cast, The past shall seem a nothing past To thee, dear home, if won at last; Dear Home in England, won at last. That is the cry of an Englishman (Arthur Hugh Clough). On the same note--the green fields, the dear homes--a sympathetic visitor to England would shape his impressions on going away. If, by chance, the reading of this book should whet the appetite for more about England, or some particular part of the kingdom, there are available in the same series very many volumes on different counties and different features of England. To these I would refer the lover or student of England wishing for closer details. My impression is necessarily a general one; and it is that of a visitor from one of the overseas Dominions--not the less interesting, I hope, certainly not the less sympathetic for that reason. FRANK FOX. CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE THE MAKING OF ENGLAND--THE BRITONS AND THE ROMANS 1 CHAPTER II THE MAKING OF ENGLAND--THE ANGLO-SAXONS AND THE NORMANS 16 CHAPTER III THE ENGLISH LANDSCAPE AND THE ENGLISH LOVE OF IT 28 CHAPTER IV